Goodness!

 Took a drive to Green Ridge, past Sisters and Eastern side of Black Butte.  There is a fire lookout there.. It sort of hangs out over a very high cliff!! Have been going there for years.  Carol H you may remember, took  u there a couple times, BUT back then there were HUGE trees all along the roadway down to the lookout,  There has been a fire in there, it has been a number of years since i have been there, but all of the undergrowth has returned. So you get all of these great views all along the road.  Used to be you had to go right out to the lookout to get great views.  And it is sort of a good thing, as today the gate was closed and a sign that a ranger was on duty and no access beyond the gate... BUT i went in anyway.... little lawbreaker that i am.  And about 10 minutes into my walk (takes awhile when you are soaking in the solitude and trying to take pictures of ALL the flowers!!) A couple came up behind me, and they just waltzed right on down to the lookout, i did hang back a certain way and did get all of my pictures.  You could see the very north view of 3 Sisters, Mt Washington, 3 fingered Jack and Hogback. And of course Mt Jefferson is  like just sitting right there in front of you!!   It was truly beautiful, especially if you don't dwell on the wonderful huge trees that were lost.

I had to keep a sharp lookout and was stopping alot to get all the different kinds of wildflowers, and these are ALL wildflowers!!

Mt Jefferson

I discovered and did you know that you can take a pic with your phone and there is an icon at the bottom that is google and it will tell you what the name of the flower is!!!!  It was SO exciting...

these were all taken with my little point n shoot camera.

also i got closeups with the phone but could not figure out how to keep that feature on, it would b there, for a nano-second and be gone!!! frustrating...

 Lovely, lovely pine trees a little further down.

When coming off the Green Ridge road instead of heading back to Sisters, you can  turn left and go down the mountains and come out at the Cove State Park.. (which is closer to Madras) as you get closer to the park and still up on the plateau there were now all kinds of homes, and ranches... one place had huge iron gates, must be something important down there, it was between two huge escarpments, would be a cool place to have but no view of the mountains..

There has also been a fire in there too... it is really, really sad to see, but it is natures way..  most all of these fires are by lightening.

Yes these were just along side the road and wild!!!

 The Cove is a build up behind Pelton dam on the Deschutes river, the Deschutes, Crooked River and Metolius all meet in this area and you can go up each arm a certain ways in a boat... They rent houseboats and there are lots of boating, water skiing.  And parking is at a premium.. there were police down there giving parking tickets to a whole string of cars parked alongside the road where apparently they were not supposed to be..
The road is good, a lot better than in past years, but still terribly steep and twisty..
I remember camping here once with the family, i was still in grade school, so in the 50's, no dam, and it was twice as far down and there were large meadows with huge poplar trees and the river flowed really fast over many rocks, it was really nice....

Take Care all and God Bless