Day 8 - Packwood to Kent, Washington - 106 Miles

We knew we didn't have far to go today, so took our time getting out of camp (photo left). I think it was approaching 10:00 a.m. before we parted company with the tiny berg of Packwood, Washington and headed west on Route 12 in the shadow of 5,283 foot Mount Griffin on the southern border of Mount Rainier National Park. Route 12 is a scenic byway, and you can easily see why it deserves that designation. On both sides of the RV, as you roll along, are towering mountains, achingly green forests, and white-water rushing streams. Even the occasional farmsteads are scenically beautiful amid acres of mowed grasses.

Three roads lead into Rainier Park, two of which we considered yesterday, but both were snowed in and closed. There is another entrance on the west side, but I think it was also closed. Even so, when we reached the turnoff that ran toward the western entrance we turned north onto Route 7 and made the 17 mile run up to the tiny town of Elbe, where the Mount Rainier Railroad is headquartered. The railroad enters Rainier Park from the west side. Of course, we didn't know it at the time, we were just looking for a nice place to have lunch.

Turned out that Elbe was not only a nice place to have lunch (the local post office afforded us a spot in their parking lot), but there were some darn interesting things to see and photograph there as well. Not only did we discover that the Mount Rainier Railroad called Elba home, but there was quite a bit of old equipment for the rail fan to photograph.

So, while Concetta worked on getting lunch on the table, I grabbed the camera and went out to reconnoiter a bit since at that precise moment the sun had poked its face through the all-too-frequent cloud cover, and I could see some wonderful shots even from across the street. Since all day the sunlight had been an on again/off again affair, I thought I should grab whatever shots I could. Later, after lunch was eaten and cleaned up, the two of us wandered the Rainier Railroad grounds at a more leisurely pace.

The first thing Concetta and I did, was walk over to the depot so that I could purchase whatever literature was available so I could tell you a little bit about the history of the line. Unfortunately, there was none to be had, though the two women behind the sales counter were cheerful and helpful and gave us the web address that might give us some information. Unfortunately, I didn't find any history on the website, just information about scheduling a ride on the train.

Since the locomotive sitting next to the depot looks like a Heisler to me, the rail line was almost certainly part of a lumbering operation. Heislers and similar "geared" locomotives were predominantly used in timber country where grades were steep, curves were sharp, and normal steam locomotives would have been unworkable. I found the following on Heislers in Wikipedia:

"The Heisler locomotive was the last variant of the three (Shay, Climax, and Heisler) major types of geared steam locomotives. Charles L. Heisler received a patent for the design in 1892, following the construction of a prototype in 1891. Somewhat similar to a Climax locomotive, Heisler's design featured two cylinders canted inwards at a 45-degree angle to form a 'V-twin' arrangement. Power then went to a longitudinal drive shaft in the center of the frame that drove the outboard axle on each powered truck through beveled gears in an enclosed gear case riding on the axle between the truck frames. The inboard axle on each truck was then driven from the outboard one by external side (connecting) rods."

"In 1897, Heisler received a patent on a three-truck locomotive. As with Class C Shay locomotives, the tender rode on the third truck. Unlike the Shay, Heisler's design did not have a continuous string of line shafting running the length of the engine. Instead, the tender truck was driven by a line shaft above the shaft driving the main engine trucks, connected to it through spur gears. This patent also covered use of a 4-cylinder 'V-four' cylinder configuration."

"The Heisler was the fastest of the geared steam locomotive designs, and yet was still claimed by its manufacturer to have the same low-speed hauling ability."

So, undoubtedly the Heisler on display, and perhaps a whole stable of other geared locomotives now vanished to scrap yards, would regularly venture far into the stands of old-growth timber, pitching and twisting over uneven track, screeching around tight turns, and traversing roaring mountain rivers atop spindly wooden trestles to bring out long trains of trellis-style log cars piled high with nature's bounty in valuable wood. It happened all over the west, and it probably happened in the hills around Elba as well. Usually, whole swaths of forest were completely denuded without regard to stream degradation, erosion runoff, or destruction of the animal population.

Nowadays, clear-cutting is usually verboten, and logging companies use instead a sort of checkerboard strategy for cutting isolated tracts, while leaving the surrounding forest intact. Later, when the trees have grown up once again in the logged over portion, a different nearby tract is then logged. That way, the environmental impacts are not as great, as there is always a contiguous portion of the forest that remains whole to control runoff, and where animals can remain hidden from predators.

