7/6/2017 - Exploring McKenzie-Santiam Scenic Byway

Thursday - Today was our first day to explore this beautiful part of Central Oregon.  We started out by meeting and visiting with Brenda's sister and her husband, Roxanne and Ken, and picking up our mail that we had sent to their address.  We had a very nice 2 1/2 hour visit with them, getting a tour of their back yard where Roxanne has created a couple of fantasy gardens, the first one of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

With Ken's masonry expertise, there are very nice rock accents all around the back yard.  Then, he took us to see his rock collection!

And that was just what was outside.  He also has a shed full of rocks, separated into different categories.  I think he has 4 different-sized rock tumblers, and all of them were running.  I have an interest in rock collecting, but this was rather daunting.  I think I will stick with just picking up the pretty ones and putting them in a jar or something.  We concluded our visit with coffee and cookies that Roxanne had baked that morning, then we separated from Collins and Marilyn and headed over to Sisters and the McKenzie-Santiam Scenic Byway.  Collins and Marilyn also drove over to Sisters but they did not continue the scenic drive and we didn't see them again until we got back to camp.

We were quickly in view of the snow-capped mountains, and on this drive we supposedly saw the peaks of nine Cascade Mountains (I didn't keep track).  I think these first ones were the Sisters -- North, Middle and South.

We saw one that stood taller than all the rest and we thought it was Mt. Hood, but it turned out to be Mt. Jefferson.  Hood is a little further away.  But it was pretty magnificient.

As we continued along, we came to the McKenzie Pass-Santiam Pass in the Williamette National Forest.  There was an observatory here that we climbed, and we could see the surrounding mountains easily from here.  They had glass-less windows through the walls that identified what we were seeing.

 We drove past awesome lava beds that went on for miles.The Observatory is surrounded by a 65-square-mile lava field, an ancient volcano cone, and lava craters.

 Three Sisters Mountains.

 The peaks of Mount Jefferson, Three Fingered Jack, Mount Washington, North Sister and Middle Sister can all be seen from here.  I guess on a very clear day you can also see Mount Hood but we couldn't see it today.

Joe and I walked to the top of the observatory, but Dave and Mazie stayed below and just waved at us from the parking lot. (Mazie has on a red shirt)

We continued our drive, we passed Scott Lake, which was supposed to reflect the Three Sisters Mountains, but we couldn't see the reflection.

The literature stated that as we continued on, "the forest almost engulfs the highway," and we could definitely see that.  We felt "engulfed" for several miles.

Finally, just before the end of our drive, we came upon our first Oregon waterfalls.  These were Koosah and Sahalie Falls.  It was pretty hot today, but when we got in the mist coming off the falls, the temperature definitely dropped.

Dave got chilly and went back to the car, but the three of us hiked on down to the lower falls.  At the bottom, it got warm again.  I finally found a spot I could get to the water so I did get my toes wet here.

 There were several places the water cascaded down 6 to 10 foot drops in a cascade.

I think the upper falls was Koosah, and this one, the lower falls, was Sahalie.  (I should have written this blog last night when we got back, by now I can't remember some of this stuff.)

We started back up our hike.  The path was good, sometimes with steps, but it was about 1/2 mile each way.

Once back to the car, we completed our Scenic Byway and headed back into Sisters, a cute little touristy town with lots of shops.  We had seen an ice cream shop in one of the booklets we had, so we hunted that up and had a little treat before our drive back to the campground.

This was a pretty impressive scenic drive.  It was a good day, we saw some beautiful sights.  But it was a full day so we were glad to get back to camp.

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. 

7/3/2017 - Back to Klamath Falls

Monday - We have pretty well driven all the roads we can drive in this area, and since we never have invested in fishing license, today we went back to Klamath Falls to do a little shopping.  Dave and Mazie drove down to Chiloquin to make a donation to the fire department since there was no charge for their emergency run out here to check her out.  They got a tour of their facilities and equipment and talked to Mike, the head paramedic and the one who treated her the other night.  Collins and Marilyn drove back to the train museum, no surprise there, where they got a longer ride today and got to check out the trains on display and talk to some of the volunteers.

