Long Hollow Ranch Sisters

We drive alongside the Clackamas River, so beautiful we run out of adjectives as we point out to each other the views we want to share. Driving up towards the Cascades we see Mt. Hood in the distance, alone and majestic. At 4800 feet we drive through Santiam Pass and start the long road down, final destination Bend. We set up camp in Tumalo State Park. It is the weekend, there are so many people in the state parks we pass, we decide to stay two nights right here.

We decided to spend the night in Bend and found a place to stay online before we left our Hampton Inn. Stopped by Costco (again!) to gas up before we left town, then took highway 84 West past the Columbia River, Mt. Hood, and a huge re-planted forest from the Patterson exit. On 97 South we were on the Scenic Byway Journey Through Time. We passed the Moro State High Football Champs notice, then in Grass Valley (a tiny ...

We stopped in La Pine and walked.

We stopped in the Volcanic Monument.

We walked on the Lava Fields.

We drove through Bend, Redmond & Madras.

Past Warm Springs, the car overheated and we pulled over.

We waited for the car to cool down.

We, slowly, drove up the mountain to Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood.

We went to the Crook County Museum.

We drove north into the Ochoco's.

We went to the Painted Hills, John Day Fossil Beds.

We drove through Mitchell and failed to find food.

We drove through Dayville and failed to find food.

We had food in Mt. Vernon.

We drove down the S. Fork of the John Day river and slept near Izee.

We drove to Bend.

We drove up Pilot Butte.

We walked around Drake Park and Bend downtown.

We went to a comic shop.

We had tea at Townshend's.

We met my old friends and walked to Old Mill district.

We ate American Chinese food.

We watched a cinema.

We drove back to Prineville.

We had a couple family dinner's.

We walked around Prineville.

We went to the court-house.

We went to the round-up at the park.

We sat in the yard and watched 4th of July fireworks.

We drove up to the Prineville Reservoir and watched deer.

We traveled to Bend intermittently.

... had a good night. We were very impressed by the quality of Oregon's highways - even on the small, secondary routes we were traveling on. We thought their one word highway signs were quite comical too. Signs like "ROCKS" , "ELK" , "CONGESTION" and numerous signs reminding motorists of the most basic of highway rules "DO NOT PASS WITH SOLID LINE IS IN YOUR LANE" and "RIGHT LANE IS FOR RIGHT TURNS" when approaching an intersection. Oh well, whatever it takes to keep the peace.

Well, here I am sitting in an airplane, literally big enough to house a small town. I am figuring that this city in the air has about 700 of us souls up here careening through space at 569 miles per hour per hour. The airline is called Cathay and is based out of Hong Kong. They are absolutely amazing. First of all they were voted the #1 airline in a survey and they are celebrating their 60th year in business....with all the airlines going bankrupt over ...

Lindsay (Dallas) was still in Portland when I arrived back. I ventured out to Gresham to meet her but got horribly lost. I was walking around for more than an hour with all my luggage until I finally gave up, grabbed the nearest shopping cart, dumped my stuff in it and wandered aimlessly like a dirty, hairy and by that time, stinky bum! Of course that's when Lindsay and the gang saw me and couldn't stop laughing! We had ...

Day 5. We rolled into a rainy Portland after an 18hr train journey and whilst waiting the bus were approached by two big black guys and once they realised we were from England they wanted us to teach them how to "talk" English so we had them saying "alright guv'nor", "innit" and "a pleasure to meet you"!! They were **** at English accents but they were bigger than us so we told them they sounded just great!! We were due to stay at ...