The rail yard in Elba is filled with old, largely worn-out rail equipment from bygone days. But in a few cases. the railroad cars, none of which were ever used in the logging industry, have been converted to restaurants and logging for Mount Rainier-bound adventurers. I especially liked the pizza shop, which featured an outdoor cafe sort of eating area. There was also a bar called the "Side Track Room," where somewhere on a wall was posted a small sign that advised patrons to just call the wife when he stopped by the bar coming home from work, and tell her he'd been sidetracked. Might work I guess.

Aside from the long line of decent-looking cabooses being used as part of a B&B endeavor, the remainder of the equipment was sadly neglected and desperately in need of some adaptive reuse. At one point we came upon some boxcars and bunkhouse cars from some long vanished work train which looked like they'd probably never move again. However, interestingly, at the very end of the work train was a trio of what are known to rail enthusiasts as "heavyweight passenger cars." The heavyweight steal passenger cars are what Americans were traveling in around the time of World War II. Though the faded names on the sides of the cars proclaimed them to be part of the Mount Rainier Railroad fleet of dining and club cars, in all probability these three cars were enjoying their heyday in 1941, and no doubt hauled tens of thousands of soldiers and sailors off to five years of war.

Day 7 - Brooks Memorial State Park to Packwood, Washington -- 140 Miles

Today we traded the warm, sunny environment of this morning at Brooks Memorial State Park south of Yakima, Washington, for the dark, cloudy, rainy afternoon of the Washington Cascades on Route 12 south of Mount Rainier State Park. We had intended to grab Route 410 off of Route 12 that promised to run right into the Park. Indeed, we cruised by a sign that said "road closed" on our way up the mountain. Unfortunately, we failed to see it. But a mile later, we cruised by another sign that we DID see. It announced that "PASS IS CLOSED." At that point I found the nearest wide spot in the road and pulled over.

"That doesn't sound good," I said to Concetta. I guess we better pay attention and go back."

She agreed, and with that I edged the RV around on the narrow patch of dirt, and headed back the other way. It was at that point that we passed the sign that had futilely tried to inform us the road was closed ahead. Not sure how neither I nor my navigator had seen it the first time, but thankfully we had only wasted a couple of miles in the aborted attempt.

Back on Route 12, we resumed our westward progress even as the skies grew darker and the rain began to fall with more enthusiasm. Pretty soon we were climbing towards White Pass at an altitude of 4,469 feet. Thankfully, our newer RV has a V-10 motor and basically scoffs at mountain grades. The older coach would get down to 40 MPH on such climbs, but the present rig can pretty much keep up with the truck traffic at least.

The advent of rain meant that we weren't much in the mood for climbing out of the rig to take photos, but at the upper left is a shot of Concetta at the summit. Though we didn't get photos of our route, I can tell you that the rivers we passed all afternoon were rampaging and running full clear to the overflow mark. The forests were so lush and healthy looking that it was purely a joy to see them. And there were lots of recreation rigs of all sorts out enjoying the magnificence of the Washington Cascades.

Later, As we descended from White Pass summit, we came upon the turnoff for Route 123 that bisects Mount Rainer State Park from the south. I pulled over at that point, and Concetta and I spent a moment trying to decide if it was safe to assume that the pass would be open when it was closed for Route 410, which basically ends up at the same junction in the park. In the end we decided to maintain our course on Route 12, even though the camp that we had decided upon for the evening was located up Route 123. At past three in the afternoon, we just didn't want to have to backtrack again.

Still later, as we rolled into the town of Packwood south of Rainier, and I was paying for a spot in the town's Good Sam recommended camp, I asked the attendant if we would have been successful tackling Route 123 into the park. She told me absolutely not, that workers were up clearing snow even as we spoke, and were actually being housed in Packwood after their shift.

So, the upshot was we didn't get to cruise through Rainier, but we did get into camp early enough to have a nice walk around town, get in some steps, and rack up a handful of digital shots on the subject of weird and wonderful sights you see in one-horse towns. Perhaps the weirdest sight was the above where we came upon a heard of Elk just "hanging out" in a nearby neighborhood like they were waiting for the afternoon tour bus to come and pick them up. How would you like to encounter these brutes in your flower garden some afternoon?

Tomorrow I'm not sure where we'll be headed, probably further west. But wherever we end up tomorrow, we wish you exciting destinations and memorable travels from the Davises, the Happy Wanderers.