Joe and I took most of the day for our shopping trip -- got the car washed, went to Walmart, the post office, lunch, Fred Myers Grocery, back to post office.  I did see some wildlife on the way into town -- either a marmot or groundhog, couldn't tell.   We got home just after 3:00, and Marilyn was making chili for all of us so it was a non-cooking day for me.  After cards (girls won handily), I walked down to the river and around the campground, and saw a neat tripod cooking someone's dinner over the firepit.  I thought that was worth a picture, so I came back and got my camera, grabbed up David along the way, and we checked it out.  I kept thinking they might invite me to dinner (they didn't know I had already eaten), but no luck there.

There's lots of activity at this little campground, from kids playing, dogs splashing in the water, people fishing, boaters and kayakers on the river, people cooking, people sitting outside their campers enjoying the evening.  This campground has all kinds of campers in it, from tents to Class Bs, pick-up campers, tow-behinds, Class Cs to top-of-the-line RVs.

Joe's allergies are killing him here, though, and in trying to find the pollen count today, he learned that Klamath Falls is one of the worst places for pollen, second only to Eugene, Oregon.  Some days are better than others, but today was a bad one for him.  Mazie, however, seems to be doing better.  Her hand is still quite swollen, and bruises are starting to show up, but she said it isn't quite as sore today, so hopefully she's on the mend.  Collins, on the other hand, is still suffering with his back/hip/leg problems.  Not sure what the answer there is, but we hope he gets to feeling better soon.

7/2/2017 - Mazie's Accident

Sunday - Well, we did go for the prime rib, which was tough according to David and Joe (Marilyn and I shared chicken alfredo).  And we did play for a little while at the casino, Joe came out $20 ahead, the rest of us lost a little.  Then we played cards.  The guys won.  But, unfortunately, that wasn't the end of our day.  We had "incident #2".

As Mazie left our camper after the card game, she tripped over the fire pit and fell.  She was carrying their 2 folding chairs, and it was dark, and she just didn't see the fire pit.  Collins was with her and yelled for help, and we all rushed out to see what happened.  After letting her lay on the ground for a few minutes, she was helped up and helped inside their RV, which is right next door to ours.  She wasn't doing so well, so Collins yelled to Joe to call 911, which he did, but also several people in the park ran over when they heard someone yell to call 911, including 3 nurses who happened to be camping nearby.  One worked with Mazie and stayed with her until the paramedics arrived, and the other two stayed right here too, one inside the RV, the other (a male nurse) outside on the step with us.  The paramedics from Chiloquin arrived about 20-25 minutes later and checked her out, and she's ok this morning.  She sprained either her left finger or hand, and it's swollen, and her thumb on that same hand is swollen and sore, and she got some scrapes on her shins on both legs which they bandaged. Here's the culprit that tripped her up.  Imagine in the dark how hard that would be to see.  We had our little porch light on, but the light doesn't carry very far, plus she had a folding chair in each hand.

But she's healthy and active, and tough! and other than being a little sore, is none the worse for wear this morning.  Nevertheless, we all took it easy today.  Collins is not doing the best, not sure how much his exercises are helping him, and Mazie iced her hand several times today.  Joe and I took a little drive, on Modoc Road -- one that we hadn't hit yet, but we were only gone about an hour.  Mid-afternoon, we gathered to play ladder golf in the shade.   Even our wounded warriors participated.

Mazie had planned to bake a cherry pie today, but since her hand would not allow her to roll out the piecrust, Marilyn volunteered to take over that chore.  So after dinner, just before we started our nightly card game, we all enjoyed a piece of cherry pie!

The guys beat the girls soundly tonight so we quit after just 3 hands.  When I was out walking afterwards, the male nurse happened to drive by, and he stopped and asked me how Mazie was doing.  I told him she had wanted to thank the people who came over last night but didn't know how to find them, and he pointed out the nurse who had stayed with her.  So I went and got her and took her over so she could thank the gal, who was also interested in seeing how she was doing today.  She offered to take a look at her hand tomorrow when she gets off work -- Mazie is still debating about whether it needs to be X-rayed.

We are staying here 2 more days, to get through the holiday, then on Wednesday we plan to move on up the road.  This has been a great place to just kick back, though, and we would all highly recommend this campground -- the Water Wheel RV Park.