- [Vinny] Today on "All Across Oregon," we're heading to what's called the Outback of Oregon, the high desert, one of the darkest skies in the world.

We're going mountain biking, enjoying some southern barbecue and hospitality, then spending the night in a resort with its own hot springs.

From there we go up and see the dark skies.

Oregon Outback, here we come.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding for "All Across Oregon" was provided in part by John A Warekois, CPA, Travel Curry Coast, Travel Southern Oregon, Oregon's Adventure Coast, and Travel Southern Oregon Coast.

(upbeat music) - Lakeview, Oregon, the tallest town in Oregon.

Why is it called that?

Well, it sits some 4,757 feet above sea level.

This high desert town is just beautiful.

There's so much interesting history in this town.

Lakeview was established in 1876, initially thrived as a central hub for early sheep and cattle ranching.

Over time, it evolved into a vibrant agricultural and logging community and is often referred to as the Oregon Outback.

But in May 22nd, 1900, most of the town of Lakeview burned down.

Nobody died, but over 64 buildings were destroyed, and only two structures in the downtown area survived the fire.

One reason that the town recovered so rapidly was because of the leadership of this man, Bernard Daly, who actually played a huge part in many aspects of this town, and even some things that we see today in our everyday living.

So I want you to meet my new friend, Shelly Batty.

She's our local guide for this trip, and she's been fantastic.

(triangle ringing) You just took all the fun out of that.

It's like childproof.

- So if you're gonna be here, first thing you have to do is you have to have a local hat.

This is the Lake County Lakeview Tallest Town in Oregon.

- And it fits perfect too.

- It fits perfect.

- How does it look?

- How about that?

Perfect.

(Shelly laughing) Yay.

It's the tallest town because we are at 4,852 feet.

- [Vinny] I read about that.

- So we're almost at a mile up, and that makes us the highest elevation community in the state.

- And it was founded as Lakeview.

- As Lakeview.

- Right, okay.

- Because at that point we did have a lake.

- And just remember, when you're in Lakeview, - Take off your boots and stay a while.

(dramatic music) - You step on that.

You take your boots off - [Shelly] By pulling on the jack.

- [Vinny] This is like a real cowboy thing.

- [Shelly] That is a real cowboy thing.

Have you heard about Bernard Daly?

- [Vinny] Bernard Daly?

- Yes, Dr. Daly.

This guy, he was one of, basically a founding member of the community.

He was a doctor.

He also owned a bank.

He was a lawyer.

He was a county judge for awhile.

He was even a senator for awhile.

In 1910 when he died, he left his $5 million in 1910 fortune to the children of Lake County to better themselves and their educations.

And thus became the Daly Foundation.

And if you have a B average and go all four years of high school in Lake County, the Daly Fund will pay for your college education if you go to any in-state school.

- So you had to be a B average to get the scholarship.

I wouldn't have made it.

- But lots of students did.

- I was rocking this, if I got a c plus, I was so excited.

Now if you're into outdoor activities, Lakeview has a ton of them.

From mountain biking, cycling, kayaking, camping, it has it all.

This town is so cool.

Now we're gonna head down the street and meet Tom Batty, owner of Tall Town Bike & Camp Shop, and he's gonna take us on a mountain bike ride.

Look at this street.

This is so this is like out of the movies.

This is the coolest little town.

Oh, this is a bike shop.

- This is not your bike boutique.

This is an old fashioned old school bike shop.

- Well, hello.

Oh, well okay, well, okay.

- [Shelly] This is Garmin.

- [Vinny] Garmin?

- Garmin, and his job is being the welcoming committee.

- Garmin, he didn't say hi to me.

- So he has to say hello to everybody - You didn't say hi to me.

You are gorgeous.

Is this a Siberian Husky?

- [Shelly] This is a Siberian Husky.

We got him as a rescue dog.

- Tom, nice to meet you, Tom.

- Good to meet you, Vinny.

- This is a great bike shop.

And I got the full, I got the full greeting.

So you do it all here.

You rent skis and all kinds of things.

- [Tom] Oh, yeah.

- Are we gonna jump on one of those E-bikes?

Is that what we're doing?

- Sure.

- Okay, let's do it.

Tom, show me the way.

What are we doing?

Well, we need to show you a jersey instead of that shirt first.

