Day 2 of 62

Yesterday had been quite warm, well into the 90s, and I wore long pants and shoes. Being a clever sort, I dressed in shorts and sandals the next day. We broke camp and headed into Lassen Volcano Park, whereupon we climbed to 8000 feet and drove alongside snow drifts that were easily 10 feet high. But, the roads were clear, the weather was wonderful, the streams were heavy with snowmelt and it wasn’t that cold. Except for the times I got snow in my sandals. We stopped and walked a bit, reading about the big eruption in 1915, seeing the bubbling sulfur springs, and even using the binoculars to watch people ski down the face of the big summit.

From Lassen, we headed north towards Goose Lake, right on the California-Oregon border, and Abert Lake slightly further north. The Coyote Mountains just to the east were big sloping hills with a sharp rise at the top that looked like they were capped with a butte. The land sloped very gently down to the broad lakes, with such a gentle drop that I just assumed the lakes never got any deeper than about 6 feet.

This was a fairly desolate stretch of country, with almost no cars on the road and nothing much in the way of towns. Lots of open road and fields filled with sage brush. Past Abert Lake were large salt flats, the dry “Alkalai lake”, and we could watch the wind whip up a dust devil of sand and salt, which would fall apart after a couple of minutes, only to be replaced by another one. Signs along the road called this the “Oregon Outback”, and the name fits.

Somewhere on this stretch of road, I noticed a warning light on the dashboard for the battery. We pulled over and checked the manual, which said the idiot light meant the battery wasn’t getting recharged. Gosh, really, thanks for the help. The fluid levels in the battery looked fine, but that was about the extent of my ability to test the alternator, belts, or battery on the road. We continued on to the next thing resembling a town, Burns OR, and started looking for mechanics. On a Saturday at 7:00 pm. Ha, right. So, we found a motel in town for the night and got the number of a couple of mechanics to try in the morning. Hopefully it would be as simple as a failing battery and we can get back on the road fairly quickly.