Some geocaching backlog

Earlier this month I went with family on a trip to parts of Eastern Oregon. Are first stop was just for a night in Lakeview. In my quest for the State of Jefferson Counties Challenge we went a few miles out of the way south to grab a cache in Modoc County

Steep Grade

The next morning we drove east. Going through Adel, Oregon and then down to Denio, Nevada. There aren't many geocaches on this stretch of highway, but I found a few

Breadcrumbs #4... Pride
Breadcrumbs #6... Glider
Take ten at the Border
Warmth from within
Breadcrumbs #11... Denio

Many of these were hidden by a local Southern Oregon cacher 2trax. He had some more, but they were archived for being in the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge even though they were right off the highway... one of them in a rest area. It would have been nice to have one in the rest area for sure. The refuge is nice. I saw a number of wild burros, horses and pronghorn but I can't see how a geocaching in the fenced rest area on the highway was a concern for the environment.

There is not much in Denio Junction. A store, gas station and small motel. The store had a cafe with pretty good food though. The hotel is commonly full from what I hear. There are many commercial opal mines in the area. Many of them let you pay to mine. I didn't try it Prices seemed to be $60-$150 depending on the mine and what you wanted to dig in.

Our destination was a bit further north to Fields, Oregon. Fields is about the same as Denio Junction. Just a store and gas station. There is a small motel and the Alvord Inn where we stayed. The store has world famous Hamburgers and Milkshakes. Our plan was just to look at wildlife and go to the several hot springs in the area. However they have had more water then anytime in the past 30 years. What is usually called the Alvord Desert was a lake. Many of the hot springs were unreachable due to the muddy road conditions. We still had fun and I found a recently hidden cache in town.

Stagecoach Roadhouse

The next part of our trip was to Summer Lake Hot Springs. This hot spring is private and has a several cabins and camp spots. The spring itself is fed into a large pool in a bathhouse. The pool is very nice but you run into a lot of weird people. There was a cache at the entrance

Hot Pools & Healing Waters

It was a fun trip. Maybe I'll get out for some more geocaching soon.