Day 3 & 4- Oregon

June 25^th, 2014

     Today, we left Bend, OR and are continuing our trip south to California.  I made sure Monica was driving across the border this time as whenever I cross the border, my speed increases by 15 mph and foul language starts leaking out of my mouth in regards to passing motorists.  We are heading for Oroville, CA tonight where we will be staying at a property owned by Jen’s best friend’s mom, Renee.  We will be there for one night and do some laundry and take showers.  We left Hwy 97 around 5pm and headed south on Interstate 5 for a little bit before getting on Hwy 99, which takes you through Chico and then into Oroville.  

     Yesterday was a fun day in Bend, OR.  The day started off with some emails and working on the budget.  Monica had a slight brain fart, when she thought she had miscalculated the whole trip and thought we only had enough money for half the trip. Fortunately, she’s a smart girl and realized her mistake a few minutes later and we can now continue on with the 45 day trip.  Phew!!  After that slight panic attack, we started packing up for an afternoon in town.  We started off just up the road a bit at Newberry Volcanic National Monument. We went on a small hike partway up the cinder cone and then headed back down to the Visitor’s Center to get our first National Park Passport system stamp of the trip.  Both Monica and I have our own passport books, as well as a bigger 3-ring binder book that we got when we first started traveling together.  

      After our visit to Newberry Volcano, we headed into Downtown Bend to the Deschutes Brewery.  This is Jen’s favorite beer to drink and she has always wanted to take the tour.  Monica had the equivalent to a 5 year old going to Disneyland for the first time on her hands.  Jen was like a bouncing child, completely giddy with anticipation of the tour and the FREE samples!  The tour lasted about 30 minutes and then we were each given a punch card for 4 free samples.  Since Monica doesn’t drink beer often, it was more like Jen getting 8 free samples minus a few sips of each by Monica.  So now, Jen was a slightly loopy 5 year old.  We discovered a new beer that Jen hadn’t tried called Cinder Cone Red Ale.  It’s a red ale, which I don’t see very often.  So, with a few souvenirs, Monica walked and Jen stumbled out to the truck.  We had originally thought about going to another brewery, but Jen was happy enough to just head back to the campground.  Once back home, we headed to the pool and hot tub. They had some balls in the pool so we had fun for about 30 minutes pretending we were Olympic water polo players swimming and leaping for balls that we most of the time completely missed.  But I’m sure we were entertaining to the others sitting in the hot tub. 

After some fun at the pool and a shower, we went back to Iggy (the trailer for those that don’t know that already) and enjoyed hot dogs and s’mores over the campfire.  Another wonderful day in the life of traveling.

Jen, Monica & Bowie