Lost in Eastern Oregon

Well, not exactly lost, but my quest for a place to stay and have dinner didn’t quite work as planned.  It was a surreal few days at work. I flew to Washington for a meeting and instead of turning right around and heading home, thus spending much of the day flying, I decided to work at the airport, then fly halfway home in the late afternoon, stay the night somewhere and fly the rest of the way early the next morning.  The plan was to land at Prospect State airport near Crater Lake and bike into town for dinner, and I had even called the restaurant to make sure they were open.

But it was too smokey to land (WAY too smokey), so I headed to Eastern Oregon and landed at a place where my pilot guide said there was a restaurant nearby. Does it look like there is a restaurant nearby from the photo? So I ride my little folding bike to a nearby nearly deserted town (Silver Lake) and finally decide the restaurant must have closed many years ago.

Then later I find the restaurant is FURTHER out in the sage, 5 miles down a deserted road, and is quite famous – the Cowboy Dinner Tree. Just as well though, it is weekend only, reservation only.   Apparently people drive for two to three hours to come here for dinner. How bizarre – really in the middle of nowhere. The only food in town was a deli in a trailer and he was closed, but he was still there and he made me a sandwich. I flew home in the morning.