Oregon – TooBusyForWork

Ray Benson Sno-Park (again)

Oregon has a number of Sno-Parks designed for cross country skiing and snowmobiling, even dogsledding! Some are open for other uses in the summer. Ray Benson is very popular with both the OHV crowd and the water sports crowds who can’t get a reservation at the nearby lakes. We arrived on Thursday afternoon, and it was beautiful. Here is the view from under our awning.You can barely see the Hoodoo Ski Area to the right.

And there were butterflies! Thousands and thousands of California Tortoiseshell butterflies had recently hatched, and they were busy feeding, or at least according to Oregon websites. The first picture is of a few hundred hanging out in a damp tire track. The video is from under my awning again. Click it to watch in full screen mode.

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Friday we took a 24 mile RZR trip. I must say I am not impressed with Oregon as a UTV location. The rules are onerous; for example, a narrow UTV like ours (50” wide) is allowed on ATV (50”) trails in other states, but not in OR. No driving even on many USFS double digit numbered roads is another example. And then the riders! Very poor trail behavior – driving too fast, blasting around blind turns, etc. We enjoyed the ride, but decided that would be it in Oregon. I will give you a couple of pictures and a video though. The video was taken on the way to the top of Cache Mountain where there used to be an old USFS fire watch tour. Of course it was burned by vandals a number of years ago.😢

Burn scars still have beauty with Mt. Washington behind them

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Since we had plenty of water and the RZR was SO dirty, Kevin used his handy dandy electric power washer on it. This was the real deal job – he completely unloaded everything and washed it all. Sorry for the fuzzy picture.

We take a lot of gear with us since we ride by ourselves a lot. Extra gas, extra water, food, clothing, repair kit and tools, an InReach emergency notification system, even gear to stay the night if we get stuck. Once a Girl Scout, always a Girl Scout!

Saturday we decided to join the crowds sightseeing, but in the pickup. I didn’t take many pictures, but we had a nice ride. We drove through a bunch of heavily forested areas before reaching the Columbia River. We drove along it quite a ways, and we tried to see some waterfalls, but it was not to be. It is prime tourist season, and everything was so crowded we didn’t get to see the falls. I did get one drive-by photo, but that was it. Note to self: Stay away from popular tourist areas on absolutely beautiful Saturdays! We had done the waterfall drive a few years back though, so it wasn’t a critical miss.

To summarize about the Sno-Park, it was fine until Friday when multiple large groups of people came in. The groups were noisy by themselves, and then the OHVs they brought with them were worse. I wouldn’t have minded noise before 9 or 10pm, but we had motorcycles roaring until 11pm on Friday and a generator that ran until well after midnight. There was also a lot of yelling from the groups. It wasn’t like this the last time we were here, probably because the weather was so hot. This weekend the highs were 80 or less, so no need for AC. Yet another lesson learned.

We packed up this morning and drove to Burns, OR where we are spending the night at a small place called Cindi’s RV Park. It has 6 sites, FHU, and costs the princely sum of $35! We are catching up on laundry and some cleaning. We have pretty much planned the rest of the trip until we go to the ayatollah Park UTV Rally beginning 13 August. More on that as it happens.

True Topper install then a week on the Oregon coast

We left Tillamook to get an upgrade done to the motorhome. We decided to add True Toppers to the rig. They replace the slide toppers with a unique method to clear off the slide tops as they come in. No more noisy slide toppers! We spent Sunday 20 July until the morning of 23 July in their yard and shop. It took more than 2 days to do the work as it is quite extensive. It also required the awning be moved down a few inches which was surprisingly difficult. The shop did a really good job, and I am looking forward to getting some serious wind to see how it works. Astonishingly it has been remarkably calm ever since!

We then decided to head to the Oregon coast to get out of the awful heat. The temps were mostly in the mid 60s for highs and low 50s at night – lovely! We stayed at the Florence Elks Lodge downtown for convenience. One day we headed north on the coast driving to Newport. We had lunch at a fabulous place called South Beach Fish Market. I had the most fabulous halibut and chips I have ever had! Highly recommend!