Day 6 - Oregon City, Oregon to Brooks Memorial State Park, Washington - 130 Miles

I know everyone is waiting with bated breath to discover if I’m really going to survive my intimate encounter with a 3,000 pound boulder at the High Desert Museum a couple of days ago. Well, after spending most of the morning with a half dozen medical people, I think I have the answer. Those talented and hardworking folks, including clerks, nurses, x-ray techs, and a very nice red-headed doctor, whose ancestors almost certainly came from the same part of the world that mine did, i.e. the rocky crags of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, seemed to think that I lucked out. And while my ribs don’t FEEL very lucky to me, they say that the x-rays show no real alteration to their original architectural design.

I was astounded! The past several days I’ve been hobbling and groaning around like Methuselah’s grandfather, hardly able to bend over and tie my shoes. I wince at even the thought of rising from my chair. Every single move, no matter how slight, sent waves of pain at lightning speed to my overloaded nerve center. Now they tell me that in all likelihood, all I have is something called “contusions.”

Okay, well I might have contusions but I bet they’re spelled in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS! But no one in the powder blue and forest green outfits seemed to think that I had anything to worry about; that someday soon I’d be as good as new. Of course the Doc, an extremely likeable fellow with the Scots name of Campbell, did say that “someday soon” might translate into weeks over even months from now. Ribs weren’t always so forgiving of being applied to very large rocks.

This of course leaves me wondering just how I lucked out and managed to NOT let any of my ribs come into contact with the sharp edge of the offending bolder, that actually DID succeed in removing several square inches of my left forearm skin. Certainly if even a single rib had contacted the sharp edge of the rock it would be broken instantly.

Perhaps, I wondered as we later motored up the Interstate toward Washington State, I somehow managed to break my fall with my arm against the sharp edge, which deflected my upper body onto the flatter part of the stone. I know I hit the rock hard enough to break things, especially things as delicate as ribs. So in order to only have contusions, I reason, all the ribs must have hit simultaneously, thereby spreading the impact over a wider surface. I think it's one possibility. Another is that fate decided to go easy on me this time. Who knows?

So, having spent most of yesterday morning at the hospital, and the balance of the morning shopping for groceries and then having lunch, we didn’t leave town until 12:30 p.m. Our goal was to drive to Yakima, Washington where I had read about a nice full-service camp. As fate would have it, I had underestimated the distance by a lot, so we actually stopped at a very nice wooded campground about 60 miles south of Yakima on Highway 97.”

The camp is called the Brooks Memorial and is owned by the Washington State Parks and Recreation folks. I was prepared to have to use a dump station as it didn’t appear from the entrance that it would offer anything but water and electrical connections. But surprise, surprise, the very nice gentleman who met us as we drove in immediately informed us that there were lots of spaces available and each space contained full hookups. Oh happy days!

The up side is that the camp is beautiful, quiet, and intensely serene. The down side is the internet connection is nill, which is why you didn't read this yesterday. There are trails around the area you can hike, sayeth the camp host, and most of the sites are close to level. We had to boost the rear wheels about four inches, but that's no big deal.

As I write this piece this morning, we've left camp and traveled the 60 miles to reach Yakima. Right now as we decorate the back lot of a truck stop, the internet connection is 100%, which I haven't seen this whole trip. I rather suspect that connection availability, as we travel further north and into Canada, may be spotty at best, but we'll do what we can to keep you updated. Until then, I wish you exciting destinations and memorable travels from the Davises, the Happy Wanderers.

Day 5 - All day in Oregon City, Oregon - 0 Miles

You know what they say about the best laid plans, they often don't come to fruition. Such was the case with our intended sojourn to the Oregon museum devoted to the 19th century overland emigrant trail. Initially, we decided that I would spend the first half of the day with my old school chum, Charley, and then the three of us would spend the second half of the day at the museum.

But once I got to Charley's house this morning, we two got so caught up in "appreciating" his collectibles and antiques, as well as reminiscing about the good ol' days, that we decide to put off the museum visit until tomorrow morning. That meant Concetta got the whole day to read her current favorite book back at the RV, while I wandered Charley's house and yard looking for cool stuff to shoot with the camera, looking through hundreds of old photographs of southern California, and dining on some nice fish and chips at the local sandwich shop.

Obviously, I don't have a heck of a lot to write about, so I'll just go ahead and post some of my photos I took of Charley's collections, which are composed of quite a few items I'd just love to own myself. The first is a photo of Charley's '36 Ford coupe that he purchased from an elderly lady in Glendale way back in the 1960s. Still runs like a top, though the lack of seat belts felt a little weird. Charley came by the RV park in the '36 this morning to pick me up.

