June 1, 2000
We're in the Bend, OR, area in a campground called Cascade Meadows. Since the park is laid out like a meadow with lots of grass, and the eastern side of the Cascade mountains dominates the horizon in that direction, the place is aptly named.
The lack of pictures from the High Desert Museum will indicate that while we had a pleasant visit for some 3 hours or so, there was nothing really worth the bandwidth. However, some of the other touristy things we did today sure were.
She may not be sitting on top of the world at 5020 feet, but I'm sure puffing! There are some beautiful peaks in the Cascade range in the background that have snow all over them.
As we were hiking (walking, actually) around the rim of the cinder cone, we could see the ranger station (behind the tree on the right) and our truck (behind the tree on the left) and I knew I was going to make it. I either gotta do more of this or less of it!!
We left here, went to the visitor center where we chatted with Robin who was interested in getting a job with the Service (Forest, Parks, whatever, she really didn't care) in Alaska, and we both suggested that spending an entire year there rather than just a month in the summer would be advisable. Grins all around.
From the visitor center we decided to tour the lava tube (cave) and I was a bit skeptical, but spent the $3 anyway. I got about 75 feet into the cave and decided to wait for Barb while she took the flashlight and went on without me. I don't do dark, cold, wet places very well, particularly when there's only one way out and there are people between me and it! I took a couple of pictures but they didn't come out well enough to display. The cave is actually pretty tame as far as caves go apparently. Tall ceiling and quite wide in most places. They rent lanterns that make the walk easier, and Barb hooked up with a couple who had one and used the flashlight to spot things the lantern didn't show very well.
During dinner, a fellow walked by with a couple of well trained (obedient) Shelties. One of them was colored like an Australian Shepard, and is apparently very rare. We're still not ready to take a pet traveling, but we sure do enjoy other peoples pets.
As I walked to the clubhouse where the phone connection is, a male blackbird has been yelling at me from the wires overhead. Yesterday I saw the female with a mouth full of "stuff", and after looking around a bit, Barb spotted the nest with 3 fuzzy heads sticking out. We walked on by, but thought it interesting that they'd choose a nesting sight about 6 feet off the ground in a tree surrounded by RV's. Maybe they built before people started using the campground.
Plans for tomorrow include making a post office run to pick up the bladder for our airbed that sprang a leak, and then checking out Marc & Claudia's place where we plan to spend Friday and Saturday nights. Should be fun. They were very helpful to us in getting our truck. They have a Freightliner with a custom bed that Marc did himself, and they are also the only other MDT (medium duty truck) that I've seen with a generator mounted in the bed. And their two scooters helped us figure out a way to do our mini-bikes. As is typical for most any Escapee, their willingness to help goes beyond any expectation. They gave us tips on everything from digital cameras to GPS's.
There's a chance that Ron and Barb Hofmeister will be there as well. Their two books are must reading for any wannabe fulltimer, and we heartily recommend them both. The first one is out of print, but can still be found in limited quantities. We got ours from Amazon.
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