Make sure you turn the sound up for the videos. I love the sound of the ocean.

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I love the way the fog is climbing the mountain in this shot.

And you can’t see the rocky shores of Oregon without seeing a lighthouse (or two).

The north coast is very rocky. We were there at nearly low tide plus the swells were quite low, so some of the splashing you normally get along the rocks wasn’t very visible this trip. We did get to see some of the standard sights including some sea lions sunning themselves plus some others fishing off the shore.

Another trip we took was south. Around Florence the coast is sand dunes. They are everywhere! Behind the shops, trying to overcome the side streets, everywhere! It is a really popular area for dune riding on ATVs, motorcycles, and UTVs. Kind of makes sense since this is the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area.

A picture taken looking south toward Florence

I am a fan of the little donuts they were selling in the parking lot

One of the things we learned is that the county park at Winchester Bay has all kinds of fabulous camping available. There are a large number of dry camping sites that are non-reservation. I think we will definitely stay there the next time we come to the area. We spent all kinds of time in the area, and we saw another lighthouse!

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And I finally finished my Christmas quilt top. My kids bought me a fat quarter bundle of Christmas fabrics for my birthday in November. As said they had noted I didn’t have a Christmas quilt, and decided I needed one. They were right! I worked on it off and on during our winter trip, but I managed to finish it this week. I will press it at home with the Laura Star steam pressing system. It is the best way to get flat seams, and I have totally gotten spoiled with it.

Made with fat quarter bundle from my kids

I also finished the June and July Kona Block of the Month kits. I was remarkably late with this, but I really do like this blocks. They are all big blocks with lots of pieces. You can make them with just half square triangles, but the enjoyable part is trying to figure out how to use different block types to minimize seams. For example, there are a lot of flying geese you can use instead of two HSTs. Now I just have get ready for the August block in a few days. And I am much happier with the July and later color scheme. Each month there are 40+ squares of a specific color palette. We choose from the package each month, and the others will be used for borders and sashing. I am also signed up for a class on various border options that can be used for this class quilt or other quilts.

After the joys of the coast we moved to Springfield, just outside Eugene. Again, we are staying at an Elks Lodge here, a place we have stayed before. Still hot here, but there is supposed to be cooling down in the next few days. I also got to visit a quilt shop in Springfield, Jean Marie Fabrics. Lovely collection of fabrics in a very crowded shop. I am beginning to collect fabrics for the oven mitt class I am doing at the Rocky Mountain Motorhome Association rally in October. I need 1/2 yard for each kit that will make 2 oven mitts. I found a fabulous fabric with red, yellow, and green chilis on it, plus another with miscellaneous produce on it. Those are the types popular for kitchen stuff.

We will stay here until Thursday morning when we will head back to the Ray Benson Sno-Play area. This time I sure hope it is cool enough to do some UTV riding! It was too hot the last time we were there, and I wasn’t feeling too well. I am still having a bit of incision drainage which is problematic, but it is getting much better.

Tillamook Monday through Friday

The trip from Sisters to Tillamook was about the worse driving I have ever had todo on the motorhome! Lots of very narrow lanes winding through the forest at a speed of 35-40 mph for over 100 miles. Ugh. We are definitely going back that general direction a different way! By the time we got to the Elks campground , I was exhausted. It took quite a bit for me to recover, so we decided to only do a bit of sightseeing. We went north a bit to Garbaldi to take the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad between Garibaldi and Rockaway Beach. It was only 10 miles up and back with a short break in Rockaway Beach, but it was enjoyable and relaxing.

A brief video out the window.

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The train was crowded since this was prime tourist season. The open car was completely full, but we wanted a more comfortable seat, so this is the car.

Not the engine that moves, but a pretty one for pictures.

And of course there was definitely some more sightseeing from the road.