The next collectible I just really liked was a Thomas Edison Victrola. This century old machine still plays music as good as it did 100 years ago. Charley even had some Edison record platters to play on it. The tone arm on this baby has a diamond-tipped needle, which was needed to read the weird sort of groves in Edison's records. Charley tells me that because Edison's record grooves are so unlike what we have today, you can't play old Edison records on your modern turntable. Certainly a cool addition to his hobby room.

I was with Charley when he scored this collectible a few years back. It belonged to a friend of his and certainly brings back a ton of memories for me when I think of how many years Kodak film was a mainstay in my life, including my high school production photography years, my ever growing personal collection of cameras and photographs, and to this day, several dozen rolls in a drawer in our refrigerator.

Charley and I just love collectibles that have to do with the Southern Califoria mountains. From the later half of 19th century until the start of WWII, Californians spent much time in the local mountains hiking, camping, and having adventures.

For years Charles and I would find the old sign posts that were constructed to point the way to various destinations, but the actual signs were long gone. In order to recreate the essence of these old signs we started making our own reproduction signs that, where possible, exactly reflected the original wording of the originals. In this photo Charles has recreated a sign grouping that once existed on the flanks of Mount Lowe, but in modern times had been completely removed.

Another favorite collectible for Charley is pre-WWII tinplate electric trains. Tinplate means, simply, that nothing is made of plastic, but the trains are made exclusively of stamped metal. He has them in all sizes and years of manufacture, but unfortunately lacks any place to run them. Still they look mighty fine in his hobby room.

And then there's this vintage guy. I'm sitting on a reproduction of a bench that originally graced one of the picnic areas surrounding Mount Lowe, California, back in the 1920s or so. In the 1950s, Charley dragged the abused and rusted metal components off the mountain, and meticulously recreated the original look of the bench from old photographs. I was so taken with the bench, that once upon a time I disassembled Charley's treasure, had a steel fabrication company exactly copy the legs, then reassembled it so I could someday build my own copy. To date I've yet to do that, but my intentions are forever good.

Day 4 - Sisters, Oregon to Oregon City, Oregon - 136 Miles

Today was yet another typical challenging day in the lives of a couple of sometime RVers. Today we got up super early to make sure we didn't repeat yesterday's laggardly start. The coffee was on by 6:00 and we were rolling onto the highway by 8:30. The chores were all done and I even had time to walk the quarter mile (estimate) to the park store to peruse their supplies just in case I found something I never knew I needed.

Initially, we headed west out of Sisters with the goal of catching Hwy 22 off of Hwy 126, which was the road that ran by the camp. Unfortunately, I somehow made the transition from 126 to 22 quite unbeknownst to either of us, and we spent the next hour or so thinking we'd missed our turn. But when we finally caught onto where we actually were on the map, our whole mood lightened considerably.

As we approached Salem and Portland, Oregon, my main goal was to avoid both places in the main, and just travel the two-lanes. Interstate 5 holds no fascination for us, so our intended route around Salem and into the suburbs of Portland was to be Highways 214 and 213. These tiny ribbons of asphalt wander their way north from Highway 22 as if they didn't much care how long it took you to navigate them. But that's exactly the kind of routes for which we search.

Still, we missed the turnoff for Highway 214; never did see a sign for it. But consulting the map we found that turning anywhere after the turnoff to a town known as "Sublimity" would take us to our intended destination. We would just have to do a tad more wandering. I'll tell you that if you've always driven Interstate 5 north into Portland, you might want to slow down a bit and give 214/213 a tumble. You won't see any Walmarts, and you certainly won't see any glitz, but you will see miles of grape vineyards, horse pastures, quaint farm houses, and the like. We recommend it.

The best thing that happened to us whilst we wandered hither and yon on Highway 214 is we ran across a quite unexpected architectural gem. If you know anything about Frank Lloyd Wright, you know he is perhaps America's most famous architect. While everyone else was turning out the usual Victorian gingerbread or Craftsman bungalows, Frank was pioneering something called the "Prairie Design." This design is said to have revolutionized modern housing.

Of course Frank did much more. To quote Wiki, "Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures, 532 of which were completed. Wright believed in designing structures that were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture. This philosophy was best exemplified by [a house he designed called] Fallingwater, which has been called "the best all-time work of American architecture." His creative period spanned more than 70 years."

Personally, I've never been a big fan of Frank's work, though we have visited Fallingwater in Pennsylvania and been totally enthralled and charmed. But what we ran across today was the State of Oregon's ONE AND ONLY example of Wright Architecture. Yes, unbelievably, as we motored down this tiny Oregonian rural two-lane we came upon the Wright project known as the "Gordon House."

