More Little “Adventures” (09-20-17)

We left off in Bend Oregon. We have almost a week until the alignment so there was no rush to leave Bend.

We hiked for a few miles along the Deschutes River in nearby Newberry National Volcanic Monument.










We could have hiked up Lava Butte, but we drove, instead. Since there is limited parking, they give you  a timed ticket and you can only stay for a half hour. That was plenty of time.  You can still see the smoke in the air.









Lava, Lava, everywhere.

 This particular lava flow is a little unique. It contains over 70% silica, which means much of its content is glass. It’s very sharp and there are warnings about not letting dogs on the trail.

How sharp it it?  Obsidian blades can be sharpened at the molecular level, making them sharper than a steel scalpel.

More lava- in the shape of a tube, this time:

Lava River Cave is about a mile long and huge inside. It felt like a tunnel and it even goes under the highway.

Its quite cold, so you need to wear a fairly heavy coat to be comfortable. You also have to certify that none of your clothing or equipment has been in a cave in the last 10 years. White Nose Syndrome is killing millions of bats and can be carried on clothing from one cave to another.

It’s also very dark and they recommend you bring two sources of light. 

It wasn’t all that fun to explore, and frankly was a little boring, so we didn’t walk the whole mile.

Feeling done with lava, we moved from Bend down to Emigrant Lake, near Ashland Oregon.

Paul has been to Ashland many times. They are known for their Shakespearian plays, and on any given day, there will be 3-4 options of plays to see. Except on Mondays. I guess they are all closed on Monday.  So we arrived in time to see a play on Sunday.

We chose to see Shakespeare in Love, which wasn’t written by Shakespeare, but is about his life. It was fun. Before the play we meandered along the creek front, checking out all the stores and restaurants.

The whole downtown area is very walkable, with many restaurants and a huge park.  There are several water fountains that are always flowing- they contain Lithia water, which is very high in mineral content.  So high, in fact, that the water tastes disgusting.

We were both very happy with the change in the weather. It went from shorts weather to soup weather in a matter of days.  We were thrilled to finally be able to have a campfire!

We left the Ashland area last Tuesday, headed for Grants Pass, OR where we were supposed to get the axles aligned.  Yep, supposed to…..

Having arrived a day early, Paul met with the technicians who were going to do the alignment.  We got bad news and good news.  The bad news was that they didn’t have the equipment to align our axles properly.  The good news was that after looking at pictures of the old tires, showing the (lack of) wear, they said we couldn’t ask for much better, and we didn’t need an alignment. 

 Saved us a few hundred bucks and allowed us to move on early to our next adventure- Fresno, CA, home to Paul’s fraternity brothers.

Here birdie birdie!

Lots of Little Adventures (09-16-17)

Once we had our appointments set up to get the tires, and the alignment, we looked around for things to do to fill in the time while we waited.

Malheur National Wildlife Refuge was on our travel route, so we stopped in the nearby town of Princeton to check it out.

As part of the Pacific Flyway, the refuge offers sanctuary to hundreds of species of  migrating and nesting birds. Unfortunately, this isn’t really the time of year to see them, so we were mostly out of luck.  We did see some egrets while touring a historic sod house.

We had booked two nights in this small, and very “out of the way” RV park and our one full day there was spent driving.  We elected to drive the scenic byway into the Steens Mountains.

We started getting a little resigned to boredom, since the first hour or so of the drive was not exactly exciting.  But then the scenery started to change. We first came upon Kiger Gorge.  The landscape here was carved by glaciers, many years ago.







We met, and chatted with, a fellow traveler, as we enjoyed the cool air and the beautiful scenery. I was also on the lookout for wildlife.  Golden eagles live here, as well as the Kiger Mustangs.









At 9700 feet, this is the highest road in Oregon.  Along the way, there were many places where we could get out and stretch our legs, or even hike a mile or two.

I never did see a Golden Eagle, but we saw quite a few hawks…and we are pretty sure the horses we saw were Kiger Mustangs.

Kiger Mustangs are a strain of horse  that was discovered here in the 1970s during a round up of other herds.  It is believed that these particular horses are the closest descendants of the original Spanish herd that was brought over in the 17th century. They live here and are cared for by the BLM (Bureau of Land Management).





So, in the end we enjoyed the drive, although getting down off the mountain wasn’t my idea of fun. We did arrive back at the RV park in time to have a drink in the saloon before dinner. This RV Park is in the middle of nowhere, but it does have a restaurant, bar, store, and gas station.

Our next stop along the way was another “town” in the middle of nowhere- Christmas Valley. Smoke is the topic of conversation everywhere we go, and it sure is doing some strange things to the sky.

There are several things to explore in this area. The first thing we did was find Crack In The Ground. This is a 2 mile long volcanic fissure. In some places it is just 5-15 deep, but other areas can be more than 70 ft deep.














Part of the time we could hike down inside it, and part of the time we hiked along side, looking down into it. And, there were times when Paul was down inside, and I elected to stay topside (although the picture was obviously taken when I was inside).

After a couple of hours, we were done, and headed down the “road”.  We were going to a fire lookout that is open to the public.  Once there, we spent an hour talking to the guy working there.  He was interesting, but after about an hour, he must have felt like we were old friends, because he started sharing some semi-bizarre theories of his.  Time to leave.