On Wednesday we went to the Tillamook Air Museum. What a fabulous place, a pretty unexpected diamond. The museum is in an old blimp hanger from WWII, and it is amazingly huge. Eight full sized blimps could fit inside. Astonishingly it was built almost completely of wood since metal was precious during the war. It was full of all kinds of stuff besides just airplanes. They had a big collection of cockpit training mockups.

A closer view of one of the training modules

They had some old WWII items of course.

Did I tell you think is BIG??

On of the other surprises was a huge selection of military models . I have never seen such a fabulous collection. There were models of specific battles, examples of all kinds of bases and posts, and included lots of other forces in addition to just US forces, both enemy and ally.

Turns out I got a complication from the breast surgery after the trip to the museum, and we ended up going to the Tillamook ER. Nice people, but it was interesting that pretty much everything was done with paper instead of computers. Luckily they used Epic, the medical record program the rest of my medical folks use so it was easy for them to get my data. I just needed a minor procedure, and we were out in less than 3 hours. I called my surgeon on Thursday morning, and he said just follow the ER instructions. It was irritating, but not serious.

Thursday we decided to take a drive since I didn’t want to do much. You just can’t beat the Oregon coast. We drove south from Tillamook to Newport taking our time. We stopped by a number of state beaches and took about four hours to drive the short 60 miles. We had dinner at Georgie’s Bayside Restaurant, a lovely upscale place. It was well worth the money.

Today we decided to just hang around the motorhome since I wasn’t feeling well. Kevin suggested we go to Rockaway Beach to get a Pronto Pup, a famous corn dog place. Yup, it was good! I don’t think I have had a corn dog for 2-3 years at least, but I really should have them more often.

I actually have been sewing some. I finished the June block of the month from Kona, and I am almost finished with the July one. I will post both when I get the second done.

Sisters, OR

We had been to Sisters before, but not during quilt week. Wow, is it busy! Here is the fabulous boondock site we found though.

Maybe a half mile from the high school where the classes were held.

My first class on Monday was on quilting with lines. We started with straight lines, then slightly curved lines, then very curved lines, then … I guess you get the idea. I enjoyed the class a lot. It was well organized. My second class was on Tuesday and was for piecing. We used a kit that had a beautifully printed panel showing the Sisters Quilt Show design for this year. The kit also had fabric for lovely little star blocks which is what we really worked on. It used a “Tri Recs” ruler, and what seamed simple was actually pretty slow at the start! I finally got a rhythm established and could do a star in about 25 minutes, having pre-cut all the pieces. My brain was so exhausted by 2:30 on Tuesday I had Kevin come to pick me up early! Recommendation: Plan on having a day to recover between classes. They are so chock full of information it is exhausting!

The kit fabrics are gorgeous. The blocks (unpressed in this photo) are 6 1/2”, so each of this little star points are tiny! And they definitely have a right and left side.

Wednesday and Thursday we just did errands and had friends out for lunch which was great fun (the friends, not the errands!). On Friday we drove the McKenzie Scienic Byway. Absolute stunner, but definitely for the truck, not them motorhome. Lots of ups and down, lots of tight curves. The size limit is 35’, and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near that size limit to drive it! Here are some pictures from our drive with captions.

Lots and lots of lava! Under these boulders is a solid river of lava

The lichen was a brilliant green. Excuse the picture quality.

This is the old Santiam Pass Toll Road. Can you imagine traversing the lava fields in a wagon?

This small “windows” highlight various points of interest

One of the highlights was the historic Fish Lake Remount Station. It has a long and storied history of many uses, the longest was as a Forest Service muleskinner location. Mules were the primary way to get goods into and out of the remote locations where rangers were stationed. The site was also the summer quarters for the Head Forest Ranger for a number of years. Some of the buildings are maintained by the “Friends of Fish Lake” organization including the one below.

“Caulked boots” means boots with spikes for foresters/loggers climbing trees

Even the old dinner ware was marked with the Forest Service logo.

We had lunch at Clear Lake Resort operated by a USFS concessionaire. The food was good, and the lake was very popular. It is not the headwaters of the McKenzie River after a lava eruption damed the ancestral McKenzie. Deep and cold.

