7/4-5/2017 - On to Prineville

Tuesday - The 4th of July was sort of a non-event for our group.  Collins and Marilyn took the Upper Klamath Falls drive that we took last week, but the rest of us stayed close to camp and watched the activity at the campground and the fishermen on the river.  We (Collins, Marilyn, and us) did attend the Cowboy BBQ that we had seen posted in town, but that was almost a non-event as well.  The ran out of food, we got very small servings before they ran completely out, and only 2 people showed up with musical instruments.

But the weather was very nice, and we left before the mosquitose bothered us too much.  There was a very interesting pine tree behind us, worth a photo.

We stayed around until they started playing the music, not knowing what to expect.  This is similar to what is known as "pasture pickin'" in this part of the country.  This was a first-time event, and the hosts did not know what to expect.  I think they hoped for 20 people, and ended up with about 60.  But we did get a nice serving of cowboy blueberry cobbler.

The ranch owners here recently moved here from Durango, Colorado, with their trail horses, which were in the next pasture.  They had a couple over here by the cook-out, so they might have hoped to give some trail rides.  The property backs up to the national forest. 

This area where we are camped is under pretty tight fire restrictions so we didn't see any fireworks around, but after we went to bed we could hear them -- we assume they were down in Klamath Falls. 

Wednesday - Finally, we are moving on.  After 13 days here, we are heading north!  We left the campground, after dumping about 9:00 and stopped up at the truck stop to put a little air in one of our RV tires.  We were headed down the road by 9:20, but we only had to drive 148 miles. Along the way, we came past this mounted animal, I assume a bear, at the Hub City Crome shop.  We had seen this the other day after our drive through the Klamath Marsh. We arrived at Prineville about 12:50, but the office was closed for lunch until 1:00, so we had to wait a few minutes to check in. 

 Until we turned east at Redmond, we had fairly pleasant weather, and snow-capped mountains off to the left.  One that really stuck out we think might be Mt. Hood.  But we drove through Bend, which was a nice-looking town, bigger than we expected (population 80,000+) and skirted the edge of Redmond.  These were really our destination towns, but there were no campsites available because of the Quilt Show this weekend, so we had to drive 17 miles east to Prineville.  As we came down a big hill into town, we caught a glimpse of a pretty golf course, and a pretty town, with quite a bit of industry. 

This is a pretty little town, with lots of hanging baskets of flowers scattered in front of businesses.

We had snow in the rear view mirror, but the mountains on our horizon were completely without snow, and the temperature was about 95, heading for 100 tomorrow.  Not happy to have found the heat!

We located our campground, Crook County RV Park, right at the south edge of town, a very nice, clean campground, with what appears to be a fully-equipped shelter with a firepit in the middle.

The campsites are paved, with grass between the sites.  And there are even a few cabins.

As I walked back to the RV, our neighbors were sitting out under the shade in front of their RV.  I asked them, "where is the beach?"

I learned some interesting information from the campground hostess.  The big building we saw as we came into town is a FaceBook data center, very hush-hush (her son-in-law works there).  That's where they manage the photos that we all post on FaceBook (in the cloud).  And across the road, out of sight behind a tire distribution center, is a huge Apple center, where all they do is "Siri" stuff.  She said Amazon also owns property here, but it didn't sound like they had built yet.

The fairgrounds backs up to our campground, and they have horseracing there, but the season doesn't start until next Wednesday, and we are leaving Monday.  Didn't plan that right!

The Brundiges and the Froeschkes went out for a Mexican dinner tonight at Ranchero, recommended by our camp hostess.  It was very good, nicely presented, and even topped off by a cute little dessert tidbit!  That was a nice surprise.

   Collins drove us on to the end of town and the around behind the campground on the way back.  Tomorrow we will head back to Redmond to meet Brenda's sister and her husband, check out his rock collection, and try to pick their brains about what to see and how best to see it while we are in this area.