- Okay.

Oh yes, right.

I don't know.

I'm gonna have to suck it in.

Ready, set, and ready.

Im ready.

(dramatic music) - This is actually where the trail starts, right through there.

- Oh, right here?

- Yeah.

- Wow.

That's like real deal stuff trail right there.

I'm over, I think it's like all groomed and red carpet ride.

That's the real deal.

- [Tom] This was originally built for hikers.

Didn't really think about mountain bikers, but it's a great mountain bike trail too.

- [Vinny] Wow, okay.

Well, you gotta take it easy on me, all right?

I'll try to keep up with you.

- [Tom] It's what you make out it.

You get something that's a little sketchy for you.

- Okay.

- Get off and push.

That's no big deal.

- Okay, okay.

(upbeat music) Man, that was fun.

Well, thank you again.

I appreciate you.

We'll say goodbye.

How about that?

That was absolutely beautiful out there and so much fun.

What a great guy to spend some time with.

And now that we've worked up an appetite, I hear about this place called The Red Rooster.

This is Dallas Cook, owner of The Red Rooster.

Dallas brought his sweet savory flavors of the south right here to Lakeview, Oregon.

This is where you'll find this authentic southern food gem of a restaurant.

Let's go eat.

(upbeat music) All right guys, we got an order in.

I got a two piece fried chicken.

I got a, what is that?

A deli sandwich, corned beef Reuben sandwich, Philly cheese steak, let's go.

Who's loud?

I'm gonna get my game mode on now.

- So this is a chicken batter, dry side of the batter.

- I just wanna feel like I'm part of the crowd, part of the crew.

- And I know from being raised in the south that fried chicken when you're doing it right and you got it battered right that stuff starts to float.

It's about dropping it a certain way because if you just plop it in there, you're not gonna get it on there, and it's gonna stick to the bottom of the cage.

So we kind of put it in, let it roll, start to crispen that outer crust.

And then you let it go.

That way it doesn't touch the bottom.

Doesn't get stuck.

We don't lose any breading 'cause community, travelers, they love the breading.

- [Vinny] Gotta love the breading.

That's all part of it, man.

- [Dallas] The breading on it is amazing.

- [Vinny] Oh yeah.

It's so nice.

It all stayed together.

Oh!

- It's all about timing, especially when it comes to the chicken.

Temping, making sure you're temping correctly so that stuff can go out.

This is a fresh squeezed lemonade.

- Ooh.

- And it is probably just as tough, if not more to make our Louisiana sweet tea.

And this is something I grew up on.

My father, my papaw, my mamaw, they all, this was a way of life.

They would choose this over beer.

- Oh my goodness.

I can see why he would pick that over beer.

- People come from all over.

They see the Louisiana Sweet Tea, and it's hard to get everybody on the same page as me when it comes to something like that.

- So that takes a minute, huh?

Takes a minute to make.

- That's, those are double boiled, stipend for 30 minutes.

Two and a half cups of sugar to two gallons of water.

I could put that in a hummingbird feeder and feed 'em for days.

- No, I was gonna say that's perfect.

That is so good.

(upbeat music) - This is where the brisket's hiding.

This is, if I open this, you're gonna see something crazy.

This is my little, this is my, I don't know pretend smoker.

This is my thing.

And it works.

- Because this is the way you said you grew up doing it.

- This is the way I had to do it growing up.

I remember my papaw doing it, and I didn't think about it.

And today I put it in, I was like, oh wait, I remember doing this when we were kids because smokers weren't a thing back then.

Kind of learned it this way on an open fire.

And my papaw, he took a big iron skillet, and he put water in the middle and surrounded it with wood, just regular wood that he had soaked in cherry juice or whatever.

That's how we did our pig.

That's how we did our fish.

That's how we did a lot of stuff.

So then today I was like, okay, I don't have enough room 'cause I got ribs in there like I can turn on the big, big barbecue.

And I was like, I need moisture.

I need pellets.

I gotta figure out a way to make this work.

- [Vinny] This is four things happening.

- [Dallas] Yeah, you got heat, you got your pellets, you got your moisture, you got your meat.

- [Vinny] Yeah.

- [Dallas] Growing up, this was called Texas candy.

You can, if you had a glove on still, that's sticky, and it's caramelized.