On Saturday we went to the legendary Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show. We got downtown by about 7:30, and quilts were still being hung. There were over a thousand! We wandered around a couple of hours and saw hundreds before it started getting too hot for us. But wow, what a show! This is just a small sampling

Very traditional postage stamp quilt (each block is 1”)

A young boy made this cute Highland cow quilt

The creator of this stunner was standing by the quilt as we came up.

And of course there were paper pieced beauties

At 9:30 as we left, people were just beginning to throng, and I am sure it quadrupled in size before it finished this afternoon.

And I would be totally remiss if I didn’t comment on the town of Sisters. What a lovely place! There are flowers everywhere, and it is a tourist town with beautiful flowers, decent parking, and very few tshirt shops! Instead there are nice little restaurants, art galleries, etc.

We have gotten tired of the heat in Sisters though, so after we went to the show for a few hours, we packed up and went 22 miles away to the Ray Benson Sno-Park. Basically there are just a few huge parking lots you can stay in. It might sound bad, but the temperatures are at least 10 degrees cooler than Sisters, and the view out my front door isn’t bad! There is no one else staying in the lot we are in, and the place is very quiet.

We will stay here until Monday morning when we head into an Elk’s Lodge in Tillamook. The weather there is nice and cool, and it will be a welcome relief.

RZR riding over the Independence Day holiday

We arrived in Crescent at the Big Pines RV Park. Nice place. It is older and obviously family run. The sites are spotless, nicely separated (for an RV park), and they have their own entrance to the UTV trails in the area! It was obvious who was here from the Central Oregon club, and we managed to connect with one of the group’s leaders easily. On the 4th, we went on a group ride to Ft. Rock and back. It was 115 miles (!!!) on mostly gravel roads ridden at pretty high speeds. We took a long lunch break at a bar and grill in town, and then a thunderstorm came in. We just put on ponchos to keep our legs dry and took off on a fast, more direct route to the campground. I only got a few pictures because my GoPro got knocked down and I didn’t notice it until we finished the trip! But here is the little bit I did get.

The first one shows what most of the roads were like – wide graded gravel with minimal bumps.

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And this is the result of passing too close to a tree! The GoPro stayed attached, but it decided to point straight up to the sky. Nice view of the clouds though LOL!

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While the club had nice people, it just isn’t our type of riding. We decided to head out on our own on Saturday. We ended up riding about 60 miles to the town of Odette and had lunch at Manley’s Restaurant. Very nice burgers! Here are some pictures along the way.

And then we got to this:

BTW, I have no idea why this video is in a totally different format than the others! But take a look at just how narrow the trail got to be. Good thing we had a narrow rig!

One of the interesting sites we saw on the way back was this cinder mine. Many of the roads in the National Forest are improved using this red cinder. There were lots of volcanic escarpments and lava flows in the area.

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We took off for Sisters, OR this morning. I had reserved a 50’ site at Cold Springs Campground (USFS), but when Kevin took the truck over to check it out, we couldn’t have gotten in the site due to trees on the entrance. Sigh. We found a boondock site even closer to town though, so I am not too worried. It is going to be in the mid-90s the first part of the week, so having the ability to turn on the generator as much as we want for AC is not a bad trade off.

This afternoon I picked up my credentials for the classes I will be taking this week, and we had dinner at a Himalayan restaurant called High Camp Taphouse. The food was well flavored, but I was expecting a bit spicier. We didn’t regret the stop though.

Tomorrow morning I start classes. We will be here until the Monday after the quilt show. We plan on visiting Bend for some truck work and shopping, plus we will do some riding a few days.

In Oregon

My post-surgery exam showed everything was good, so we headed out of Iowa on Wednesday morning. First night we stayed at Lake Manawa State Park just inside the Iowa border with Nebraska. It is an old oxbow lake with a pretty new campground we have stayed in before. Moderately priced with widely separated sites, it was a good overnight stop. Thursday night we stayed in the Cabela’s campground in Sydney, NE. It is still too hot to think about going without air conditioning! But by Friday early afternoon we were in Wyoming at the USFS Vedauwoo Recreation Area. This is another favorite spot, and we spent two nights there. We even got the same campsite we had two years ago. Here’s a video showing our site.

