"Mission Transition" Summer Lake Hot Springs, Oregon Desert - Pictures Added

As many of you know, my inlaws manage the Summer Lake Hot Springs near Paisley Oregon. Every year after the Burning Man event in the Nevada desert more and more of participants(burners)from the great Northwest descend on this quiet little slice of heaven to bathe, rest, and prepare themselves for integration back into the real world. Word of mouth, and a few mentions on the internet, have turned labor day weekend into an event all it's own at the Hot Springs, and it's becoming more than my inlaws can handle on their own.

This year we were asked to get involved. We set up a full blown outdoor Tiki bar and lounge, where we served tropical libations and DJ'd lounge and Exotica for four straight days and nights. It was fairly easy getting set up. My inlaws already have a Mexico themed lounge off the back of their house, complete with outdoor kitchen, stage, thatched roof palapa bar, and about ten umbrella covered tables. We brought in a large selection of Tikis and Tiki fountains, and various decorations, and had the place Tikified in just a few hours.

There is also a large party barn where they featured DJ's mixing and spinning mostly techno and house stuff, but many of the burners said that that was just about all they were hearing out at Burning Man, and were delighted to have the change of pace our little lounge offered.

The two busiest nights were Sunday and Monday (4th and 5th), and we were slammed! Mai Tais and Mohitos were the top sellers, and I gotta say, our Mai Tais were getting rave reviews! My mother and sister inlaw kept the troops fed with home made pizza and enchilada plates, and were kind enough to stay open almost as late as us to make sure anyone and everyone had a chance to eat. Many of the attendees had never heard of any of the drinks on our menu,
but after one,, they were back for multiple re-fills. Where else can you get a quality Mai Tai in the middle of the desert for 3 bucks!! In the mornings we would head over to the kitchen for our coffee and home made (gigantic) cinnamon rolls, and find people anxiously waiting for Bloody Marys and more music. We ended up running from 10am to approx 2am depending on the demand. It was a lot of hard work and long hours, and if I hadn't had access to all that Rum, I may not have been able to keep it up. At least not with smile on my face!

The trip was a booming success. The road weary travelers really appreciated and responded to our, dare I say, "Oasis" in the Oregon outback, and many begged us to bring our set up out to Burning Man next year. I can't say that everyone "got" the whole Tiki thing, but alot of them did, and that made it worth it. I even sold a couple of my spitting Tiki Fountains.

Our mission to spread the good news of Tiki to the yet un-enlightened will continue, as we prepare for another Enchanted Tiki Night at the Drift Inn in Yachats OR, which will be leading up to the Yachats annual Mushroom Festival,
where we will help put on the big fund raising dinner theatre in mid October - this years theme being... you guessed it, TIKI !!

Cheers!

TikisbySeamus.com

[ Edited by: seamus 2005-09-12 12:27 ]

Mighty cool stuff. Sounds like a most interesting mixture of social scenes. I'm in a rural, non-tikified area too and your exploits are pretty inspiring.

Pictures!

hmmm, I will be going to an Oregon event next year. This one or the crawl.

Trust me JT, do the crawl. It'll be good to have you there.

OK, here's some pic's. I always kick myself after an event for not getting better shots, but this time I have an excuse. Whenever the place was crowded, and boy howdy did it get crowded, I was busy slinging cocktails! Still wish I'd gotten a few more. Anyways, here's the best of them.

What'll it be mack?

The beach, fire pit, and bar.

Dusk.

Lit up at night.

Jauna hard at work.

Bloody Mary Morning with sister Darcy.

Fountains at night.

Wall of Masks.

My amazing and beautiful mother inlaw Diana, in her outdoor kitchen.

More Tiki fountains.

The bar.

That's all folks.

Nice pics, thanks. I'll be up next year braddah.

JT it will be nice to see you in P-town next year. BIG plans for the crawl next summer are a foot.

And Mr. Seamus - I barely recognize you in the first pic without the Greek Fishermans hat on! Hey - did you have your event at the coast this year? Please let the Portland Ohana know when it happens - we are always up for a road trip! AND Let us know if you need help in the desert next year!!! Looks like lots of hard work but fun!

thats fantastic Seamus! all the tikis look like they belong there.. on the beach you created!!

three dollar mai tais? oh yah!

I wear many hats, but a Greek fishermans cap is not one of them!
If we do this again next year, I will definitely give advanced notice for folks who may want to come.

We're meeting tonight with the Mushroom Festival committee to get things rolling. The festival is in Yachats (approx 22 miles south of Newport)on Oct 14,15,and 16th. I think Sat the 15th is the night of the Tiki themed dinner theatre.
I'll start a new thread for it once I have all the info.

Dogbytes,, we're coming to Seattle next weekend to deliver a couple of fountains. Hope to see you guys.