7/10/2017 - Painted Hills

Monday - We had a change in plans today.  David called me this morning about 7:30 from the hospital.  Mazie had awakened aboout 2:30 a.m. with chest pains and her blood pressure was high (it is normally very low), so he took her to the hospital, which is only about 2 miles away.  The doctor ran a bunch of tests, and then ran them again, but he didn't find any problem so she was discharged about 9:30 a.m.  We stopped by the hospital after breakfast but didn't see their car so we called and found out they were back at the campground.  She has self-diagnosed her problem -- she thinks it is the side effect from the allergy pills she has been taking here in Oregon.  They had decided to extend their stay here in Prineville for another day and then decide whether to continue on with us or head to Arizona.  So we all extended our stay to make sure she was all right.  The current decision is that they will continue traveling with us as we head north tomorrow.

We had gone to breakfast with the Brundiges, and next to the restaurant was a cute "jungle gym" made out of iron, we think.  Also next to it was a very nice flower stand, that would work for us with our rabbits at home.

After we visited with the Johnsons, Marilyn and I drove into town to a thrift store I had wanted to stop at.  Meanwhile, Joe did some maintenance to get ready to move tomorrow:  washing windows (ours and the Brundiges), dumping our holding tanks, and putting some grease on our air conditioner which is making an awful noise -- some of the time.

Then, since everything had settled down, we decided to take a drive to Painted Hills Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in the Ochoco National Forest.  This forest also has several bands of wild horses, so we really hoped to happen onto some of them, but we figured out later that we were not in the right part of the forest.  On the way, just out of town about 5 miles, we came upon the Ochoco Reservoir, which was beautiful and a total surprise to us.

We drove through several miles of fire damage from a forest fire in 2000.  It takes so long for the forests to rebuild after the fires, as we well know in Arizona.

On our way back later on, on another part of our drive (the dirt road part), we did see some new growth that had protective wire around the young trees, so obviously something is being done to replenish the forests.

This part of the forest looked very healthy.

Back to the Painted Hills part of our drive, as we turned onto the road to this monument,

 we came upon this animal crossing sign.  I asked Joe what kind of critter this was!  We are still out looking for her.

This was our first glimpse of the Painted Hills, and it was a WOW!

These hills were very colorful, and I was told by someone local that they look different every time he goes.  I of course took several pictures, so here are a few.

We expected to be by ourselves back here, but the parking lots were pretty busy and we even met several motorhomes and campers on the road.  We have seen UPS drivers in out-of-the-way places before, but we even saw one of those out here.

We hiked the short Painted Cove Trail, and were surprised to see a lake off in the distance (on private property).

 A close-up of the actual soil on the hill.

In addition to the reds, there were even some lavender hills along here.  I managed to "collect" a couple of rocks along this trail.

 I wanted one of these rocks but didn't think I could dig it out, and I knew it wouldn't fit in my pocket.

Driving down another road, we found a footbridge to another pretty hill.

This was all pretty amazing.  When we got back to the highway, we went on to the little town of Mitchell, which seemed more like a ghost town than anything else.  We drove the "business district," but there sure wasn't much going on there.  So we turned around and found us a Forest Road to drive to see if we could scare up some wildlife.  We spotted a deer not too far in, hidden behind a tree.  In the shade, I had a hard time finding it with the camera, and it stood perfectly still the 2-3 minutes I tried to get a picture.  Finally, Joe backed up a few feet to give me a better angle.  The deer still hadn't moved.  I told Joe I thought it was fake.  He said he had never thought of that, but maybe so. He could imagine the forest ranger sitting back laughing at us taking pictures of a fake deer. Then he thought he saw the tail move, but as he started to say that sometimes they put moving parts on fake animals, the deer spooked and shot off into the forest.  I'm sure I jumped.  I barely got a second picture of it as it scampered off into the trees.  But it sure knew how to be a still life!  The stripes from the shadows made it look like it had tiger stripes.

 I had to zoom it in a lot but you can barely see his white rear as he heads into the trees.

We saw another deer later cross the road in front of us a little ways, and when we found that one in the trees, there was another one with it.  I didn't get a picture of those two.  But eventually we did spot one more deer, just after Joe took the picture of the little fence around the pine tree.  So that made our hour drive on the dirt road worthwhile -- 4 deer.

Although we never got to see any wild horses, we enjoyed seeing the deer.  Other wildlife we spotted today were a bunch of geese in the marshland by the reservoir, and a bluejay on a picnic table at the rest stop. 

Dave and Mazie planned on an early night, so we finished the evening with cards with the Brundiges.  Hopefully, everyone will have a good night and we will move on tomorrow.

7/9/2017 - Smith Rock State Park

Sunday - We didn't exactly take the day off today, but we did scale it down.  I was still a little tired this morning after my 9,118 steps yesterday at the Quilt Show.  Joe and I headed in town first thing this morning for breakfast at McDonalds, then to the laundromat, since our campground does not have one.  We got that taken care of and came back to the RV.  In the meantime, Collins and Marilyn headed out to Madras to Erickson Aircraft Collection (museum) in Madras.  Collins got to check off another bucket list item - a ride in a PT17 Stearman BiPlane.  He seemed to enjoy the ride.













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The other 4 of us took off on a short drive to Smith Rock State Park, recognized worldwide as a cutting edge climbing destination.  We saw hikers on the very steep trail but no rock climbers.  Jim Croxton had suggested we include this park in our travels and Paul's family really liked it (of course, they have some rock climbers in their family, we don't have any of those in our group).

