Once My girlfriend, Summer and I decided to take a low budget vacation to Eastern Oregon to see Summer Lake, since it had her name and all.  We camped in the Cascade Mountains and thought that Summer Lake would be similar to what we had seen in the Cascades--Lush, green, trees, fish.  When we got there we were surprised to find that Summer Lake (a town as well as a lake) was desolate, dry high desert.  Summer Lake is in Lake County which is all desert.  Even stranger is the fact that Summer Lake as well as most of the lakes in Lake County are dead.  See, most of these lakes are terminal bodies of water, which means water flows in but does not flow out.  This makes the lakes stagnant, salty and in some cases alkaline as is the case with Summer Lake.  No fish, no trees.  There are vast mud flats leading out to the lake which is really just a shallow field of stagnant water, several square miles in size. The lake increases and decreases in size a great deal depending on the season.  When we saw it in late Summer it was almost dry. 

December 12,  2000

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"Summer Lake"

"Summer standing on the banks of Summer Lake"