We had a visit to Derrick Cave on our agenda but the fire guy told us there was a collapse in it a few days ago, so that took it off our bucket list.  Instead we headed to Ice Cave. This cave breathes a fair amount, and just standing next to it felt like someone had turned on the air conditioner- very nice, since it was 90* outside.  The cave temperature is a cool 42*.  The opening was a little small for someone with claustrophobia, so Paul went down on his own.  He just peeked his head in and around the corner.

Moving on from there, our next stop was Bend, OR where we were getting new tires put on the trailer.   We had ordered the tires in advance and checked to see that they were in.  We did a drive by the day before, because being a city, we don’t always trust someone who says “No problem, we have plenty of room for your trailer!”

The guys were very impressed that we could “float” the trailer- using our jacks to lift all 4 tires off the ground at the same time- it saved them some time, and us too.

After 6 years and 49,857 miles, we have brand spanking new Michelins on the trailer. Now we just have to hang hang around until its time for the alignment, in Grants Pass, OR.

But Paul is out there!!!!!!

Oregon……or not. (09-15-17)

2 million acres are on fire in the western states.

We knew the fires were getting worse, so as soon as we got out of the “woods”, we started investigating. We spent a few days in the Boise area, and have become very familiar with websites that show the location of active wildfires.

Of course, just looking up to the sky gave us our first hint. I wish those were clouds blocking the sun.

We definitely weren’t roughing it in this RV park- its has a nice pool and hot tub, and we made use of both while we re-thought our game plan. Didn’t bother to get pictures though, so I stole one of theirs.

Also on the agenda was a visit to the archives ( we didn’t learn much) and a trip to downtown Boise where we had a lovely lunch sitting on the patio of the Bardenay Restaurant.



It was on a quiet little street, just across the way from the Basque Museum. I didn’t know much about the Basque, and this museum was quite good. I sort of knew where they were from, between Spain and France, but they have been there since before there even was a border between the two countries.


Many Basque emigrated due to a long held tradition that passes  the family property down to just one child- not always the oldest child, and not always a male.




After looking at the fire situation we have decided not to venture too far into Oregon, but we still have things we need to do here. We need new tires for the trailer and Oregon has no sales tax, so we have ordered tires from Discount Tire in Bend Oregon, and have scheduled an axle alignment in Grants Pass Oregon, for Sept 20.

  In the meantime, we will just tool around exploring and hiking a little.

Short post, but  very soon I will start a new one with the “meandering” stuff.

Sawtooth Mountains (09-06-17)

Full Time or Long Time RVers understand that holiday weekends can present a bit of a challenge. 



Paul and I aren’t big on making reservations, so we needed to find a place to go for Labor Day weekend. We decided to pretty much hide in the woods. You can barely see our rig, nestled in the trees.

We were on Federal land, where the camping is dispersed and free. We had pre-selected a few potential spots on Google maps and ended up with a pretty good one. Our only real issue is that our cell phone service and internet were practically nonexistent.

With all the wildfires, there was also a ban on campfires so that was disappointing too. 

Our game plan was pretty simple.  Hang out, and hike.  The hike I was looking forward to most was the one to Sawtooth Lake.  It’s 10 miles round trip, with 1700 ft of elevation gain.

Rather than building up to it by hiking shorter trails first, we decided to go for the gusto and set out the next morning.

To my intense chagrin, I realized almost right away that I had forgotten my camera- so all the pictures from this hike were taken with my phone.  At least it has a decent camera too.



It wasn’t long before the views were amazing! The first lake we came to was Alpine Lake.
The higher we went, the more challenging the trail was to navigate.

I was surprised to see so much snow along the way, since the air temperature was in the high 80s.

We topped out at almost 9000 ft, so there were more times than I could count that I had to stop and catch my breath.

But it was worth it to keep going!

The lake was gorgeous!

Taking a break, we took off our shoes and cooled off in the water a bit.  Other people went swimming, and I half wish I had brought a suit.

Once we had refreshed ourselves, we were sort of ready for the trek back down the mountain.

Everywhere we looked, the views were amazing, and we both agreed it was one of our favorite hikes.


By the time we made it down, we were very glad we didn’t have even another half mile to go.  We were both done in. 

It was also late enough in the day that we decided to stop in one of the small towns and grab dinner on the way back, so we wouldn’t have to cook.




We recovered pretty well by the next day, although we weren’t interested in any hiking.  That worked out perfect, actually.

The nearby town of Ketchum was celebrating Wagon Days.

We arrived in town in time explore, and have lunch before the yearly parade. This is one of the longest parades in the country that includes nothing motorized.









There were a wide variety of non-motorized participants to see!












Apparently anything goes, as long as it has no motor!





























And for the finale, they asked the crowd to be quiet…..

And then came the 6 full sized wagons…..

Being pulled by a full, traditional, 20 mule team.  It was really cool to see- I couldn’t even fit it all into one picture.

This type of parade called for a unique clean up crew.  These guys seemed to be having quite a good time, and got some cheers from the crowd.

Afterwards we hung around a while at the street party, which included live music, more food, and cheap drinks.  Fun time!




We did do some other hiking before we left the area- nothing as memorable as Sawtooth Lake, but the hike to Titus Lake was kind of nice, at about 4 miles and 600 ft of elevation gain.







As soon as Labor Day was over, we were more than ready to get back in the land of signal. We needed to do some refiguring of our plans.

I mentioned wildfires- the picture on the left is what the area looked like when we arrived, and the picture on the right is what it looked like when we left. More on that in the next post.

And now, a word from our sponsor:

Hey! Who keeps moving the sun??