 Unfortunately, I forgot my camera chip today so I took the photos on my Iphone, and they all came out sideways, even though I rotated them.  There are golden eagles in this park, and we got the binoculars out and looked for their nests but never spotted either the birds or their nests.

On the way to the park we spotted some smoke behind the mountains.  On our way back, the smoke had really increased so we drove toward it.  By the time we got close, they had closed the road and we could see planes and helicopters fighting the fire.  The Sheriff who turned us around said it was about a mile away.

 There is a helicopter in this next photo.

We went on back to camp, and played cards for a couple of hours with the Johnsons.  We saw the Brundiges drive by, and then Marilyn was off to take care of her laundry.  By the time they were ready to play cards, Dave and Mazie had gone back to their RV.  Collins and Marilyn had stopped by the Bowman Museum in town, and Dave had checked it out yesterday, but I don't think Joe and I are going to make that stop.

This part of Oregon is really dry, and it has been hot -- about 15 degrees hotter than normal.  There are several wildfires around the state.  We are leaving here tomorrow, heading north.  We are hoping to have cooler weather at our next stop, but we will still be on the east side of the Cascades so we are still on the arid side of Oregon.  We can still see snow on the mountaintops to the west and north, but it has been in the mid-90s almost every day we've been here.  Still, it's not as hot as Arizona so we will just enjoy our good luck.

7/8/2017 - Sisters Quilt Show

Saturday - Well, today was the 42nd Annual Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show.  This is advertised as the largest outdoor quilt show in the world, with over 1,200 quilts on display.  And it lived up to its reputation.  Dorothy had told us about this show when we were still in the planning stages of our trip, but I put it on the calendar just in case we were in the area.  Well, it worked out, and we got to attend -- Collins, Marilyn, Mazie and I, with tour guide Roxanne and Ken.  We were met with significant crowds when we arrived about 9:00, and the crowds increased all day long.  And the temperature got pretty close to 95, so it was a hot one.

Roxanne started our tour at the Community Hall of the Sisters Firehouse building which housed the traveling exhibit of The Lion King.  This was a big deal.  Participants from all over the world were challenged to design an original 20"x20" quilt with just two basic colors - gold and black.  Over 300 entries were received, all held together by the cohesive color, size and suede texture of the Cherrywood fabric.  Additional accent colors of Cherrywood fabrics could be added, as well as embellishments.  So I took a few pictures of these quilt panels.

Bridgette is a big Lion King fan and has taken her babies to see the production at Disney World, so I sent her a few pictures.

Then we started checking out the quilts.  There were several rows hung in a big barn-type building, and the rest were displayed on the sides of shops, in front and inside of shops, basically all up and down the 3 main streets.  We didn't see them all, but we saw a lot.

These next ones were some of my personal favorites.

 This one of the cowboy boots was quilted by a grandmother, inspired by her granddaughter.

These two baby quilts also caught my eye.

 I thought Andrew would like this one of fish bowls, since they all had very colorful fish inside the fish bowl.

There was a clock shop here in Sisters that Mazie had picked out to see, and we knew Collins would want to see it.  There were some unique clocks on display here, as well as some unique quilts. This first picture is an overview shot I took from the upstairs balcony.

Next up was a section of quilts that had been quilted by men.  I picked out one small quilt that I really liked. No, I didn't buy it.  None of us bought anything (except ice cream).

There was some talent here, and I see that one of the men quilters is going to be a featured speaker tomorrow.

On the way to the park for our picnic lunch, we spotted a tiny house on a trailer on the street.  I wanted to see if they were doing tours of it but I didn't get back over there.

Also on the way to the park we passed a young musician entertaining the passers-by.  Later, I saw two other girls playing instruments (ukeleles, I think) and singing, for tips, I guess.

I picked out a couple of quilts that I thought really had the WOW factor going.

Finally we all regrouped and had our picnic lunch in the park.  Sitting in the shade was comfortable, but in the sun it was pretty hot.

Here's Collins at the quilt show, after lunch.

Actually, he did walk some of the show, went back to the Lion King exhibit, and had a tour of the clock shop.

I walked over to the restroom and saw these bike lockers.  Roxanne said the town had built these outdoor restrooms, which are pretty nice and she thought some of them had showers, for the bikers who come through town.  So the bike lockers make sense.

We were winding down, Mazie and I were looking for the ice cream shop, but we did continue along, checking out quilts and going in some of the shops.  I really liked the colors in this next quilt.

Then we came upon the shop that made log furniture that I had picked out of our literature, so we walked in there.  They had some georgous pieces, for the right cabin.  They also had some cute bird houses made out of old cowboy boots.

Mazie and I had our ice cream, we said our goodbyes and thank yous to Roxanne, and started working our way back to the car.  We were all hot and tired, and ready to head for home.  But it was quite an experience, one that we wouldn't have wanted to miss.

Collins stopped at a farmers market on the way home, then we all went to our respective campers.  I took a nap, and I'm pretty sure Collins did too.  But Joe and I drove back into town for dinner -- it was too hot to cook, and then we played cards with the Brundiges.  David lost power at his RV and said that entire row had lost power, but the RV beside him was leaving and he still had 30 amp power, so the campground host told David just to plug in to that box.  So hopefully they will be fine until we leave on Monday, because it is certainly too hot here to get by without A/C. 

We still have a couple of things on our agenda for this area so I'm not sure exactly what we are doing tomorrow.  I could use a day of rest, but Joe had that today, so he will be raring to go do something tomorrow, I'm sure.  So I guess I should get to bed!