After a great day in Washington, we crossed over the border into Oregon and because Greg is always wanting to please me every chance he can, he accommodated my request to “stop by” Bend, Oregon. I’ve always wanted to see Bend. Several of my friends have spoken highly of this town and I wanted to visit Bend as long as we’re close…actually we weren’t that close. It was several hours from our last destination and quite a detour from the route that made the most sense. Nevertheless, my road warrior husband tarried on, determined to show me Bend. The problem was that it was so many, many miles from our last stop, we ended up arriving after 10:00 pm and it was obviously too late to do anything. Then this morning, with a long day of driving ahead of us, we didn’t have any time to engage in any fun “Bend” activities…so the most I can say is that we passed through Bend…which by the way, looks like a very charming town.
Yesterday, while zip lining, we met some sweet people from Oregon who told us we really needed to see Crater Lake while we are here. So…that is exactly what we tried to do. We drove from Bend to Crater Lake to see the spectacular sites. We hear that the water is an incredible color, like no other place on earth. As you can see by the pictures below, we are going to have to take them at their word, as there was no way to tell exactly what color the water was, let alone even see the water, with the viewing point so socked-in, it looked like nothing but white clouds/fog in the distance.
You just have to laugh. Keeping one’s sense of humor is imperative when one is an adventurer. You’re either going to laugh or cry…our sightseeing isn’t exactly going the way we had planned today. It’s especially frustrating that, after we’re already way too far down the road, we missed spectacular sights by just a few miles. Oh well, guess we’ll have to come back some day after we’ve done more planning.
After almost seeing Crater Lake, we drove on Highway 138 to travel to our campground for the night in Coos Bay. This was a very scenic drive for miles and miles and almost made it worth it to take the long way around via Crater Lake. We enjoyed the winding, tree-lined mountain roads, listening to our book on tape and sharing time together.
Even the doggies seemed to enjoy riding shot gun with us. (As you know, Bella doesn’t much like it any time we are in motion…poor thing just paces up and down, wondering why is this house always moving?) At least for a moment, she takes a break from her pacing to pose for a picture.
Once we had a cell signal after we had passed through the Coast Ranges, we were able to phone home and talk to our Moms. It was great hearing their voices…we are so blessed to have such great family. We will really look forward to seeing them when we return home in the near future. Speaking of returning home, tomorrow we cross the border into California! Home sweet home. My mom told me tonight that our family took a similar road trip when I was very young, and stopped at a campground called Jedediah Smith, just south of the Oregon/California border. We’re going to go check it out and see if we can stir up any memories from when I was about 4 years old. (After all, that was only about 25 years ago…I should remember SOMETHING! haha) California, here we come, right back where we started from!!
Navigating "New" Normals 