The Gordon House was designed for a comfortably-off couple who owned 550 acres along the Willamette River south of Portland. The couple had done well enough in their farming efforts to, at one point, decide that they could afford to have the esteemed Frank Lloyd Wright design a new house for them. They didn't want the traditional Victorian farmhouse, they wanted a new design in the "modern" style of the then 1950s. It wasn't easy to pull off. In order to persuade Frank to take on the project they had to travel to his then home in Arizona, and talk to him personally.

But persuade him they did, and it wasn't long before Frank produced plans that seemed to be vaguely reminiscent of a house that Frank designed at the behest of Life Magazine in the late 1930s. Frank loved lots of glass, horizontal lines, and, above all, totally utilitarian form. The Gordons got just what they wanted, and once they had received the plans and an estimate from Frank that it would cost $24,000 to build, they put the project out to bid.

And that's when the Gordons ran into trouble. One estimate came back at $56,000 and another came back as over $100,000! Well, the Gordons could not see their way clear to spend that much money at the time. But by the time the 1960s came along, land was needed for Interstate 5, which subsequently required Oregon to purchase part of the Gordon farm. Well, with that fortuitous bit of financial luck, the Gordons could at last afford to build their dream house.

Around 1964, using the original plans, the Gordons finally began construction on a bit of their farmland that the highway hadn't usurped, though Frank Lloyd Wright was dead by then. The property was located on a knoll on the banks of the Willamette River. Thereafter, the couple lived in the Wright dream home quite happily until 1979 when the husband died. Amazingly, the wife went on to reside in the house until the mid 1990s before being moved into an assisted-living residence. She died at 91, only two weeks after leaving her beloved Wright-designed home.

Here's where the story takes a dark turn. After both the Gordons had passed on, their heirs sold the property and house, by then on the Historic Register, to a California couple who just loved the land beside the Willamette, but harbored no such affection for the forty-year-old house. The couple busily made plans to bulldoze the structure, and would have done so without a second thought were it not for the Frank Lloyd Wright Conservancy organization. The Conservancy brought pressure to bear on the couple who, as it turned out, were not villains after all. They graciously offered to sell the house to the Conservancy for the princely sum of ONE DOLLAR. All the group had to do was MOVE the combination concrete and wooden structure in no more than 90 days.

Incredibly, though the Conservancy only managed to save the top half of the house, plus all the removable features of the bottom half, they did manage to completely disassemble the structure and moved it 26 miles to a similar property and exactly situate it according to Wright's situational directions. They even found a place beside the same Willamette river.

Because much of the basement and first floor was a mono-pour concrete and concrete block pillars, there was no way to save that. But the Conservancy were tireless in their efforts to EXACTLY duplicate the concrete parts at the new location. The result is nearly identical to the original so that all the wooden trim pieces that had been meticulously removed could be put back in their original locations despite the fact that it was a whole new base structure on the first floor!

Anyway, I've probably told you much more than you ever wanted to know about our discovery. But if American architecture makes you salivate as it does us, you might want to try a visit to the Gordon house in its new location. And if you are really energetic there are dozens more still in existence, many of which you can visit.

This evening we, too, are camped right beside the Willamette River, this time in Oregon City. Though the camp is light years away from the posh setting in which we were ensconced last night, the setting is quite pleasant, the sites well spaced in an uncrowded fashion, and the camp hostess, Debbie, especially friendly and helpful.

I almost immediately discovered how helpful Debbie was when I began to set up our camp this afternoon. I had run the rig's front wheels up on the lifts to level us, hooked up the water and electric, and was in the process of extending the awning to shade us from the hot afternoon sun when disaster struck.

I know you're saying, "disaster? Not again!" But yes, it's true. As I was pulling the awning frame away from the side of the rig as I have done countless times, the seemingly solid aluminum fulcrum piece that bolts to the side of the coach took that opportunity to fracture into several largely useless pieces. The awning sagged on that corner and threatened to bring the whole assemblage down.

With a well-practiced cry of anguish, I dashed over and hoisted the aluminum arm back into place and set it atop the fractured fulcrum. I could immediately see that there was NO WAY I was going to be able to salvage the broken part. And, without the part that allows the awning to extend and retract, there was no way I was going to be able to move the rig from its present location.

For many seconds I just stood there and stared at the problem without the slightest idea what to do. At that point camp hostess Debbie, having heard the crunching sound of the crucial part disintegrating, came running over to commiserate with me.

