We got and headed east toward Reno on down HW 395 and felt good about it. Stressful California (we were planning on going down the east side of the Sierras) but that will have to wait for a time in the future. 
We landed at Desert Rose RV park in Fernley, NV 40 miles east of Reno. 
What made the decision was the severe weather alert that hit my computer screen this morning right after I logged on.  I then call the RV park and made sure we could get in and stay for the weekend and wait out the storm. They were busy and would check and call back.  They did and held a great spot for us, and at Passport America rates for all three days. 

No that we have landed we of course went to Walmart just back down the road for a shopping fix. 
We did make sure we stopped for late lunch so we wouldn't go nuts in the food section. 

This Walmart is right next door to the big Amazon shipping center out here. How many times have I seen this address on things shipped to us. 
We are relaxed and happy right here in this fine RV park. Time to chill out for the weekend and get prepaired to SLOWELY explore Nevada oun our way south to Quartzsite. 
 

Like the next two pictures below show HW 395 in southern Oregon and northern California sucks. This is the view over and over and over again. 
Kind of like driving through Nebraska but without any people or buildings. Next time it will be down HW 97 me thinks. 

The big event was to hit CA. Not sure why as just more of the same. 
Ok time for the map.

We have landed in Susanville, CA at where else but Susanville RV park. I'm not even going to reveal the price for a nights stay. You can check out their  web site. But a fine park to be sure. All cement pads. We're not used to such treatment or cost. The office person was super friendly. So that took some of the sting out of the cost.  I'll get over it now that I'm on getting SS and a defined pension, both of which hit the bank this week. The SS for the first time. 

Now we are having happy hour and making up our minds as to where to next. This is the place for that. The road splits right here. 
Time to choose. Either west on HW 36 to Chester and south on HW 70 into CA.  OR east on HW 395 to Reno and over to HW 95 and south into NV.. 

We think we have made up our minds but I'm not telling till our next post when you will see where we landed. 
This is one of those to be continued stories. You never know we might wake up and change our minds... Isn't that what fulltimers do. The weather forecast could change and we move like snowbirds. Oh not that term... More like migrating fulltimers... We are a species, all to our own. A strange elusive breed hunted by RV dealers, RV parks, Camping World stores, propane dealers, gas stations, insurance and mail forwarding services, and of course by Walmart to name a few.  Stay flexible and get your butt down south soon... the weather is a changing... Me thinks...
 

The wind was blowing and clouds and in the mid 30's so we slept in and spent the day right here in Burns, OR at the Casino RV park. Later on we had a couple of snow showers. Terry did his thing and took a big mess of clothes to get washed. Now he is making chicken soup from scratch with homemade noodles. With us being plugged in we can run the heat pump and it saves big time on propane usage. We do run the furnace when we go to bead to keep the basement and holding tanks heated.  The heat pump does not heat that area. Just looked and it is to get down to 22 here tonight. We are at 4160 ft altitude so no wonder it gets, shall we say, cool at night.  BUT it is still what in Quartzsite...  Me thinks this is a early cold spell up here and will warm up a bit later on.  The Aspen still haven't turned big time yet. So there ya go cooler up north and still too hot down south.  A fulltimers challenge is to travel and stay in their weather comfort zone. We missed this one by a day or two but at least there is no snow drifts looking outside at the moment. 

We will hit the road in the AM, off to new adventures on down HW 395 to Alturas, CA. 

We looked at the weather forcast and hooked up and took off mid morning. Headed a little east to Arlington and up from the Columbia River on HW 19.
It follows the railroad so you know the grade is not that bad. 

This is high dry wheat growing country after you come up from the river gorge. What a difference a few miles can make. 
You can see forever from up here and I was a tad bit worried about the wind. It was blowwing but we did OK. 

This shot below was not from on this route but from a day or so before, futher west. But me thinks it expresses the wheat country in Oregon. 
I really like this photo. Notice the winter wheat just planted as it is starting to come up. 

Condon (below) was a true delight. The land around Condon was not as good as the above photo. 
Seemed more dry and not as good for farming. But they still were trying to make it with wheat growing. 

Wish we would have stopped and walked around the town.  They have a movie theater, city swimming pool , fairgrounds. The county seat, always good to keep a town alive. A well kept small city. So many miles off the beaten path, how they continue to do that is a wonder. You can see the railroad made this town years ago and now it is gone and this high plateau wheat country small town, is still here and looks to me doing just fine thank you. They even had a football field, as I wonder how many students they must have to support that. Bet each and every boy gets to, or has to,  go out for the team and play. Wonder if they let a few girls play to round out the team.  And just who do they play...  the bus trips to games must be long and interesting. This town is like on top of the world as you can see forever in all directions. Rural is this towns middle name. 

Now this is a route if you have not driven it is a great drive. The town of Spray further south is on the John Day river and is a neat town that we could tell is very RV friendly. They were installing a new dump station right along the HW. And have a city RV park on the river. 

Along the John Day River. This goes on and on and on and on. Great country. 

A shot going through the John Day Fossil Site area. 

