Meandering on the Way — May 16 to 21, 2025

Friday, May 16th

We have a big trip coming up on the 22nd, but first we snuck in a little one. We were interested in seeing two places in Central Oregon: The Oregon Badlands Wilderness and the quasi ghost town of Hardman.

To do that we had to leave early (ish) on the first day. It was around 8:30 when we set off. We were in the Frontier, E at the wheel. Four hours, one driver change, and one mountain range later, we arrived at the trailhead. It was about 60 degrees and a little breezy, with a mixture of clouds and sunshine.

The wilderness area is a 30,000 acre patch of high desert twenty-five miles east of Bend. The dominant vegetation is western juniper and sagebrush. It’s generally flat, but there are hundreds of igneous outcroppings poking up out of the sandy soil. The landscape was formed about 80,000 years ago by lava flows from the Newberry Volcano, which lies many miles to the southwest. Geologists say that the lava made its way from the volcano by flowing more than twenty miles through a system of lava tubes. When the lava flowed out of the tubes, it spread out over a large area. Today there is still only a thin layer of soil over the underlying lava, and much of that soil can be traced back to ash fall from the tremendous eruption of Mt Mazama about 8,000 years ago.

It was a nice hike, but somehow– just as the afternoon got hotter–we ended up walking a mile or so farther than we meant to. E remembers we did the same thing in Aranjuez. So we can now refer to this mistake as ‘pulling an Aranjuez.’ Still, it was only about 3:30 when we finished. We then drove over the mountains to Prineville by taking OR 27–the Crooked River Highway. We stayed in the Country Inn and Suites by Radisson, which was quite nice despite being nothing like the Radissons we remember from other places and other times. Good dinner at a Japanese Fusion restaurant called Bonito Fresh.

Saturday, May 17th

We got our breakfast at the Country Inn, and couldn’t help marveling at the specialized and super processed nature of American motel breakfast food. This is the true American exceptionalism; we don’t care how awful something is as long as someone tells us it’s free. After breakfast we gassed up and made the hundred mile drive to the ghost town of Hardman, fifty quick miles on US 126 followed by a much slower 50 miles on OR 207. Despite the frequent light showers, we found that this last half was a fantastic stretch of scenery, probably at its best at this time of year.

White settlers first came to Hardman in the 1870s, drawn by the abundance of excellent agricultural land. In the early part of that decade, three separate towns sprang up, all within a few miles of one another. One was founded by an ex-rustler named Royce. His town was called Dairyville. Just one mile away, another group–one with a less colorful origin story–founded a town called Adamsville. For reasons that remain obscure, both of these towns had alternate names. Dairyville was known to some as Dogtown; Adamsville’s alternative name was Yaller Dog. Into this melange of two towns with four names came a newcomer named David Hardman, who started yet another town just a mile southeast. This settlement became known simply as Hardman. In the mid eighteen eighties Hardman successfully lobbied to have the first area post office located in his town, which gave it a certain amount of prestige. Just to confuse things, however, Hardman soon moved his post office to Dairytown, which he then renamed Hardman. As for Adamsville, it also managed to get a post office, but its post office closed after just one year. Adamsville then withered and from 1890 onward only one town remained: Hardman née Dairyville/Dogtown.

By 1900, it has been claimed, Hardman was a bustling place with three general stores, two hotels, two feed stables, two blacksmiths, a saloon, a barber shop, a church, schools, a post office, a newspaper, a telephone office, two meeting halls, a skating rink, and a racetrack. In 1920, however, the town suffered a fatal setback when the railroad decided to bypass Hardman and run their line through Hepner, twenty miles to the north. At that point Hepner became the regional commercial center and Hardman quickly declined, soon becoming something of a ghost town.

These days Hardman is a bit peculiar. There are a lot of old wooden buildings dating from before 1920 and many of these are abandoned and falling to ruin. And there are abandoned junk vehicles everywhere: cars, trucks and machinery from many different eras. There are no paved streets, no city services, no schools and no businesses. And yet…some of houses are in good condition and are clearly inhabited. One source claims that there are 35 year-round residents and a couple dozen more out-of-town owners who visit their properties from time to time. You only need to count the number of recently reroofed structures to see that the town is not totally abandoned. Also, there is a functioning community center in a well-preserved building that was originally built by the local IOOF and is now in the National Register of Historic Places. A 2025 source asserts that it is currently the site of monthly potluck dinners.

We walked around the town a little, then got back in the truck and drove up to a hill overlooking the town where we could stop and eat our lunch. After that, we set out to return to Prineville. E was at the wheel as we headed south. Hardman is located near the southern edge of the rolling grasslands of north central Oregon, so it wasn’t long before we left the agricultural landscape behind and entered into a portion of what are called the Blue Mountains. OR Highway 207 is a well-maintained road, but it is a fairly narrow. Here it follows a shallow canyon that leads through the foothills toward an eventual 4,600 ft summit. E doesn’t normally do curvy roads, but this wasn’t too bad and there was almost no traffic at all. Unluckily for her, we soon came upon a cattle drive. That is to say, we caught up with a sizable herd that was being moved from lower winter pastures to higher summer ones. They too were taking route 207. The herd was big enough to completely block the road as the mass of cows flowed slowly up the canyon. Four or more cowboys on four wheelers patrolled the front, sides and back of the herd. Another four wheeler, larger and more deluxe, followed closely behind. Also following the herd were three young women on horseback and two small black dogs. E stopped. We regarded the scene.

The large four wheeler also stopped and an older fellow with a very fine mustache got out and came up to E’s window. He explained that he was going to have to slowly lead us up through the herd and that E should follow closely behind. He was polite, though not real happy. He got into his four wheeler and drove slowly into the ragged back end of the herd, where the cows more or less made way for him. E followed. Now, we had dealt with this kind of thing before, but never with E driving. The cowboys were doing most of the work, creating just enough space for our truck to slide through. The only hard part was that we were supposed to follow the lead vehicle very, very closely, so that no cows would be tempted to slip in between us and the pilot. When E lagged a little, one of the cowboys made frantic motions signaling for her to close the gap. M just got to watch and had a chance to see lots of different cows very close up. They were beautiful. Most were black, but some were dark brown and there were a few big yellow ones. Were there a dozen or two calves among the group? Well, sure.

All went well and soon we were through the front of the herd and on our way. Eve couldn’t help thinking that certain aspects of this tour had been badly organized. M thought it was fun.

Sunday, May 18th

We made the long drive back from Prineville to Corvallis. Nothing worth mentioning or photographing. Well, almost nothing. We did pass through Sisters.

Wednesday, May 21st

We’re making final preparations for our trip to the far east, the far east, that is, of the United States. Leaving tomorrow.