The Adventure Begins!

Day 1

Left Maryland – Destination Springfield Ohio. Long drive; lots of sights. Saw lots of windmills and wind farms. A lot of tractor trailers on the road moving supplies. Winds were blowing 25-30 mph but it didn’t affect us at all. Ended up at Motel 6 in Springfield Ohio ready to rest.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is the-beginning-1.jpg — And so begins our journey!

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Day 2

Left Springfield Ohio – Destination Altoona Iowa. Great breakfast to go from Cracker Barrel. Concerned about weather, huge cold front headed our way! We’re the blue dot! Made a wrong turn just before Indianapolis and ended up by the NASCAR Indianapolis Speedway~ worth the wrong turn! Who knew! Got to the hotel in Altoona before dark which was great. Hotel was nice and great for Ziggy! Large area to run! Much needed great night sleep.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is map-of-weather.jpg — We’re the blue dot headed right into the front!

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Day 3

Left Altoona Iowa – Destination Twin Falls Idaho. Woke to snow flurries and high winds. Pretty much a straight drive, but the winds were UNREAL. We’ve never experienced winds like this before, LOL.. we think 30-40 mph is high.. out here in this open land, 60+ mph gusts! Blowover warnings on the highway.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is img_8649-copy.jpg — Snow showers – Altoona

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is wind-warnings-1.jpeg — 60 mph wind gusts -and we worry when its 30-40 on the BayBridge!

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is img_8701-copy.jpg — Flat and straight highways for miles

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is img_8712-copy.jpg — Flat land and then mountains~awesome sights!

Day 4

Twin Falls – Destination Pendleton Oregon

Left Twin Falls headed to the final destination in this leg Pendleton Oregon. When we were leaving we crossed the Perrine bridge and noticed that there were two young men on the side of the bridge preparing to jump! Theres a bullseye down at the bottom of the bridge that they parasail down to. Check out the video.

Not much wind today, speed limit is 70 & 80 most of the way. Alot of winding thru the mountains but the scenery never gets old. Made good time to our destination.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is img_8719-copy.jpg — Twin Cities Perrine Bridge over the Snake River

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is img_8720-copy.jpg — Snake River

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is img_8727.jpg — Flat top hills

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is img_4114.jpeg — Coming over the mountains is like landing in an airplane!

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is img_4117-1.jpeg — In and out of the hills

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This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is img_8731.jpeg — Wind farms everywhere along the journey all the way to Pendleton

Finally made it to Pendleton – 2750 miles later

2750 miles later ~ we landed and finally saw our new RV after waiting over a year!

Campsite – Wild Horse Resort & RV Park – Site 62

Pendleton is famous for their annual Pendleton Roundup | Rodeo!

Ziggy Chillin~ He’s adapted better than we had ever hoped and is enjoying the trip as much as us!

We stayed at the Wild Horse Resort & Casino for the next 10 days to ensure that all is well and working correctly. We needed to stock up the camper with essentials! The RV park was awesome. We enjoyed seeing other people that purchased their RVs from Thompson RV pull in and had many great conversations. The best part of our stay was getting to know a neighbor who was staying next to us and was a Cheyenne Indian. He would visit off and on and tell us stories of his people and the way things are and were long ago. We visited the Tomastslikt museum (https://www.tamastslikt.org) and learned alot of information about the way things were with the Indians long ago. There was also a section that went over the history of the Pendleton Rodeo which is over 100 years old. We were told this is truly the most exciting rodeo in the world and is always held the second full week in September in Pendleton. (https://www.pendletonroundup.com/)

Tribute to the Pendleton Roundup in the center of town. These are all statues!. There’s even several cattle dogs helping with the round up. Check out the left lower corner!

Our very own Blue Heeler Ziggy – lookin good!

Chet did alot of walking around the area with Ziggy and explored every day. One day walked out past the museum to a walkway outback and found a sign that warned that there were wild “Cougars”! Who thought. We were thinking bears, not COUGARs.. who knew! and ONE coyote!

Monday November 30th it was time to hit the trail and enter our next chapter of our adventure and on to BEND OREGON and our Lithium battery & solar installation!

The trip was awesome. Scenery was just beautiful all the down the Oregon Trail!

Columbia River along Route 84 West – train tracks run along the river on both sides.

Driving along the Columbia River on 84 West

Columbia River with Mt. Hood in the background off 84 West on our way to Bend Oregon

There are trains that run on both sides of the Columbia River. This one was close to the road so I decided I’d just take a video.. they are so long you can’t see the end of a lot of them and they are EVERYWHERE throughout the parts of Oregon that we have visited so far!

John Day Dam on the Columbia River just before we turned off onto the Oregon Trail

Mt Hood along the Oregon Trail – Route 97 heading south to Bend.

Arrived in Bend Oregon November 30th ~ Spent the night dry camping in the Bend Battery Parking lot. This is where we are having Lithium batteries and solar panels installed so that we can go off grid with no worries for electric! Very excited.

Moved to a hotel on Wednesday – hoping to get the rig back by next Tuesday/Wednesday. Here are a few shots from around the town of Bend. It is amazing how many people ride bikes and how many ’roundabouts’ they have for traffic. Each traffic circle has a sculpture in the center and the locals call it the ‘Roudabout Art Route’

Roundabout Art near Old Mill Shopping Area along the Deschutes River

Lumber Jack – Roundabout Art near Old Mill Shopping District

Wall Art in the downtown Old Mill District area

Wall Art downtown Old Mill District shopping area next to the Deschutes River

Wall Art – Old Mill District – walls throughout the town are painted with interesting murals and then signed by the Artist. They are everywhere throughout each town district in Bend.

Roundabout Art – Near Old Mill Shopping District

There are alot of walking paths throughout the entire city of Bend. Some of these go under the roadway and the walls have murals which are signed by each artist and dated. This one was from 2016 by Sandy J. Klein.

Roundabout Art – Dredger – Near Old Mill area.

Bridge across Deschutes River to the Old Mill Shopping District

Deschutes River where its said the locals will surf the waves. They are usually a lot larger when the snow starts to melt.

Original Bend Dam Powerhouse – See information below!! Very interesting!

Pilot Butte – We climbed this ‘hill’. Just one of many areas to climb right in town! This was a volcano, which is 4,142 feet in elevation.

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