We just spent the last two weeks in Prineville camping along
the Crooked River and had a great time!
June 21, we drove the coach (towing the Grand Cherokee Jeep)
to Prineville, Oregon to spend a couple nights at the Crook Country RV Park. Rain was in the forecast, but at least it was
nice on the 21st and 22nd.
Early the morning of June 22, we drove Jeep down to the BLM
Camp Grounds and found a site where we could park the Motorhome for the next two
weeks. After we secured the site, we
headed out to a geocache run along the Millican Highway. There are 200 caches along the highway, but
at Noon, we started in the middle at cache number 92 and completed number 200
later that afternoon. We could see some
really dark clouds heading our way, so we headed into town and stopped at the
Tastee Treat for dinner. Just after we
got inside the diner, the rain came pouring down, then lightning and thunder hit
at the same time. Very bright flash with
a LOUD BANG!! It continued to rain heavy
all that night and into the next morning.
At 9 am on the 23rd, Ken went over to the fairgrounds and
went through a local gem & rock show (it was raining off and on, but not
very hard). He did come back to the
coach with some nice stuff…. That
afternoon, we drove Jeep to Highway 20 (east of Bend) where the Milican Highway
geocache run started. We then completed geocaches
number 1 through 89 before it started raining hard. We had to quit for the rest of that day
leaving only 23 to finish another day.
June 24, we drove the motorhome 15 miles south and got
ourselves parked in our campsite along the Crooked River. It was raining when we got in our site and
continued while we got set up. Thank
goodness we didn’t have much to do because we already had the gazebo and tent
set up….we do that to secure our site prior to bringing in the motorhome. There really aren’t many places along that
river where we can park a 40 foot rig.
It quit raining about 1 pm, so we took that opportunity to drive back
over to the Millican Highway and complete the last 23 caches. It only took us a half hour to complete, and
we did it before it started to rain again.
On Tuesday, the 25th, our friend Rod pulled his trailer in. We had his site secured, so he was able to
pull right in and set up. All morning
the rain had held off, but just before he arrived, we had some huge down pours. His wife, Lynda, still had to work the week,
so she would join him on Friday.
The 26th was a gray & cloudy day with some sun
breaks. The temperature was in the high
60s, but come Thursday it began to get hot.
The Temps jumped from mid to high 60s to very high 80s (very humid) and
into triple digits by the 30th of June.
On Thursday the 27th, Rod went golfing and Ken & I took
off for Redmond and found 23 more geocaches.
Since we didn’t have Internet or cell service where we were camping, I
was unable to log any of those until we got back to Salem on July 6.
Friday was another extremely hot & humid day. Lynda (Rod’s wife) joined us later that
evening. We literally sweltered June 29
through July 2 while temperatures jumped high 90s and even into triple
digits. In the canyon, we do get a
breeze, but it was a hot humid breeze (we spent a lot of time in the shade). Sunday,
June 30, Ken’s brother Dick and his wife Pam arrived and we had a wonderful one
night visit with them. They were headed
from Boise, Idaho to Newport, Oregon to spend a couple weeks and took the time
to stop and enjoy a night of camping and the next morning with us. They left about 10 am on July 1 and headed
for Newport.
Finally on July 3, the temps started cooling down. We had the next few days with wonderfully cooler
temps and cooler breezes. We rafted,
played cards, drank, ate, and just had a lot of fun. Rod’s daughter and her family joined our
group on July 3 to spend the weekend.
Since we had already been there two weeks on July 6, we
packed up and headed home in hopes to beat the weekend traffic…. Yeah, right….
There was a lot of traffic and just after we crossed over the pass and
heading towards the town of Detroit, we had a Doe jump in front of us. We had one very quick slam on the brakes and
thankfully missed her. Happily, no one
was hurt or injured and only had some small things fall off the counters. I was sooooo glad I had my coffee maker (keurig)
packed away. That would have been
devastating to lose. Both Ken & I
always travel with our seat belts on, so no one was thrown. The rest of the drive into Salem was
uneventful, just busy traffic.
