It might take me more than one post to tell this story and I'm
jumping around in our little adventure. We've jumped from the mountains
to the Big City, Bend OR, population almost 100,000 all by itself to
Lake county, with a lot of stops in between. Whoever thought Bend could
get to be that big? To set the right mood you might want to start by
watching these short clips. There was no shooting or fireworks, but the
horror is real.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30QzJKCUekQ&t=88s

"Ride of the Valkyries - Apocalypse Now"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKcAYMb5uk4

"The Horror (Marlon Brando) Apocalypse Now"

When you're out there driving around in that big open country
several things smack you in right in the face. One of them is that for
the people living there very little has changed in their lifetime. The
biggest change out there was probably deep well irrigation and that has
been going on for a long time. The jobs and the landscape are relatively unchanged. The population is very stable--and uniform. You don't see:
counter culture types, openly gay people or Black faces--even among the tourists. Hispanic is about as dark as you see and those folks have been
there for a long time. The few Asian Americans are probably just about
all in the restaurant business.

Lake county is a beautiful example of what's going on out there.
In 1940 the population was 6,293. In 1950 it was 6,637. In 2020 it was
7,896. In an area of 8,358 square miles. This isn't quite the good deal
it sounds like. In Oregon some branch of the government, mostly the
Feds, owns 64% of the land. In Lake county that number jumps to 80%. So
when those folks are dealing with the government it's probably about
grazing rights or water rights or some other damn thing. It's not likely
to be good news most of the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS6dhZc6uac
"Background Suspense Music"

Lake county is named for it's many lakes and that was why we were
there. This is desert country and the lakes draw a lot of wildlife. I'm
lazy and self-indulgent most of the time. I don't get less
self-indulgent when we're out traveling around. We usually don't do much
real cooking unless we have no other choice. We eat a lot of sandwiches
and snack food. If we have a real meal someone else probably cooked it.
We were at Summer lake and there was this cute little "lodge" right
across the highway from us. So we decided to go over there for dinner.

Opps, speaking of self-indulgent my curbside pickup at Walmart is
ready. Since we're sick I ordered all sorts of treats. I'll try to
finish this story today.

TB

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