"I don't suppose," I said to her, "that you know someone who can be called out to come work on this."

"I really don't," said Debbie. "But park rules forbid having tradesmen here working on the RVs anyway. Sorry!"

"Any ideas?" I said.

I can give you a phone number for an RV supplier in town," she said.

And THAT turned out to be my salvation. I called Debbie's RV guy, who said he couldn't help me. But he in turn provided me with two more phone numbers, one of which connected me with an extremely helpful chap named Lonnie. After I threw myself on Lonnie's mercy, he not only rummaged through the supplies of the RV dealer where he worked, but he delivered a likely part to me at the camp. When I tried to pay him, he requested that I return to the dealer with him and purchase it there, after which he promised to bring me right back.

And that's exactly what happened. The part Lonnie provided was not an exact match for the old part, but was, in fact, a much improved version, AND had bolt holes exactly like the old part which allowed me to bolt it right on. In mere minutes I had repaired the break, remounted the aluminum awning arm, and had extended the awning successfully. Even better, the part was inexpensive and Lonnie didn't charge me a farthing for the taxi service. I did slip him a twenty for his trouble when the boss wasn't looking, and we parted best of buddies.

And that's it for today's adventures. Tomorrow we're headed for the Oregon Trail Museum which, they tell me, is just a stone's thrown from our camp site. So until then, I wish you exciting destinations and memorable travels from the Davises, the Happy Wanderers.

Day 3 - LaPine to Sisters, Oregon - 51 Miles

Okay, it's not the shortest day's travel we've ever done, but it's probably in the ballpark. This morning we ended up sleeping in until 7:30 a.m. and, since such slovenly behavior seemed to be an agreeable idea, we then lazed our way through breakfast and camp tear-down for another three hours. After that, we had to travel to the park dump station where we spent another half hour finishing up the sewer tank evac. Part of the reason we took longer dumping, was that the park had provided only a short cut-off length of hose that I could make no use of for back-flushing. Not wanting to allow their lack of intelligent design to thwart my long-held belief that flushing the tank with fresh water was a must, I was left to "MacGiver" a connection so that I COULD accomplish my goal. This done, we were finally off just after eleven, which also must challenge existing records for the latest exit from camp ever.

Our first goal today was to gas up the rig. SOP of gassing up means that any time that the tank is half empty I start looking for a station. When we reached the camp exit we saw that it was six miles back to LaPine on the main highway, or, conversely, it was 21 miles forward to Bend, Oregon. Since 21 miles would not seriously drop us below half on the dashboard indicator, I opted for turning left and proceeding toward Bend. Before long, we saw a turnoff for a Shell station, so even before reaching Bend we had accomplished refueling. In the process, since you're not allowed to pump your own gas in Oregon, I had met and had a long RVing conversation with the female pump jockey. Once again I discovered that people just LOVE to talk about their camping experiences, as well as those of their friends and neighbors.

After filling the tank, we jumped back on Highway 97 and resumed our journey toward Bend. That didn't last long. Almost as fast as I can type this narrative, we were presented with the opportunity to exit the freeway and visit the "High Desert Museum." That sounded great, not just because the two of us adore museums, but it was almost lunchtime anyway and we were guessing the museum parking lot would probably lie beneath a shady canopy of ancient pines and firs, the perfect setting. Turned out that we were 110% correct. The parking lot designated for RVs was totally deserted and we had our pick of spaces.

Once the future lunch spot was scoped out, we gathered up our essentials and headed to the museum complex. Here's where some of the bad luck of the previous day reared its ugly head. When we came upon a large stone monolith with the museum sign attached, I motioned for Concetta to stand in front and I'd get a photograph to mark the occasion. That done, Concetta asked, "do you want your picture by the sign, too?"

Naturally I said, "Sure." But wanting to interject a bit more creativity into the mix, I went around behind the monolith, shimmied my way to the top and, balancing on my forearms, I said, "Okay shoot."

But try as she might, Concetta kept telling me the shot wasn't right. Little did I know that she had accidentally zoomed the lens to its maximum capacity and all she was getting was my head and shoulders.

Struggling to hold onto my perch atop the stone, my feet dangling off the back side in mid air, I kept telling her to shoot the darn thing before I fell off. "Just get me and the stone," I yelled and you'll be fine."

"But I can't get you both in in the shot," she protested.

"Finally I shouted for her to SHOOT because I was falling off NOWWWWWWW>......."

