Wild West

In order for us to experience what is left of the Wild West, we have to drive East.

East, beyond the settled lands surrounded by rivers, forests, mountains. Up and outward, through the wind farms and ranchland, until all sound and scent of manmade congestion is but a memory.

There, in the middle of nowhere, is a little place we've been before.

To my mountain-girl eyes, which are accustomed to green everywhere, my daily world full of trees reaching toward the sky on all horizons, this landscape is entirely foreign and exotic.

Windswept undulating hills of grassland broken only by brave homesteads and weather-beaten barns, fencelines occasionally cutting across, following invisible lines of ownership.

We went to escape the bounds of duty and the weekly schedule. Out there even the cell phones are quieted, and the satellite wireless, although readily available while in the ranch house, is two-decades-ago s l o w. We drove for a full hour on the paved roads and only saw two other cars and one tractor.

We also went to shoot things.

Balloons for the kids and old trucks and empty propane tanks for the grown-ups. BB guns, .22 pistols and rifles, various other gauges and powers available for making adult boys' faces full of grins.

And maybe even this girl's face, a little.

If I were a landscape painter, this place would hold a grip on my artist's heart. I might have to give it a try the next time we go, just to stand in a place like this and capture the movement of clouds with something other than lens and aperture.

On a nearby hillside, in a place chosen for who-knows-what-reason, lies an old pioneer cemetery. The first night we could see lights glowing among the headstones, an eerie sight in a place where there is no electricity. We braved the tick-infested grassland to take a closer look by daylight.

The glowing lights turned out to be solar lawn lights placed in a family plot that holds both old and new burials. Both a relief and a reminder of the staying power of strong bloodlines that sometimes tie people to the ground that they toil over.

Being an old cemetery and created in a harsh landscape during a time with few medical advancements, it not surprisingly held a large percentage of young people and infants. This was sobering and disturbing to some of our party. I personally found the lost markers and unidentified sites the hardest to digest. Lives lived and lost with little or nothing left behind for remembrance.

In the grand turning of the wheel of time, our lives are really oh-so-short. Maybe that is why I like to visit old burial places... to help me keep perspective and remind me that I can only do so much, but what I can do I should, to add light to the world.

I didn't really set out to get philosophical in this blog post, but as usually happens when I set my fingers to the keyboard, words came tumbling out of their own accord. So I leave them there where they landed because they do somehow fit.

Our group, at the end of the weekend, was tired and ready for familiar beds, but happier and fuller for the memories added to our life stories. I like this new tradition.

Our final stop before resuming normal life had to be at our favorite giant-ice-cream-cone dealer.

The end... until next year, that is...
I hear the date has already been set.

Out of the Way

Not ones to get out and about that often, we nevertheless jumped at an opportunity to spend Mother's Day weekend in one of the high desert areas of Eastern Oregon.

Just a few hours' drive from our home, yet it felt like we were on an entirely different planet. All rolling hills of dry grasses and tumbleweed, with trees few and far between. This part of our state holds a beauty that is at once stark and sumptuous.

As we traveled along the mostly deserted roads, I kept expecting to see John Wayne or Michael Landon come riding over the next hill.

Our final destination was Treo Ranch, a family-owned estate that has converted from farming to hosting guided bird hunts.

This being a shared family weekend, the important parts were taken care of first, like a BB Gun safety course taught by the biggest gun safety stickler you may ever meet... my Farmboy.

Followed by the fun part... assisted balloon shooting for the littles.

And supervised balloon shooting for those with a little more experience.

And then the big boys got to go have a little fun while the rest of us stayed at the lodge and did our own thing.

Such as stalking an abandoned farmstead with my camera...

Yes, ladies and gents, these places do still exist in the dry landscape of Eastern Oregon. I wish I had a dollar for every abandoned old house we saw on our trip. I also wish I had the time to take pictures of each and every one of them.

If only those walls could talk.

By far the coolest discovery by the little people, was the triple-heaping mound of spent shotgun casings leftover from years of bird hunts. They don't leave that plastic out in the fields, but carefully bring it all back from their expeditions to gather in one place.

Thank you, Tim and Ericka, for inviting us to join you for a truly memorable weekend.

As we headed back home, I had to make sure to capture a Mother's Day 2013 photo with the two sweetest Pieces of my Heart.

In keeping with tradition, there was one last stop to make on our way home. Despite rain and chilly weather on our side of the Cascades, we simply couldn't resist the siren-song of gigantic ice cream cones.