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Here is a video from the RZR showing what the dispersed camping area is like. Note this is the weekend before the Independence Day holiday, so it was already getting crowded.

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There were lots of flowers, but almost all of my pictures came out blurry. Obviously I wasn’t holding still well enough. I did get a nice picture of wild roses and a cute little ground squirrel that posed for me.

We drove through a number of areas that had been logged, and the resulting meadows were a riot of color. I wish my little iPhone could capture the colors better.

We crossed a little stream on one of our adventures, and the water looked lovely and refreshing. There was a small bridge designed for UTVs to cross, and we paused to take a nice look.

Most of the times our maps don’t let us down, but this time they did! We had quite an adventure running out of trails that were posted open, and even losing one trail completely due to lack of use. Oh well, the RZR backs up pretty easily!

After two nights at Vedauwoo, we continued down I-80 to the Mirror Lake Highway (WY/UT 150) south of Evanston, WY. Thirty miles from the interstate we stayed at a large dispersed area where cross country skiers start their winter treks. It is known as the “Yurt” because the state puts up a big yurt here in snow season. We stayed two nights here too, meeting up with old friends from the RVForum.net who happened to be camping 30 miles away in a USFS campground. Steve made steaks and potatoes on the grill, and we had garlic bread and a Cesear salad to go with it. I made a nice peach cobbler for dessert, so we were all pretty stuffed.

We spent Tuesday night at the Elks Lodge in Mountain Home, ID. Nice people at the bar, and the camp area was very quiet. Wednesday we spent at the Fairgrounds in John Day, OR. We had reserved a site that was plenty long for us, but it was overhung with very low branches so we didn’t fit. Kevin found a camp host who got us moved to another site where the roof wouldn’t be rubbing branches. Starlink was pretty awful though due to the trees. Oh how spoiled we have become with fast internet (just about) everywhere!

Tonight we had landed for the holiday weekend at Big Pines RV Park just south of Crescent, OR. The Central Oregon SXS Club is having some group rides, and we are going to join them. It seems like they do more gravel roads than trails, but the country is pretty so we will survive. It is raining now, and a big thunderstorm is just barely passing us by (so far). It ought to help keep the dust down tomorrow!

Florence, OR and Coos Bay for DRVC rally

We did find two nights at the second Elk’s Club in town, so we stayed in Florence a total of four days. That gave us some time for sightseeing in the area.

This is actually the way I know I am getting near the coast – moss everywhere on the trees! Even the stones grow heavy lichen/moss layers in this humidity and mild climate.

One of my favorite spots is Thor’s Well. It is a circular depression that fills with water from the waves, then the water bursts up before disappearing completely. The picture below shows it in the center of the shoreline.

There is a pretty solid wind that comes in from the Pacific that has sculpted these streets so they are tilted, not straight.

And then there is the marine layer that shows up most mornings.

And we saw a black bear! It was crossed the road without warning and we only caught a glimpse of it with our dash cam. This is a screen capture from a long distance away.

We then got to the rally, held at the Coos Bay Mill RV Park . It is associated with a casino, but the campground is right on the bay. This bulk cargo ship was headed farther inland to fill up with wood chips. The chips are transported to Asia and made into paper. You can see one tow/tender at the stern and another small one on the starboard bow.

A rally is always a busy time, so not really any pictures from that. We had a great time though! Very good technical presentations, fun at meals and games, and just an all-around good time getting to visit with old friends and make some new ones. We left this morning (Friday, 9 August), and decided to stay closer to the coast while we could. We find a decent spot at the downtown Elks Lodge in Florence again. It is noisy from traffic, but the sites are adequate with water and electricity. We will fill up our fresh water tank before we leave Sunday morning, and we have identified a few spots to dump the waste tanks before we get to Redmond since the Expo Center doesn’t have a dump station.

