We began by loading everyone up...
Daughters
Wife and dog
Myself.
The trip is about 170 miles, over the Cascades.. and the drive transitions from lots of thick green growth of ferns and moss on the wet side.. including Fir Trees and dense undergrowth..
to Ponderosa Pines and a much drier environment on the dry (East) side.
About halfway into the trip, we were hungry so we stopped for lunch in Mill City at Mountain Pizza.
We decided to blow right into Bend, bypassing the campground and explore the town.
I bought a coffee and we checked out the Deschutes River that runs through town. The girls were in good spirits and despite the 3 hour drive, didn't complain.
The Pickle handled the passes with little difficulty and when we'd stop I'd check out the temperature of the dipstick (kind of an unofficial test to see how hot the engine is getting) and it was just warm.. not hot at all.
Eldest daughter liked climbing on the bike stands.
Eventually we got to the campground. And we settled into spot C-59.
The spot was fairly private and had a nice backdrop full of chipmonks who chased each other and checked us out the entire time we were there. The girls loved it.
Eventually it was time to put on the jammies... and get ready for bed.
As is the case always it seems, the girls started off sleeping together upstairs.
But eventually when they saw how much fun we were having downstairs they wanted to shift positions.
Then it was time to go to sleep and call it a day. A very nice day.
The next day I cooked breakfast for everyone.. bacon, pancakes, coffee, all on my Coleman Stove. I love that thing. It really cooks. But there were some rain showers that interupted my cooking and I had to dash into the pickle every now and then to stay out of the rain.
It wasn't too bad.
Then we packed up, went into town for some Mexican food... climbed a butte in the center of town for some nice views... and then stopped at a park to run around for a while.
Our trip back home was pretty non eventful expect for a little car sickness from one of the girls.. that grade out of Bend is long and steep and I could only manage about 40MPH on some of it. But the road was really nice and had plenty of passing lanes so I didn't tick off too many people behind us.
As far as stats..
Total roundtrip mileage 380 miles
Gallons of gas approx 19
quarts of oil 1.5 (one in bend another half back in beaverton)
Mechanical notes... seemed to run nice and cool, clutch did shudder a bit when starting out in first at the end of the long drive. Everything else went great!
Next stop, Maupin!
No comments:
Post a Comment