We continued south on US 395 up higher to passes at about 5200 feet and stayed up there. Never coming down big time after the pass. 
Things leveled out into vast high parks and we didn't come down much to even get to Burns, OR. 
The whole area is high country, not what we had expected. That's why we travel to see and explore. 
Have now stopped for the night in Burns, OR. at the Indian Casino RV park at $22 a night. After $9 a day at the last COE campground we thought why not. 

The casino is in the tent like building in the picture. Seems these casinos start out in a small building tent affair but me thinks in a few years this one will bloom into a mega building and this RV park will have a pool and sauna installed. Indians were screwed and now at last they are reaping some payback. 
By the way I'm getting a signal of 55 on the sat dish. No loss of signal for us now. 
I'm tired as we saw more than we expected today and are now in high country at 4200 feet here in Burns. 
A Ten High is tasting pretty good right now. Time to relax and enjoy life as we know it... 

May stay here another day or head on south to Alturas, CA. I spot a Passport America RV park there. 
 
 
 

Updated with more comments and links. 7 PM  Pacific time. 

Guess what, we went for another day trip on Sunday. Why would we do a thing like that. 
We are on the Columbia River and just like Lewis and Clark, It needs to be exploried don't Ya think. 

We went from Rufus (we are camped at LePage COE park on the John Page River 5 miles more east) to the bridge over to the WA side on HW 97 and then west on HW 14 to Cascade Locks. 

The views just never end. Mt. Hood up and behind Hood River as wiewed from the WA side on HW 14. 

The gorge goes way on beyond but we didn't want to get into the Portland area and this looked like the last bridge across the river before all the congestion. Me thinks we need to leave somthing for later when back in the area. 

We went to the COE Bonneville Dam just west of Cascade Locks. The have a great fish viewing facility to watch fish climb the fish ladders. 
If you go to the above link you can watch the fish cam. As you can see this is where the Columbia River the Cascade Mts. meet. 

After crossing back to the OR side, on a see through wire mesh deck bridge called Bridge of the Gods which even I didn't like driving over. 

(picture from the above web site)

Do go to the above link to read about the Ancient Bridge
(Scientists believe that about 1,000 years ago, a giant landslide from the north shore of the Columbia River blocked the Gorge and stopped the river's flow. This natural dam created an inland sea in eastern Oregon, Washington, and into Idaho. Over time, water eroded the dam and created an awesome natural stone bridge. Eventually, this bridge fell, creating the Cascade Rapids.)
and now the Modern Bridge.
(The Bridge of the Gods as it exists today was created in a much less dramatic fashion than the original bridge, but it sits in beautiful contrast to the powerful scenery of the Gorge. The cantilevered bridge is the third oldest bridge on the Columbia River).

The above Bridge of the Gods link has much more about this area, so you can read more about it. 

Now back on I-84 and a great drive on OLD HW 30 between Mosier and The Dalles. 

Now the sights on the south side in OR. along old US 30 going back east. 

Mitchell Point

Now traffic speeds by below. 

Now an America's Byways Historic Columbia River Highway  .PDF of the area. 

There is Interstate I-84 below, but me thinks this is the way to travel. I grew up in Iowa along US 30. 
US 30 was part of the original Lincoln Highway in Iowa. 
So it's a treat to see where US 30 ended up here on the west coast and to be able to drive it still. 
The old Lincoln Highway split off from HW 30 and went south to San Francisco I believe. 

We are watching the weather as a Severe Weather Alert has been issued for Tuesday,
A TRANSITION FROM MILD SUMMER LIKE CONDITIONS TO MUCH COOLER WEATHER 
WILL BEGIN ON TUESDAY AS A COLD FRONT PUSHES EAST OF THE CASCADES.

We might just stay right here for Tuesday night and see what Wednesday brings. 
Now if I could just keep the satellite dish locked on the bird in the sky. 
It is trying to stay connected through a tree and the signal goes up and down with the wind. 
 

Got back online... It was touch and go. As you know we have a DataStorm Dish and it has worked great for many years now. But right here our signal is a little low so I had to work hard to get back online. BUT I did get a signal strength reading of of 35 after tweeking the dish settings for an hour or so. 
A normal reading is about 50. Ya know at times it's hard to lock on to the satellite 22 thousand miles up in the sky.. Since I'm on the edge if it rains me thinks I'm screwed and will be off line again. We are aimed through some trees killing our receive signal. Looks clear but must not be. 
The weather reports are not good with wind and falling temps for early next week, so we might have to stay here till the weather clears. We shall see. 
More on the weather later.

Anyway how about a day trip report.
Another wonder high atop the Columbia River. 

 Do go to this   Link to their web site. 
Many of the displays can be seen on their site as flash photography was banned. 

Terry looking excited as he was about to enter the museum. 

Right off the parking lot was shade trees and a great bench to sit and take in the the views. 
A person could sit here all day and take it all in. 

They have an outside sculpture garden with peacocks roaming the grounds. 

Ya know I hate going to museums and yet Terry did manage to drag me to this one. He said )our friend) Tad would be upset if I didn't go. 
Tad is a retired Art Instructor.  It was a nice outing, even though my arm was still hurting from being twisted behind my back.
 

