May in Central Oregon

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After our major trip the first weekend in May, we stayed relatively close to home the rest of the month. We made a couple of trips to Bend and a scenic drive through central Oregon

The main point of our first trip was to see Crater Lake – it was definitely worth the visit! The road to the Rim center is open year round. They had the road open about a mile to the west to an observation point and just a few hundred yards to the east. Even in late May, the amount of snow still on the ground in the Cascades is incredible.

The road crews can clear just 1/4 mile a day (on a good day). They aim to open the north entrance first and the entire rim road by July. In the summer they offer boat rides on the lake - but right now you can't get down to the shore. Too steep and too much snow.

The rim road around Crater lake

Tom and Sally at Crater Lake

See how deep the snow gets

The snow at the Crater Lake Visitor Center

Crater Lake

View of Mt Mazama (Crater Lake) From Klamath Marsh Refuge

We stayed overnight at Klamath Falls – enjoyed the hot tub and the hockey game at a nearby sports bar. The town looks very interesting. We hope to make a longer visit and really enjoy the area next time. On the way home, we drove down to the California line and east through the Lower Klamath NWR. The terns were splashing down in the canals right next to the road – pretty spectacular. There were a couple of places where we could have driven out into the refuge on gravel roads. Looks like you could spend a whole day here!

Lower Klamath Refuge

We're back in California (for a few miles)

Mt Shasta from the road south of Klamath Falls

We passed through Lakeview, a very small ranching town in the high desert southwest of Burns. We ate lunch at a great Mexican place. You can drive straight over the mountains and backcountry from here to Frenchglen across BLM land and the Hart Mtn Refugre. We decided not to drive that way home. It had been a long day already and the gravel roads from Lakeview to Frenchglen are not supposed to be very well maintained.

We had read about Wagontire in the Harney County literature. I had expected a little more in the way of a town. It's just a store and RV park basically...

Last trip to Bend

Our next Bend adventure was right before Memorial Day. We did our shopping on Thursday – getting ready for the Alaska adventure and taking advantage of the lack of sales tax in Oregon. On both visits to Bend, we enjoyed dinner and a hockey game at a new sports bar called Rivals on Division St.

We spent Friday doing a little sightseeing and just messing around in town. We drove up to the top of Pilot Butte. Pretty views the Cascade range. (Pictures will be added at a later date – come back and look later!). We enjoyed Drake Park along the Deschutes River in downtown Bend. It was a lovely afternoon. Kayakers, baby strollers and Frisbees shared the park with brand-new baby ducklings and goslings.

Pine Mountain Observatory near Bend is open to the public every Friday and Saturday during the summer. This was their first session of the summer. They have an opening program explaining what you’ll see. Then they show you the big research telescope – you can’t look through that one. It’s attached to a camera. They do have an older large research telescope that does have an eyepiece. We got to see Saturn and its rings. As we were waiting our turn to look through the scope, we spotted a very bright object crossing the sky. Tom looked it up later on the NASA website and figured it was probably the Space Station.
Our time at Malheur is now at an end. After a great potluck cookout on Wednesday, we headed north. The RV is fixed and we are preparing to head across the border this morning. There will be one more post on the birds and scenery at Malheur later. Look for news about our trip to Alaska later this month. We’ll try to post in when we get to Tok or Fairbanks.