I also did get a bunch more kits cut out for my class so I will have a good collection for the students to choose from. Now I have to get serious with writing the instructions out and doing a partial construction one.

My next post will probably be from Redmond next week unless something cool happens unexpectedly.

Antelope Island views then north

I forgot to post any pictures from Antelope Island, so here you go! The bison herd on Antelope Island is famous. The bulls were looking pretty beat up since mating season was just finishing.

And no set of pictures for Antelope Island is complete without a gorgeous sunset view. The sunset was just orange/red from the smoke haze. Beautiful, but it makes it tough to breathe.

We did get to Island Park, ID and found a great boondocking site on Sunday, 21 July. We stayed there through Thursday night. We obviously took some RZR rides, but we also enjoyed meeting some friends who were work camping in the area, one in West Yellowstone and one at Henry’s Lake State Park. We discovered the osprey nest on a dead end trail we took by accident. Nice accident! There were two young birds. When I snapped this picture (from a long way away!), one adult bird had just flown off to get more food for the hungry teens.

There was quite a bit of water, and we saw lots of lilies.

We also took one day into Yellowstone. We got into the park by 7:00 am. It was cool enough some of the animals like these elk were still close to the road. The other advantage of early, cool mornings is the steam rising from the thermal features is much more visible.

These three elk were just as we got into the park

We saw a number of the primary animals – bison, bald eagle, osprey, elk, deer, and a fat, happy black bear.

We spent Friday, 26 July, at the Y Knot Winery campground, Glenn’s Ferry, ID. It was still smoky, something that had been increasing since the last couple of days at Island Park. The next day was a killer. We had reservations in Burns, OR, but the AQI was over 600! A lot of eastern Oregon seems to be on fire, and there was a big one just outside Burns. The haze was thick, and the air smelled of smoke. We just kept going until we got to Bend, OR where we stopped at an Elks Lodge again. The drive was mostly 2 lane roads with lots of curves. I was tired when we got set up!

The next day wasn’t any better, but we wanted to keep heading west to get out of the smoke. We drove from Bend to Springfield, OR, just outside Eugene, OR. I had a UPS delivery sent there, and I needed to pick it up before our chapter rally. The road from 5 miles south of Sisters pretty much all the way to Springfield was the slowest I have driven the motorhome. It was only 120 miles, but it took over 4 hours. The traffic was very heavy, there was lots of construction, and the mountain roads very winding. Ugh. We hadn’t started until 10:30, because we thought it wouldn’t take long. I was awfully tired when we finally got to the Elks Lodge where we stopped for the night. We have definitely gotten a lot out of our Elk’s Lodge membership! It is nice to have a safe spot to pull into while traveling. Many are dry camping for $5-$10 which is just fine for us. Some have electricity which is nice on hot days, and those are $20-$30 a night, still worthwhile.

I was so tired of the bad air quality, so we headed for the coast instead of staying in Springfield a few days like we had intended. We are currently at the Elk’s Lodge campground in Florence, OR 1 mile off Hwy 101. Beautiful place for $35 a night with electricity and water. We could only get 2 nights here, but they also have dry camping where we hope to spend the next nights before our FMCA rally in Coos Bay. I intend on hitting the local fabric shop for some more fat quarters and interfacing for class samples. I am teaching a class on collapsable fabric storage containers, and it is easier to show students some of the steps than describe them. I have the kits cut for the students, but I will partially make some more as examples.

Now to clean up!

