lois on the road: Oregon

Our first stop was at the Washougal WA Pendleton factory, where I was told you could get excellent buys on Pendleton Blankets. They are quite beautiful but the more I thought about it I realized they would not fit my décor or my daughters, and they are quite pricey even at the factory. We then went to Breitenbush nfcg close to Breitenbush Hot springs where Norm spent the next day soaking and I stayed at the campground reading. Our campsite was right on the river and I really enjoyed the day. The next day we drove through the Willamette National forest with its tall, tall trees and beautiful scenery searching out two more hot springs ,one at McKenzie Bridge and one called Twilagar which he liked a lot.

The next day we moved on to another National Forest Camp Ground south of Bend. This one was just as beautiful on a lake in the middle of lava fields. There were a lot of fisherman there with boats and as a bonus a hot spring just a short hike around the lake. We took an amazing ride to the top of a mountain that overlooked the Newberry Cauldron and both East Lake and Paulina Lake and the Large Obsidian flow. Another ride went to the Lava Forest where we walked a mile around a lava lake that had encased trees in the lava and you can still see the molds of the trees in the lava. All this volcanic action was quite fascinating to us. The High Desert Museum was a gem in the AAA book , and it was quite nice. It had a section on Indians , settlers, Buffalo, and an outdoor display with various animals.

The next day we went to Sisters OR, a small town with amazing shops and home of the huge quilt show every spring. On the way there we noticed a fire about as big as a bon fire in the hills south west of Sisters. As we were walking around the shops we noticed the fire trucks leaving with their sirens blaring and the fire had grown large with clouds of black smoke billowing up .We left Sisters to continue on a scenic byway and observed Helicopters with buckets flying toward it and by now it was huge. We drove through more lava fields and forests with 150’ trees until we reached still two more hot springs near Oakridge. We were both impressed with Central OR. There is a Snow capped mountain almost in every view and lush forests on one side of the mountains and entirely different landscape on the other. (High Desert).

We are attending the Pendleton Rally and drove 276 miles today to get to Pendleton.