You can guess what happened, I imagine. Finally, arm fatigue proved to be my undoing. I lost my grip on the stone's top and fell off the monolith backwards. Initially I landed on my feet, but my shoes promptly slipped of the boulder I had originally used to boost myself up in the first place, and then I fell backwards onto the rock with a sort of painful finality that I'm sure every rock climber dreads.

Instantly, I leaped back to my feet, hoping, as we all do, that if you have the ability to rise from the fall, you'll probably live to fight another day. While that belief didn't turn out to be totally true, I did manage to hobble into the museum and spend the next hour touring the exhibits without collapsing into insensibility. But I fully expect that my ribs are going to be "complaining" to me for the next two weeks about how a dumb cracker, just short of his sixty-ninth birthday, ought to give up rock climbing and similar dangerous activities for good.

Which is part of the reason we landed in Sisters, Oregon tonight, instead of driving into the sunset and our someday destination of Portland, Oregon. That's also how we ended up with the grand total of 51 miles on today's odometer. Tell you what, though. The High Desert Museum is definitely a must-see should you ever travel Highway 97 in the Bend, Oregon vicinity. We only partook of the western history portion of the exhibits, but there is lots more to see, including hiking trails, a 1904 Sawmill, exhibits on the local Indian tribes, an otter habitat exhibit, and an building devoted to the "Changing Forest." Our guide, Bob Graham, for the Spirit of the West exhibits, was truly excellent, and I would be totally enthusiastic about returning and doing the rest of the museum's sights.

By the time we left the museum, it was 2:30 p.m. and getting dangerously close to cocktail hour. So, we immediately opted for stopping at the very highly rated Sisters/Bend RV Resort in Sisters, Oregon, just twenty miles away. Once at the resort, we discovered the camp is beautiful, immaculate, very scenic (we're beside the lake), full of helpful staff members, and.....expensive. Well, don't be deterred by that last bit. Everything is so beautiful here, we really didn't mind the $50.00 tab at all.

So, at this point we've set up camp, extended the awning that I thought yesterday might never work again, hauled out our camp chairs and had our cocktails, and Concetta has had her shower. I'm sitting here doing the blog, watching one neighbor spit-shine is Class A out the window, and another neighbor use her $2,000 dollar camera and extended lens to take photos of weeds.

I don't much fancy doing anything at all but rest my bruised ribs, finish up this bit of trivia, and take a hot shower myself. Hopefully, I'll still be able to climb into the driver's seat tomorrow morning when we turn our sights toward Portland. My buddy in Portland, whom we've promised to visit, just can't believe that we could leave on Saturday and NOT have arrived at his place already. But C'est la vie. When you don't have ANY time restraints, why rush? We'll get there someday. So until tomorrow, I wish you exciting destinations and memorable travels from the Davises, the Happy Wanderers.

Day 2 - Alturas, California to LaPine, Oregon - 212.8 miles

Today was a pretty perfect day considering it didn’t exactly end well. First it dawned clear and bright, just perfect for Mother’s Day. My onboard personal chef microwaved up a homemade waffle apiece -- brought from home in the freezer -- and we combined it with orange juice, bacon, and fresh berries of several varieties. Add a cup of black coffee each and we were indeed set for the day, which promised to encompass a scenic drive into the interior of the Oregon “Outback.”

After gassing up in Alturas and heading north on highway 395, it soon became apparent that we were going to be seeing quite a few miles of, well, quite a few miles: vast uninhabited valleys; long tracts of rolling farmland interspersed with the occasional farmstead; long climbs into timbered foothills where only the “scenic view” turnouts marred the otherwise pristine tracts of untrod wilderness. It would have been a great opportunity to play a book on tape. Unfortunately, we had forgotten to unpack one and neither one of us felt like doing it “at the moment.”

So, as they say, we spent the day cruising along at 60 mph, enjoying the largely unspoiled scenery, chatting about how much we just loved the unspoiled scenery, and hoping against hope that something would appear on the horizon that might prompt us to stop and capture with camera and IPhone some fascinating attraction like “The World’s Second Biggest Ball of Twine,” or the ever popular “Baby Rattlers,” that just shouldn’t be missed.

Of course we DID see the odd photo op as we cruised along. But evidently Oregon has some sort of rule about limiting the average shoulder width on our selected route to no more than four feet. Presumably, that ensures that anyone forced to pull over due to an unexpected flat tire or overheated radiator will be able to safely park their vehicle in the bottom of the adjacent flood-control ditch, thus eliminating any roadside hazard for motorists speeding by. We saw one chap in a Subaru who had experienced a right-rear flat. He sat helpless, half on and half off the tiny shoulder, his head on the steering wheel, his vulnerable station wagon blocking half of the travel lane. Lucky us that no one was coming the other way which might have prevented us from moving into the oncoming lane to pass the poor fellow. I hope Triple-A rescued him promptly.

