Howdy! I know I say this all the time…but seriously….where does the time go? Seems like just a few days ago I posted an update, and now I realize it’s been quite awhile – Sorry!
We have been in Oregon for about 10 days now. First in LaGrande, and now in Bend. We’re going to be in Oregon until about mid-September, we are meandering our way all through the state. LaGrande is in the northeastern part of the state, not far from Idaho. We really enjoyed our time in LaGrande, nice small town with a good farmer’s market and a good restaurant we frequented more than usual for us. The RV park we stayed at (Grande Hot Springs RV Resort) was a few miles outside of the town, in a very nice setting with lots of acreage. They also had hot springs that fed two pools for soaking which we enjoyed. We got in a couple of hikes while there, and just hung out enjoying our views of the big sky and relaxing at the RV.
But, just to make things interesting….we got a flat tire on the truck! Luckily, we were not pulling the RV when it happened. We had just driven to a trailhead to hike. It was my birthday, and my request was a long beautiful hike. So we had one all picked out and while we were getting our backpacks on, Steve heard a Pssssssttttt. That’s a technical term for air leaking from the front tire on a truck. So Steve says, “hurry, get back in the truck, we’re going to drive as far down this mountain as we can before it gets completely flat!” And so we did, and we made it several miles back down the gravel forest service road we were on, to a forest service campground. We still didn’t have a signal on our cell phones but we were able to get off the road into the campground and had a good place to get to work changing the tire.
So – any one who knows us knows this is not something we know how to do. In fact, neither one of us has changed a tire on a vehicle. Ever. And so we knocked on the door of the campground host (they were in a RV) and asked for help. He came over and looked at it and said, “I have no idea how to fix that”. But, he did offer to call AAA for us – they had some sort of cell booster and could get a weak signal on their phone. So they called AAA for us who promised to send someone out in the next hour. Then AAA called back twice asking more questions, and the time estimate became 1.5 – 2 hours for arrival. So we got to work on it our selves and, we got it done! Took off the flat tire and put on the spare. It was a true team effort – me reading the instructions in the manual (I don’t think the people who write these things ever have to follow their own instructions!) and Steve doing all the heavy lifting. But we ran into a snag in the process: There was one lug nut that was different than all the others and it didn’t come off. And the wheel was clearly “locked” on, even after following all the instructions and taking off the other lug nuts. No mention in the instructions anywhere about this different lug nut. We checked the other tires – they all had one too. One of the questions the AAA people called back to ask was about a “tire lock and did we have one”?? What’s a tire lock? Never heard of it. Did we have one? Not that we knew of. But, yes we did as it turns out. While we were stuck, unable to get the wheel off, I started rummaging around in the truck hoping we had missed something, and I found an open package with one hexagon shaped “nut” kinda thing in it, down in the bottom of our center console. And 4 missing pieces in the packaging. Hmmm…no label on the package saying what it was, and no instructions in the packaging. But we tried the hexagon shaped nut kinda thing on the one different wheel lug and it was the magic unlocker thing we needed! How did we end up with wheel locks that we didn’t know we had??? Who put them on and then put the open, unlabeled, no instructions, magic unlocker thing into our truck console with out us knowing anything about it???? We’ve had tires changed on this truck before and no one ever said anything about wheel locks or the magical unlocker thing…those guys must all know about them and maybe there’s a master unlocker thing they all use. I don’t know. We’re guessing the dealership must have done it when we bought the truck. Probably an “upgrade” to add the wheel locks that we didn’t know about. Anyhow, we had never heard of a wheel lock before, and now we know we have them and how to unlock them. 😆
Took 3.5 hours. And AAA still had not arrived. We learned a lot – and I hope we never have to do it again, but if we do, we’ll know how to do it next time. We were safely off the road, we were not pulling the RV down the interstate when it happened, it wasn’t raining…all kinds of ways it could have been worse. There was a lovely creek running by and we had food and water with us. Gerry was bummed out being leashed to the picnic table all day instead of out hiking, but, he got a quick romp in the creek at least. And we did the hike the next day and it was perfect – a favorite so far.
Pictures of the tire adventure: https://photos.app.goo.gl/4MKozW6S6y6CzRNT7 And pictures of the hike: https://photos.app.goo.gl/xzcb1t4Z5dXSg1KQA. And here’s pictures from another hike in the area as well: https://photos.app.goo.gl/QVcFzEEQmV8sFGiX9
Then it was on to Bend. We’re staying at an RV park right in town. It’s tucked away in a lot of trees and mostly you wouldn’t know you were right in town. It’s a very nice RV park – considered a “luxury” type park. The parking spots for the RVs are all pavers, the driveways are all paved (really cuts down on the dust and grit tracked in and blowing in the windows). They have a nice doggie area and the space between RVs is very generous. But I have to say, we really prefer being out more, away from town, more in nature. But, we had to get the truck serviced (new front tires and an oil change) and we needed to restock on groceries and of course the inevitable Walmart run. Here’s a picture of our current spot:
We’ve enjoyed exploring Bend, but it’s VERY busy. We’ve read it’s one of the fastest growing cities in the country. About 100,000 people now and growing by the minute it seems. Lots of construction, houses and roads. But the mountains are literally right next door. I can’t get used to looking up while driving down a city street and – boom – right in front of you are snow capped mountains. So close it seems you can reach out and touch them. These are the Cascade Mountains and they are beautiful. We will be staying in a few places all through the Cascade Mountains during the next few weeks and I’m sure we’re going to love it. We did a very nice hike yesterday just a short ways from Bend – it was beautiful. Here’s a picture from the drive to the hike – this is just a few miles out of town:
And here’s pictures from the hike we did just up the road from this picture: https://photos.app.goo.gl/iGhFzMZxQBoJttXv8
I feel like all our pictures must seem the same – hiking through the woods, reaching a view point, or a lake, streams or creeks along the way, Gerry having fun. But, this is what we love doing and the hikes don’t seem boring or the same to us at all. They all have unique challenges or something interesting and we just love being out there doing it. And of course, pictures never do justice to the real view. But we keep trying to capture the beauty and love sharing it with you!