Monday, 2 May 2022
The town of Lakeview has about 2,300 residents and sits at 4,802'. The town claims this elevation makes it the Tallest Town in Oregon, a claim that's contested by far smaller Greenhorn. In fact, Greenhorn (actual name - it was a gold rush town) claims to be the smallest, highest (at 6,300') and most inaccessible incorporated town in the state. There's a mildly hilarious account of the town at this link. https://www.oregonlive.com/oregons-smallest-city-a-mile-high
Lakeview's real claim to fame, from my point of view, is being the site of Old Perpetual, the only geyser in the Pacific Northwest. Oddly enough, it started out as only an area of natural hot springs. In the 1920s the landowner wanted to develop the hot springs into a spa, and tried to increase the natural amount of waterflow by drilling wells. He got more waterflow all right: he got 3 geysers from his 3 wells. Two of them have since stopped spouting, but this one, called Old Perpetual, still spouts often.
There was a period in the mid-2000s when the town tampered with the hot springs again to get more water for the local prison, resulting in the geyser no longer geysing. But about 10 years later, it started up again, and can still be seen fairly easily. My campground was the next piece of property over, and one morning when I was walking the dogs I saw it spout. I didn't have my camera, but I saw both these views from the internet.
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| This is the view I saw first. |
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| After the first show was over, about a minute later I saw this. |
A brochure I got in the campground office said there are several hot springs in this general part of the state, including one on US Fish and Wildlife Service land, indicating to me a lot of underground geothermal activity. Apparently Old Perpetual used to spout every 60 to 90 seconds, but it's not doing that any more, probably a result of the city's tampering. Still, I did get to see it, which is what I came here for. Pretty neat.
You can see lots of duckies in that 2nd photo - no doubt attracted to the warm water during the winter. I saw only a pair of Canada Geese, but there was plenty of goose poop around the campground, making it really hard for me to find a place to walk Dexter where he wouldn't be eating that junk, which he thinks is candy. Ugh.
I heard a Western Meadowlark singing - such a beautiful song. And a really tiny Dwarf Hyacinth was growing snuggled up next to the tree at my campsite. Spring was trying to come, which you might think was about time given that it's May now. But the weather wasn't so sure.
Yesterday it was overcast, chilly and windy all morning until I got to Oregon, when the sun came out and warmed things up a bit. But today it was really cold and raining and very windy. The high temperature wasn't supposed to get up even to 50°. And I'm sure it didn't because suddenly at 10:30 sleet pellets started coming in sideways. So much of it pinging against the RV that at first I thought it was a sandstorm. Then I saw that the sleet was piling up like snow, and still it kept blowing in. After about 15 minutes, it stopped as suddenly as it started and we got blue sky. Just weird.
The wifi in the park was pretty good, so I managed to finish all my Nevada posts. Incredible compared with last month. Now I can pay attention to Oregon almost from the beginning. And I made several reservations for the rest of the week.
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