It's at that perfect, and it's fat.

That top layer is fat.

But it is so full of flavor and juice that people when, if I cut it off, people get mad.

We're at 149, probably give her another hour before I pull and start slicing it up.

We started this with $1,500.

We bought groceries, we had smokers and stuff.

'cause all of this came from my back porch.

This is what I used to do at home.

Now I won't do it at home because I'm worn out.

$1500 bucks, we bought all the groceries we could to start everything.

Our first, our first week we did everything that we do.

(upbeat music) We started out after that 'cause the first couple weeks, it was everything we had to give.

And we were here from six, seven o'clock in the morning till sometimes midnight.

Just making sure that we were ready and prepped.

And we were so flooded by the town, people.

And then we opened in the middle of a huge traveling season.

So it was, it was beneficial.

But my crew, like we all wanted to die.

It was, it was so hard.

And all of us being new to it.

It was like, oh my God, what are we doing?

- [Vinny] It's mixed emotions when you got that stuff going.

- [Dallas] Yeah.

- Because you're wondering about how am I gonna keep up?

- Right.

- I'm exhausted.

Is it always gonna be this way?

- Right.

- Am I gonna get it dialed in?

- Right.

- Am I gonna get the crew that I need?

That starts messing with your head, man, I know.

- We have a daily lunch menu, a daily dinner menu.

My wife hasn't quite given me the permission to open up for breakfast yet, but I'm gonna get there.

- Breakfast.

Come on, you're crazy.

- Grits and crawfish, that's something I grew up on.

- I wish you can, I said it before.

Wish you can smell this kitchen right now.

Woo, man, so good.

It's all over the place.

(upbeat music) What a great lunch.

Now we head just a couple miles outside of the center of town to our accommodations for the night at the Neon Cowboy, formerly known as the Hunter's Lodge Hot Springs.

And it definitely turned into a night to remember.

So I want you to meet Big Mike.

This is the owner of the property and his manager, Amy.

What a great team.

During this whole remodel, it's been going on for a while.

- Yeah, about four years.

- [Vinny] Here, this is all done it looks like.

Is this finished?

- There's still some minor projects that are gonna be happening on site as far as inside, but the majority is gonna be outside.

- When we bought this place, one of the things that I was worried about is opening up a wall, and it's a can of worms.

And it was, so we kinda made a decision, we're going to see this through because I don't want to tear down 100-year history of, and build up something new because all the infrastructures here.

But the buildings have style, and they're, you know.

- [Vinny] I get it.

- So when we originally started, this was all different.

So we opened the front up back, more of a better style.

This was the restaurant to start with.

That was the restaurant and the bar.

And we couldn't utilize this much space.

And we, my son came up with this idea.

- Game room.

- Yeah, game room, and people love it.

And you've got the scenery outside and all this stuff.

So you know, we just try to create as many views as we can out of here.

- And that's where your geyser is out there.

So for most of the year, this geyser goes off into the air every 90 seconds shooting 200 degree water 60 feet high.

So we waited.

We waited, we waited a little bit more.

Well, it turns out that we hit it at the time right at the end of the summer after all the heat and things were a little dried up.

But normally this is what it would look like.

Where are you originally from?

- I was born and raised in Portland.

- You were born and raised in Portland?

I would not have guessed that.

- Well, I've always wanted to be in a place like this.

Never could figure out how to make a living doing it.

- What'd you do before?

- Well, I had an inn in Portland.

A small inn by OHSU hospital.

So I've been around the hospitality business my whole life.

I just, in and out of it.

And this is the first time that I stepped into a place like this back in 2016.

- [Vinny] Okay.

- Lakeview appealed to me because it's off the grid.

People are different.

It's just a different vibe.

- [Vinny] Yeah.

- You know?

- [Vinny] People are friendly.

- Yeah, they're great.

- People are very friendly.

- To be honest with you, we're still figuring out how to serve Lakeview.

- [Vinny] This has a great vibe though to it.

It really does.

- [Mike] Thank you.

- [Vinny] I know it's kind of out here, and it's totally, the front, you can tell you're doing a ton of work.

- It's been a struggle, I'll be honest.

I mean, it's been a struggle, but because everything out here is, it's like being in Alaska, you know, all your concrete, everything is way up here.

