Bill and Eileen's Travels: Bend Oregon (6/19

Even before we got to Crown Villa RV we had a lot of excitement on our trip. The GPS sent us down a street, close to the park, that had a 12' 10" clearance. My bus is supposed to be only 12' 7" but I wasn't going to give it a try. Mark's coach is over 12" 10" so there was no question that he wouldn't make it. Apparently a cattle truck hit this bridge two days before we arrived and it killed four of the cows. Needless to say both of us had to unhook the cars and turn around. This was the first time in eight years that we had to unhook. Everything turned out fine and the RV park turned out to be very nice. It is a small resort and the sites are about 25X80. You could almost park a small cruise ship on these sites. I neglected to take a picture but this was probably the nicest park we have been in yet this trip.

The day we arrived we went to the Pilot Butt for the 360 degree view of the city and the surrounding area. The next day we went back south to Lava Butte which is part of the Newberry National Volcanic Monument. We watched the movie about all the Volcanic activity in this area then we when up on the Butt for a view of the Lava Flow Fields from the Newberry Volcanic eruption about 7000 years ago. This is an amazing thing to see. The fields around the welcome center are just cinders with very little growing on them even after 7000 plus years. From the Butt you can see many Lava Cones in the area. We did read that Mt Hood, just north of here, will probably be the next Volcano to do something along the Cascade Mountain Range. It might be another 10,000 years or longer though so we weren't worried about going there.

After our visit to Lava Butte we went to the High Desert Museum which had animals and a lot of information about the geology of the area. We were late in the day so most of the animals were not very active. It was also a little difficult for Eileen because it required a lot of walking.

Day three we headed out to a little town called Sisters which is Northwest of Bend and near the base of the Three Sisters Mountains. This was a neat little town with many interesting shops. After lunch we headed over to Smith Rocks SP with a stop on Old Route 97 at the Peter Skene Ogden Scenic Viewpoint. You look straight down about 300 feet into the Crooked River Basin.

Smith Rocks is a pretty location where the volcanic formations stand straight up and much of the land has been eroded away. From our viewpoint in the parking lot we could see the crowd that had walked to the top of the mountain. We think they might have been doing yoga or dancing on top of the mountain. We also saw many climbers on the cliffs across form where we were. Another pretty place.

We really enjoyed our time in Bend, which included a nice dinner at the Brew House downtown. Mark and Kathie sure enjoyed their nostalgic return.

Next morning we headed north and east to the John Day Fossil Beds. Sorry to leave such a great campground but all good things must end. Goodbye Bend we enjoyed our time here.

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