Lonerock, Oregon

Our plan was to explore the Condon area and that included a little town that I read about in the Oregon Travel magazine called Lonerock. I knew there was an old church and a jail but they didn't tell us about the road in. Oh my, you all know that I have a "thing" about heights and suddenly I find myself on a dirt road looking straight down into this beautiful but terrifying valley below? Am I going to slide on the gravel to my doom? Am I going to meet an eighteen-wheeler who will want to pass? Is this going to be the end of me? Roy offers to drive, but that would be worse as I wouldn't be in control. Well I had no choice cause I certainly wasn't going to turn around up there with narry a guard rail in site and so, I inched my way down and at the bottom reminded myself to breath. I'd made it! The only problem was, I had to go back the same way I came and the thought was making me nauseous.

So was the little town of Lonerock worth the drive, well won't be doing it again any time soon but it was a cute little town. We talked to one of the residents and he said that Condon was the closest town (20 miles up that road)and so when one of the residents went they checked with everyone to see if they needed anything. Imagine living is a small town like that.

The lone rock was a huge, maybe 20 foot high, boulder behind the Community Church and not impressive enough to name a town after if you ask me. The church had a two-holer, still being used, behind it, and the jail, well it was a shed size building with bars on the one window. I don't think it held many folks cause even in its hayday, there wasn't much in Lonerock, particularly criminals.

Okay so I drag out the map and it looks as if there are three roads out. Just maybe I can take the one south as we are headed south to Fossil anyway. So we try it and the further we drive, the smaller the road gets and finally we turned around as it was looking something like a cart track. We tried another as it forked off to the left, but it ended in a farmers field. There was one other alternative, but it went east and would take us way out of the way, so gritting my teeth, I headed back up the road, again praying that I wouldn't meet anyone else cause I would now be on the outside edge and nothing in this world would make me move close to it.

Obviously, I made it, going up hill isn't as bad as comeing down, but from that day forward, I asked about the roads we travelled and eyed the map very carefully.