Last night I drove towards the mountains that are west of Bent to take a couple of sunset photos. Of course, the sun was setting behind the mountains, which makes for a pretty dull photo, but I was looking for an interesting location for the morning.
So, at 5:30AM (sunrise is 6:04) I rolled out of bed. Although it was warm & toasty in the trailer, the outside thermometer read 27°F. I thought I had moved out of the cold. Since Bend is at 3623', I guess they are allowed to have cold mornings! Anyway, I headed back out the same road (Tumalo Reservoir Road) to the same location (where the paving ends) and took a few photos. The mist on the water & the color of the mountains was a big improvement over last night! By the time I finished, my fingers were numb - the temperature was down to 23°F (isn't that going the wrong way?) and I headed back to the campground. I took too many photos, but I really liked the location. More at 2011 Trip, Day 17.
I did get a chance to try the solar showers (the air temperature was up to 40°F by the time I finished breakfast, coffee, processing the photos, etc.) the showers were just about as hot as I could stand. No adjustment, just a timed on push button. Of course when you got out of the shower records were broken getting dressed - no heat in the dressing area. At least I got dry before the water drops froze!
Well, baby has new shoes! The bad - $1120.00 installed. The good news - no sales tax. I probably could have gotten another couple of hundred miles out of the old tires, but the sales tax savings more than made up for buying them in California. By the way, it is 75°F this afternoon - sure warms up fast.
Since the solar showers have kitchen sinks attached, I decided grilling was a good idea - much easier to clean up in a big sink than in the little one in the trailer. So, it was a NY steak & fresh asparagus for dinner. The steak was delicious. I think the western states keep the more tender beef out here rather than ship it east.
After that it was showing the trailer to a couple of campers, then time to finish this posting. Not much driving today - the tires took over 3 hours. 56.3 miles; 4309.1 for the trip.
The plan is to head south on US 97 after doing laundry tomorrow morning.
Till then -
Jon, when we were in Bend, the locals told us about two waterfalls that were not too far out of town (hope memory is serving me right). One dropped straight down and disappeared into the ground without a splash. I remember there was a lake and a nice hike in the forest which was littered with beautiful rhododendrons. I'm sorry I don't remember the names or even if the falls had names. At any rate, I ran across this site in an effort to find them and thought you might be interested.
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