We awoke to a subtle reminder that it’s time to head South:
For breakfast, Trish cooked up the trout our son caught last week. It was delicious!
Here’s what our overnight location looked like after it warmed up a bit:
After a successful morning home school session, we headed out to look for Hidden Forest cave. It’s really two segments of a collapsed lava tube with a still-standing segment in the center.
Here’s the southern segment. It’s a 50 foot drop into the collapsed tube:
It really is a Hidden Forest:
Our son surveys the entrance to the cave portion:
Looking back:
When entering the cave, there was a 1’ x 2’ passage that led to the northern collapsed lava tube. Trish spots our son as the climbs up and out of the pit:
Looking back into the nothern section:
Next we explored Arnold Ice cave, which used to supply Bend with ice. A few years ago it rather suddenly ran dry, so we were able to get all the way to the end of the cave:
It was a steep climb out:
We’re staying at the Walmart of Bend again tonight.
See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.
This morning we did laundry, dropped of some dry cleaning, and bought a replacement window knob and more Happy Bowl Liners for the RV. We then headed southeast a few miles out of Bend to explore some lava caves.
We decided to visit Boyd Cave today, which is 1880 feet in length. Here’s a diagram:
Here we go:
The ceiling came down pretty low in spots:
One chokepoint had the adults crawling forward using our elbows. High adventure!
A natural love seat:
At last, the exit was in sight:
The cave is really in the middle of nowhere:
After our spelunking adventure, we did a bit of school. Here I am explaining analog to digital converters to our son:
The kids created nameplates as part of their color theory work:
Tonight we’re dispersed camping in the Deschutes National Forest, really in the middle of nowhere. Oh, and I think that’s snow I hear falling on our roof.
See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.
While Trish was shopping at Walmart, I was out in the parking lot with a drill and soldering iron. Until now, turning the cellular amplifier and wireless router on and off has involved plugging in or removing 12V cigarette lighter-style cables to and from a 12V socket. I installed two switches with indicator lights to turn these on and off:
And yes, the time on the stereo is unfortunately correct.
We headed South on 26 towards Bend but took a little detour to Little Crater Lake while still in the Mt. Hood National Forest:
The “lake” is extraordinarily clear and deep, which is why it’s named after the real Crater Lake:
I grabbed our waterproof action camera and did some underwater videos:
Here’s a frame grab from the video. It’s pretty deep:
The lake has its own campground, which is closed for the season, but still open for use, albeit with no water or toilets available for use.
We continued South and stopped at the dump station at the Madras fairgrounds. In terms of fresh and waste water, the most “expensive” operation is showering, so we did a DFSFD – dump, fill, shower, fill, dump. This left us all clean and with full fresh water tanks and empty waste tanks. Brilliant, if I do say so myself.
Looking over the edge was a sickening experience. Here I’m looking east towards the old bridge, now for pedestrians only, and the mostly obscured new highway bridge:
Looking west towards the railroad bridge:
A short way south of the viewpoint is Smith Rock State Park, one of the premier rock climbing locations in the US.
We watched the climbers across the river:
We spent the night at the Walmart in Bend, Oregon. Thanks to a town ordinance no doubt championed by local campgrounds to boost profits, Walmart is posted “no overnight parking”, but in conversation Walmart makes it clear that it’s a town ordinance and that the manager doesn’t come out until 9am to look around and call the tow trucks. As such we will hit the road by 8am.
See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.
Last night, Trish and I were getting ready for bed when we heard something moving about behind the ovens. We waited for a while, and a deer mouse scurried across our rangetop! I’ve read quite a bit about rodent intrusion in RVs, but this was our first experience with the problem. Mice find their way in when the manufacturer hasn’t properly sealed gas, water, or electrical lines where they enter the RV, leaving a gap. It takes a remarkably small hole for a mouse to get in.
I drove to the nearest store open at 11:30pm, which turned out to be only 12 miles down-mountain in Rhododendron. I bought glue and snapping traps, we baited them with PB&O (peanut butter and oatmeal), and we went to bed. About an hour later, we awoke to the sounds of the mouse struggling on one of the glue traps. We swept him out the door, trap and all, and in the morning he had liberated all but his tail from the trap so we helped him finish the job and off he went. Hopefully he won’t come back!
After Friday’s fishing success, we returned to the lake to try again. Unfortunately, the fish were not cooperating, but it was a beautiful day, so who cares?
We decided to break out the kayaks for the first time this trip. The life preservers, which were stored in the rear compartment of one of the kayaks, were a bit wet, so we set them out to dry on the rocks as we got ready to go.
Amazing kayaking ensued:
We found several beaver dams:
I fancied this submerged tree:
After lunch, we headed into the “town” of Government Camp to visit the museum there and to bring home 2 jerry cans of fresh water. You know it’s time to move on when the sink starts to sputter. The museum was great, and the town is quaint too:
Upon returning, I re-rode Friday’s Trillium Lake route by myself, cranking out the 4.2 mile course in 22 minutes. Then Trish and our son rode the route as well. Despite both of them crashing, they completed the course in 35 minutes. The bikes have proven themselves to be qualified for light off-road work when paired with their cyclocross wheels, so our “4 bikes, 16 wheels” strategy has worked out well.
While Trish and our son were riding around the lake, our daughter and I drove down to the lake for some fishing at dusk. We had two bites but didn’t catch anything. Here’s Mt. Hood as darkness settles in:
Empty freshwater tanks, full wastewater tanks, and the return of cold rainy weather demand that we head out, so we will be heading Southeast towards Bend in central Oregon tomorrow.
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