Naturally, piloting a vehicle that is just over eight feet wide means that a shoulder of at least ten feet wide is a must should a pullover be desired. This means that many and sundry fabulous photos have been missed due to lack of turnout availability. My favorite today was a giant sagging red barn. This structure had been in its heyday nothing short of magnificent, but in recent decades had fallen –- let’s change that to “experienced” –- some obvious hard times. It was as if the noble structure had inadvertently been situated over a sucking bog or field of quicksand and was now only a few short weeks from disappearing into the soil that had given birth to it. I fretted about missing that shot for the rest of the day, darn it!

By lunch time we had reached the tiny berg of “Paisley, Oregon.” Not sure from whence the name was derived, but we did notice that the streets tended to be named after individual colors like green and blue. Maybe at some point all the creatively colored streets come together to form some sort of paisley roundabout. The town of Paisley didn’t turn out to be very exciting, but it did have a nice old school building from a century ago that came complete with a giant Siberian Elm that afforded our lunchtime break with loads of shade. Being Sunday, no one was about and we enjoyed a very enjoyable lunch complete with soft breezes and the singing of birds. After lunch, it was back on the highway with our intended nighttime destination, Bend, Oregon.

If you read the title to this blog you already know we didn’t make it to Bend. By the time 3:00 p.m. rolled around and we found ourselves in the unlikely berg of LaPine, Oregon, we decided that we needed to make a quick stop for a couple of grocery items and then we might as well just find a camp and call it a day. After all, it was cocktail hour.

Our shopping out of the way, Concetta suggested that we head for the nearby State Park which promised, according to the guide book, to afford us with “full hookups.” Now being a seasoned RVer of over 30,000 miles, I just knew that any guidebook sentence that included the words state park would seldom, if ever, include the words “full hookups.” But Concetta was adamant that it was so. Okay,” I said, and off we went. Moments later, as we cruised right by a perfectly charming camp right on the highway, I suggested that maybe we might want to choose the bird in the hand, rather than the state campsite bird in the bush. But it was nothing doing.

So it was that we very soon came upon our desired turnoff, and six miles from there we entered the state park. As we approached the entrance we could see a number of empty camp spaces, so we stopped and picked up a pay envelope, then headed down a tiny winding road in search of a decent site. I did feel a bit uneasy as I threaded our wide rig between the overhanging pine branches. Most of the occupied sites we passed were tent trailers and other small travel trailer setups, which appeared to fit comfortably within the small campsites. But I couldn't help but wonder how we were going to fare with a much larger machine.

When we finally found what looked like an agreeable, somewhat larger site, I asked Concetta to get out and make sure I wouldn’t be coming too close to any of the numerous pines. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite wait for her to get into position before I began to move back. Almost immediately a scraping sound stopped me dead. I had run the rig’s awing up against an adversarial pine, and quite neatly clipped off a pretty trim piece.

Thinking that I had just trashed the awning itself, I leaped from the driver’s seat all ready to go into orbit, and take it out on Concetta of course, but a quick survey of the damages revealed that the damage was minimal and I quickly calmed down. Deciding that the present site might not be totally suitable for our night’s stay, I moved down the road another half dozen spots and then easily backed into another site where the pines stood back a few more feet.

The only unpleasant surprise left was the one where I discovered, as I had predicted, that there was NO full hookups. There was water, yes. But the electricity was only 110 volts, which meant we’d have to be conservative in our energy use. AND, there was no sewer hookup at all, which meant a dump station would be in our future in the morning. Oh, well, I always regret not putting more confidence in my intuition.

So there you have it. After all the hoopla was over, I got to sit down for my cocktail and do the blog in the quiet of this nice state park – well, until I found out that the internet connection was slightly south of awful, with the Verizon device stating that the link was fluctuating around 20% of normal. So here I am typing this narrative into Microsoft Word and hoping that if I try to upload it a dozen times I’ll have a chance that it will make it to the blog site. As the saying goes, when you leave your comfort zone is when your adventures begin.

Tomorrow we’re once again headed for Bend and then Portland. Somewhere in between we’re going to be quite close to Sisters, Oregon, where one of my junior high friends lives. Who knows, maybe we’ll run into him on the street or in some coffee shop if we motor through. So until tomorrow, I wish you exciting destinations and memorable travels from the Davises, the Happy Wanderers.