All your supplies, like you said.

- [Amy] Three hours away.

- Everything's three hours.

We have, everything's three hours from here, Reno, Bend, Medford.

- It's a shame because you can tell this town was the place in its heyday.

It's like you wanna just snap your fingers and revive it and say, no, come on, everybody, come out to Lakeview and check this out.

- [Mike] I think there's a few of us here.

- So but the hot springs survived all this.

The same pool.

- The pool's always been here, always.

- The same one.

- Yeah, same one.

- From the original.

- This is it.

We clean the pool twice a week.

We use no chemicals.

It's just straight, comes straight out of the spring.

Spring over here.

We have another hot spring over there.

And then we, so those are where we draw our hot water from.

- [Vinny] So besides this one here, you're saying there's some, there's another one right here somewhere where people actually get into too.

- [Mike] No, no.

- [Amy] It's too hot.

- If you wanna cook, you could.

- [Vinny] Stop, it's that hot?

- [Amy] It's that hot, yeah.

- [Mike] Comes out 190.

We regulate it just by, just like you do your bathtub.

- [Amy] Put a little bit cold water in there, call it good.

(upbeat music) - Now as I mentioned, it was a night to remember.

Why do I say that?

Because as every restaurant owner's worst nightmare is when you lose your cook.

Well, their head cook just happened to break their leg.

They had to shut down the restaurant.

Nobody there to open it.

So we improvised, and Big Mike and Amy were fantastic.

We just came together and made a beautiful meal.

Mike cooked up some salmon and some steaks, and we made some pasta, and they made some incredible drinks.

It was such a great time.

So as we're eating dinner, our cheerleader Shelly and our astronomer Ken showed up and joined us before we headed out to the beautiful dark skies.

- Vinny, I'm here.

I brought Ken Lacreur with me as promised.

He is my local star guy, and.

- Nice to meet you, Vinny.

- It's nice to meet you.

Even though we just shared a meal together, we didn't get to talk.

- Right.

- Are you full?

- Ah, yes, I am completely full.

- Now what you're gonna show us tonight, it's gonna be a little bit above my pay grade, you know, as far as understanding certain things, so.

- The sky here in Lake County is phenomenal.

The darkness of the sky and the altitude contribute greatly as well as a low humidity make sky viewing just spectacular.

And we're gonna have a good show for you tonight.

Plus the density of the population in the county is low.

Overall it's less than one person per square mile.

- So not lots of lights.

- There are very few lights.

- We're going out in the dark.

Okay, so, I mean, here we are, one of the darkest skies in the world right here in Lakeview, but we have a very special greeting from New Zealand, another dark sky sanctuary.

This is Hilde.

- (speaking in foreign language) Good evening from the Dark Sky Sanctuary of Great Barrier Island out here in the north of New Zealand to you guys in the Dark Sky Sanctuary of Oregon in the United States.

Here we're getting ready for a dark sky experience tonight.

The chairs are all set up, and the sea is in the background.

We've got some binoculars and hot drinks in a thermos here on beautiful Midlands beach.

And so tonight we'll be looking at Saturn and Venus, the area around the Southern cross and the Magellanic Clouds.

And we're sending our best wishes from our dark sky sanctuary to yours.

Bye, Vinny.

(dramatic music) - Wah ha, it's dark out here.

Wow, look at that.

So now you mentioned something before we came up here.

You said that our eyes will adjust as time goes on to see more naturally.

- Yes, yeah, but in order to do that, we have to have all of the white lights or any with blue light extinguished.

- You mean like camera lights and stuff?

- Yeah, yeah, the red lights will not affect your night vision.

- Okay, well, you tell us when, and we'll go dark on the cameras.

That looks good, Ross.

Okay, now listen, don't go anywhere, okay 'cause now that's the only flashlight I had.

It's really dark out here.

- [Ken[ And I always ask people, what constellations do they know in order to start with.

- [Vinny] Can I Google it real quick?

Okay, easy one.

What is the bright lights I'm seeing?

They are stars.

- [Shelly] Your stars.

Over here.

- [Vinny] Okay.

- [Shelly] Right up above the horizon, this is the Big Dipper.

- Oh my goodness, yes!

That is insane.

Okay, I'm gonna walk away from the camera for a minute.

