The Oregon Desert

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0870044346/?tag=dedasys-20

Inhospitable, hot, dry, cold, and high, the Oregon desert country is vast, and very, very empty.  It's also not at all what people think of when they think of the verdant valleys and forests of Oregon.  It also happens to be one of my favorite parts of the state to explore when I'm back home, and my parents gave me this book as a gift for my birthday.

After a steady diet of Kindle books, a "real" book with roots in the land and in the past was a very welcome change.  One of the authors was actually born in 1898, and grew up before cars, before radio, before TV... back when the west really was still the west. Descriptions of his life in

The book jumps around a lot, it's not a novel, just a collection of stories, anecdotes and essays about various subjects related to life in the Oregon high desert.  Subjects include what a cattle drive was really like, doctors of note on the desert, conservation, animals of the desert, and places to visit.  One of the most interesting and beautiful places is actually on land that one of the authors, Reub Long, donated to the state of Oregon for a state park, Fort Rock:

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Fort+Rock,+Oregon&hl=en&ll=43.370648,-121.064014&spn=0.029418,0.066047&sll=45.406504,11.891245&sspn=0.226334,0.528374&hnear=Fort+Rock,+Lake,+Oregon&t=p&z=15&layer=c&cbll=43.370654,-121.063381&panoid=3khIQMmdxT1iCGGV9Hd7fw&cbp=12,305.09,,0,-4.19

I suspect the book is of limited interest to most of my friends and those who know me via the internet, but if you like to read about things 'far from home', this certainly fits the bill.