UPDATE: 
Our plans are to explore the Columbia River Gorge big time on Sunday going west from Rufus and cross over north into WA and take HW 14 to Cascade Locks and back on I-84 on the south side as on the return trip it would go faster at Interstate speeds.  Looks like a great road trip and will post pictures when we get back. 

 

We moved south after almost three wonderful weeks staying with Tad in Roslyn, WA. Here coming down into the valley to Yakima, WA.

We were headed to Aubrey's RV Center in Union Gap to get our water heater fixed. It doesn't want to start on gas most of the time. 
We have to go out and tap on the value. 

Now for the rest of the story of how hard it is to get things repaired as fulltimers on the road. 
We had stopped at this place a couple of weeks ago to make sure we could get in and for em to have the value we needed when we headed south later. Not a problem we were told just stop on in on the way through. I called a day in advance and was then told no way could they get to us now. Well as you can imagine that didn't go over so well. As I had gotten the same response in Great Falls, MT several weeks earlier. This is not so much a RV service center problem as we can schedule an appointment, but with how the warranty service works with like Suburban,  Norcold, etc. You can't get parts shipped till a service center looks at the unit and then you have to wait for days for them to be shipped.  Now if it was a vacation trailer you can do it that way but us fulltimers don't live that way, stationary for long periods of time. 
Anyway we got there and we came to an agreement on how they could work with us to get things resolved. They had what they thought was the part but after the old one was off it turned out not to be correct. Calls to the factory didn't go well as they said they would have to ship the part out. Well we were not going to wait that long so the old value was reinstalled.  Messing with it now caused it to work as we re lighted the water heater several times without fail. So we shall see if it lasts. The catch twenty two is the factory refused to ship the part to another service center on down the road till we showed up there and then waited for it to be shipped to them. I'm sure I'm not telling any of you fulltimers anything new here.  But still what a crock it is.  But now I will say Crystal at Aubrey's tried her best to help us and I would recommend them if you need service in the (Union Gap) Yakima, WA area. 

The Columbia River where HW 97 crosses. Wanted to put this shot up to to get things going. 

We actually crossed over after coming down HW 221 at Umatilla as we wanted to check out the Plymouth COE park. 

We didn't think we could get satellite service there and it was not right on the river. I know picky.. picky.
Next off to where the John Day river connects to the Columbia for another COE campground. 

A grain terminal at Umatilla, WA 

We later landed at Le Page COE park at the confulance of the Columbia and John Day rivers. 

We got one of two sites left and it was good for only the one night. I asked why so busy and was told this is prime fishing season and they come from all over to be right here. Me thinks I didn't know that. The gate attendant (Ray) was very accommodating and told us the site numbers that were to vacate in the morning and to pick one and come back after 8 AM and he would see if we could got one of those. He went out of his way and I told him how much we appreciated it.  In the morning we got a first come, first served site #20 which meant we could stay for 14 days if we wanted. And after FRED or satellite went round and round forever it finally locked on and we had Internet. Now wer'e cooking. 50 amp service and with my 50% off senior pass discount.
$9 a day. Oh and I checked when I had the Sat. dish up and connected, my FIRST SS payment hit my checking account right on time.  SO VERY COOL ME THINKS. Now I know it's in CAPS but when you get your first SS check you'll pit it up in CAPS too.

Terry took this from up on the one way entrance road to the campground. You go up and over the campground and drop down in a loop to the lower level. 

Later in the day we went for a ride down to the HW 97 bridge and across to visit Stonehenge. The lead off picture is taken from there. 


Terry thinking what the real Stonehenge must feel like. 

Even this reproduction causes a person to be in awe of what man (or visitors to earth) created on this planet. 

Now as they say Read more about it.

Next will be post of our visit to Maryhill Museum another high up on the bluff wonder. 

Update  7 PM on Friday night:   Now back online.  We were loosing our satellite connection at times today and then it went out completly. 
So me says this late post is not my fault. It hurt but even without Internet service for just (now) a few hours didn't drive me tolally nuts as this area is so grand as to make us feel so small and insignificant in the big picture. 

I called MotoSAT customer service and since it was after hours didn't think they would call back. But they called called right back and confirmed our software settings and equipment were good, just not getting a good signal from the sky. Me thinks our sig strength is very low here at about 35. should be higher me thinks. Will just have to deal with it for now.  I was worried it was a hardware problem.  How do you get parts sent to the outback on the Columbia River in Oregon. Don't want to even think about going that route. 

Anyway back on line for now and SO HAPPY.

Terry is grilling up a couple a steaks and all is well....
Terry set up the the ground tripod DirecTV dish today so we are getting HDTV. It took us all of 30 seconds after he had it level to swing it around for us to get good sig numbers for service. 
Life is good and hope also for you tonight.
 
 

Go  BACK       Go to  INDEX  Page     Go FORWARD

See where we are at right now. DataStormUsers map ID 98  Have question or comment about our blog life... We love email.   Just email rbunge@hitchitch.com