That is, okay, that's huge.

You know what, I just read an article, and it blows my mind that when these are X amount of thousands of light years away, we're seeing a light from say 10,000 years ago that might not even exist anymore.

- Yes, yeah.

- Right?

- Yeah.

- It took 10,000 years to get here, but that could be gone now.

That's how long it took to get here.

- [Ken] Right.

- [Vinny] That is incredible.

- The stars in the Big Dipper are about 175 light years away.

And there are stars that are associated with that group, that are all kind of traveling together in our neighborhood in the galaxy.

And they're all over the place here.

It's called the Ursa Major moving group.

- [Vinny] That cloudy space that we're looking at, that's stars.

- [Shelly] That's stars.

- [Ken] Yes, yeah, the Milky Way.

- [Vinny] That's not clouds.

- [Ken] The Milky Way is right above us here.

You can see it moving toward the south.

That's the center of our galaxy, right over in there.

- [Vinny] The center of our our galaxy.

- [Ken] Our galaxy, yeah.

And that's, the reason for the name of that super massive black hole that sits there is Sagittarius A 'cause It's right in the middle of the constellation Sagittarius.

We are about two thirds of the way out from the center of our galaxy toward the edge.

The galaxy itself is 100,000 light years across.

- Do you know how long it goes back when these things were named?

These constellations back in?

I remember back in school, but I can't.

- [Ken] Most of the constellations that we know were outlined and written down for posterity by Claudius Ptolemy in the second century.

- I can see what you're talking about as far as the changing of my eyes adjusting, even with the guys have the red lights on.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Everything's coming alive like already, I don't know what percentage you would say, but it's so visible now.

What was this awarded, this area?

What was the award that made the Smithsonian?

- [Shelly] The International Dark Skies Consortium, now it's called Just International Dark Skies.

- [Vinny] Yes.

- [Shelly] Is a international nonprofit seeking to preserve and protect the night sky and educate the world on why darkness is important.

And because we have the biggest, darkest plot in the United States if you look at a night map.

- [Ken] Yeah, if you look at any map from the Space station of North America, you'll just see.

- [Shelly] You can see where we are because we're the big dark spot.

- [Ken] We're the big black area.

- [Shelly] And so we decided that we needed to protect it, and we needed to celebrate it.

And so we formed the the Oregon Outback Dark Sky network.

And so we applied last October, and in March we received the certification of the Oregon Outback Dark Sky Sanctuary.

- [Vinny] Very cool.

- [Shelly] Two and a half million acres.

It makes us the largest Dark Sky Sanctuary on the planet.

- Now I didn't know much about the dark skies or the dark sky projects, but now I do.

If you have a chance to experience the dark sky, do it.

What a beautiful night we had here in Lakeview.

We're gonna head back to the hotel.

We're gonna get some rest.

We're gonna get up early before we drive home, and we're gonna head over to a breakfast place where a lot of the local ranchers go.

Considered one of the favorites.

All right, so here we are.

It's about 6:00 AM.

We're here in the town of Lakeview.

It's beautiful, clear skies, and obviously still really dark, but we had to get up this early to get to a local spot where all the ranchers are found in the morning.

So we're gonna head over into town and get some breakfast.

Let's go.

(upbeat music) Thanks for letting us come in.

We're just gonna, we just thought we'd just do a couple dishes, and we'll be on our way.

(upbeat music) I just gotta come shake the hands of some real ranchers, you know?

Can I do that?

- Good, good, good, good.

- How you doing?

- Great, great.

- Man, I'm Vinny.

(upbeat music) That's the good thing about these things.

You walk away, keep it low and slow and steady.

You know, your flames aren't flying everywhere.

One more big bite.

What a great breakfast.

That was such a fun trip to the Oregon Outback.

What a day in Lakeview!

Mountain biking, good old fashioned homestyle Louisiana Barbecue, a natural hot springs resort, the dark sky where it seems like you can reach up and grab the Milky Way with your bare hands, a local breakfast spot.

This town is a must.

And until next time, my friends, we'll see you as we go all across Oregon.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding for "All Across Oregon" was provided in part by John A Warekois, CPA, Travel Curry Coast, Travel Southern Oregon, Oregon's Adventure Coast, and Travel Southern Oregon Coast.

(upbeat music)