Wagontire

The Wagontire Buckaroo Cafe is an authentic wild west experience. With buckaroo coffee, belgian waffles, and real Cowboy Chile (made with real cowboy, or so they claim). They have about everything a man might need. Accomodations available include a full hookup RV park, Motel Rooms, and a Camping area. Hoss Strode and his wife will be your hosts, for true western (hoss)pitality. Hoss used to ride with Cactus Smyth, Dad's cousin, in Andrews, Oregon before he passed on, and is an old cowboy from the "good old days". Folks, for a taste of the old eastern oregon, this outfit is worth a drive from Portland. Tell old Hoss that Cactus sent you.

The Cafe, with Hoss's buckboard out front.

Parked in the RV park,which sports the biggest trees in the area! When we would arrive in the evening the lot was filled with black tailed jackrabbits and a few cotton tails. From this park we also saw (but did not get any pics), the most amazing "red moon". It is also quite amazing how clear the nights are, and how BIG the dipper is compared to Alaska.

Dad, passing on some desert know how to Blayde and Valin. Bapa spent some good time also teaching the boys how to make good duct tape rope. We did not spend too much time at the campsite, as our day was spent expoling the desert territory.

Later, we ventured out to Alkali Lake. There were ducks, geese, and seagulls galore. As we were stowing the binoculars, and heading out... Blayde was incenssed by the fact that he could not go over the fence, to get closer to the action. Of course we had to show him that we do still hold some freedoms, and we ventured out with canteens in tow. We traversed the rattlesnake area and approached the "beach area", which much to our disgust was just years and years of bird droppings (not mud or beach)!! During our adventure, we were told many tales from Dad's hunting days along this stretch of land, and given many tips for such things.






We ventured on around the backside of Juniper Mountain, and along the way collected Sunstones, which are found on the desert floor in plain view in that area.

Sunstone is a member of the feldspar group of minerals and is closely related to Moonstone. It is formed and crystalized in a lava flow. Sunstones range in color "from water clear through pale yellow, soft pink, and blood red to deep blue and green. Some of the deeper colored stones have bands of varying color; a few stones show two different colors when viewed from different directions." (quote, Oregon Geology) The color is caused by tiny crystals of copper within the stones which often results in "schiller" or shimmer that is usually a peach color. Sunstone is cut into cabochons or the deeper transparent colors may be faceted.

Sunstone is an ancient gem, in fact sunstones have been discovered in Viking Burial mounds. Sunstone also occurs in Tvedestrand, Norway; near Lake Baikal, Russia; Middletown, PA., and Statesville, NC. Only the Oregon Sunstone has the copper inclusions giving it the unique colors.

Among the Vikings sunstones were thought to be an aid to navagation, so having it on board should help keep us off the rocks.

At any rate, we all got "sunstone fever" and ended up scouring the desert for hours, yielding a sizeable haul. We look forewardto polishing them and drilling some of them for beads. A large one, like the biggest we found can fetch significant coin if nicely polished or cut, especially if it has nice color. The funny part of this adventure was listening to Tamer explaining to Dad how he will never be able to get me to leave, that I will have to come back, and other such talk. At the end of the mad rock picking, it was of course him that was the last to want to leave :-) Those Smyth's are certainly a treasure hunting lot, and I will use all the precious stones wisely in my jewelry making. I am hoping that after picking up a nice little rock tumbler, Tam can rig it up to run on 12 volt in the trailer while we are driving (To lessen the obnoxious noise). Of course because we were out in the middle of the desert, and wanting really badly to find our way out through the few gravel roads that were marked, before sunset, it was a little stressful getting "home" to Wagontire. Tamer was amazing, Dad navigated beautifully, and we saw sunset about the same time as the main highway.

We saw distinctive Fort Rock on the way over. We had planned to camp there but found no access, so we drove on to Wagontire.

Maybe it should be called Trailertire. We had a peculiar tire failure, spotted by Blayde before we departed. We mounted the spare and went on to Burns where we bought new, heavier tires.