Motorhome updates and the High Desert Museum

We were just lazily getting around on Friday, taking our time on a cold morning. We did exciting things like some laundry, and then we got our the tape measure again to see how different motorhome furniture would fit in the coach. We currently have one recliner and a huge sofa, and we really want two recliners and a much smaller sofa. We had gone to Countryside Interiors, a big RV furniture company, a few weeks back, and we came away with possibilities and a bunch of spec for sizes. We talked to some remodeling folks in Red Bay, AL, and we just couldn’t get the timing right to order and install the things we want. So we finally decided what models of furniture we want, and we decided to go back to Countryside to order it. The complication was it was 2 1/2 hours away over Santiam pass! We did it though, and we will get the furniture installed when we are at Quartzsite, AZ this winter. I am really excited! We would be able to sell our current furniture fairly easily there too. Then in April we will go to Alabama and Mississippi to get updated carpeting done (what we have now is really inexpensive and it spots dreadfully) plus some cabinet work including a television elevator installed. Yeah! We will then be comfortable for our hopes for trip to Alaska next summer.

Saturday we went to the High Desert Museum south of Bend. What an outstanding place! We started with the exterior exhibits which include a lot of native plants, but the high point for us was a turn of the 19th century farmhouse and sawmill. The interpreters were fully in character, and the entire thing was fantastic.

Sheep were everywhere in the area, so of course they had a sheepherder’s wagon

World War I meant labor shortages, so Caterpillar tractors came into use by “Cat skinners” similar to mule skinners

The sawmill was only used a few times a year for the family and neighbors.

And I do think the chickens ruled the roost

We spent well over an hour visiting the outside exhibits before coming into the indoor exhibits. I don’t have many pictures of them because they keep lighting low to protect artifacts, therefore no flash photography. I did get a picture of some of the animals though.

There was a heat lamp right above where this guy was lying

There were lots of other animals too, but too many people around them to get good pictures. The interpretative exhibits were phenomenal. The Native American one was unique in my experience. It wasn’t oriented toward history alone, but how natives had incorporated their history and culture with that of the Europeans. It was amazing. Summary: if anyone is in the Bend area, make sure you take a few hours to go to this museum.

Today we are just hanging around and doing some repairs and housework. We are leaving tomorrow morning, making our way to Boise for a few days before heading to Salt Lake City. We will see how far we get.

Cascade Scenic Byway

We woke up to nice temperatures (mid 50s), but that was the best part of the day. A storm front is moving in, and temperatures are going to get much colder over the next few days. We figured we had better get moving on our next scenic drive. The problem was there were so many clouds we couldn’t see a lot! We drove right by Mt. Bachelor, and all I could see was the bottom of one chair lift. Sigh. There was some natural snow left from last week’s storm in the shady spots, and the ski resort was obviously making snow too.

We did enjoy one detour on the route. We went to the historic Elk Lake Guard Station from 1929. It is owned by the Forest Service and serves as an interpretive center these days. Sadly it was closed for the season, but we took the old road around Elk Lake anyway.

The big thing today was definitely lava. There were lots of cinder cones and lava fields everywhere, either huge flows or fingers that snuck in here and there.

We do some productive things in Bend like going to the grocery store and pharmacy. Great fun /sarcasm. But it has to be done. We have been having bad luck with grocery stores, but I picked up some good ground beef and some salmon. I made meat loaves in individual silicone cupcake holders tonight. The pound of hamburger made 10 cupcakes. I used the combo setting on my convection/microwave to cook 5 of them, and they were yummy. I am freezing the remainder for a later meal. Tomorrow night I will bake the salmon. I have discovered I am much better with baked salmon that I ever was cooking it in a pan or on a grill. Even Kevin, not fond of most fish, likes it baked.

It is going to be cold enough tonight (25 degrees) that Kevin put the water and waste hoses away in the bay. Those freeze easily since they are narrow. The motorhome itself will be fine to 25 without doing anything else since the wet bay is heated by the same furnace that is used in the living space. It never gets as warm since it is only one vent, but is does fine with a low in the mid 20s. However it will be much colder the next two nights (15 and 19) so he also put an incandescent trouble light in the wet bay. We keep a remote thermometer in there to monitor, and that should be enough to keep the water flowing. The daytime highs will be 50 or above, so that helps too.

I think we are just staying close tomorrow. Hopefully I can get a quilt cut out. Oh, and I got a request for some toys from my daughter, so I may do some there too. It might even let my back recover some. It has really been killing me since I got a bad back spasm a week or so ago.