Tonight we went to the circus. The Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus was in Salt Lake City and we just happened to be here for the event. I came down to Heather’s yesterday as there was a Geek / Blogger dinner in Salt Lake that I wanted to attend along with a CTO Breakfast in Provo this morning. Tomorrow is Utah Wordcamp, again in Provo and I’ll be attending that event as well.

Nina drove down today and will go back to Pocatello tomorrow. The reason for her visit is for us to celebrate Heather’s birthday. While her birthday is next Monday, we’re leaving the next day for our Big Trip out east inspired by Daryl and Laura’s wedding on October 18th. Happy birthday, Heather!

As we were driving back to Heather’s after the fabulous circus performance Michael remarked that if his bedroom turned up empty some morning it would be because he had run away to join the circus. He was definitely impressed by their performance tonight.

We just got onto I-84 at Baker City, Oregon on our way back home. It’s about 5 pm. We had left the hotel in Bend, OR at about 7:30 this morning. We drove through Redmond and Prineville and connected with US-26 in Mitchell. There we joined the Travel Through Time Scenic Byway. What a difference this route was compared to the ugly route we came out here on — US-20.

Today we drove through farmland, along the ‘wild and scenic’ John Day river, down fabulous canyons, and over forested mountain passes. It was a visual feast compared to the sagebrush, rocks, and dirt by the mile last Thursday!!

We stopped at the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument which turned out to be very intellectually stimulating respite. I left very pleased with how we’re spending out tax dollars there (as opposed to the $700 million … or rather Billions in today’s proposed bailout).

Another stop was in the village of Dayville where we learned that the Mercantile and General Store was for sale for a paltry $680,000 plus the inventory. We demured.

A little further down the road we stopped at Whitney, “Oregon’s most accessible ghost town.” What was once a thriving lumber town is now a few abandoned ramshackle, broken-down buildings well worth several dozen pictures. Narrow gauge railroads once criss-crossed this area and are now all gone.

The last remaining gold dredge is being renovated and refurbished in Sumpter. These amazing machines were engineering marvels. This dredge ran until the early 1950’s when it finally shut down more than a hundred thousand dollars in debt. Inside were memorial plaques on the walls from families whose fathers had been killed working on the dredges. Before WWII the dredges ran 24 hours a day, three eight hour shifts, 363 days a year with only Christmas and July 4th off, and those were unpaid.

Eventually we arrived in Baker City. Last time I was there was to visit the emergency room at their hospital. We were on our on our way to Seattle to see Jared, Wendy, Kendra, and family and I had come down with a severe cold and strep throat. I don’t remember much of that stop (or much else from that trip) except getting a very painful shot in the butt in the ER which didn’t seem to help much.

We’ve now crossed the border into Idaho. We’re listening to Charles Kuralt on Nina’s iPod being broadcast on the new Griffin FM transmitter I bought at BestBuy in Bend. It’s supposed to find the best frequency to use. It doesn’t work very well. Manual frequency search is still required.

We’ll be home in about four and a half hours. It’s been a wonderful trip.

We spent most of our day driving around the rim of Crater Lake at Crater Lake National Park. Nina’s first words as we got to the rim of the crater and looked down at the lake were, “Oh my!! Beautiful!!” And she was right. We arrived at the rim about 11 a.m. and took the next four hours to drive the circumference. We had lunch at the Crater Lake Lodge. By the time we got to the last third of the drive, though, we both had taken enough pictures of the lake. I took more than 90 pictures and am in the process of uploaded 45 of them to Flickr. At least, I think they’re uploading. The Flickr upload application says they’re uploaded, but when I try to close the window, I get a message saying that there is an upload in progress and closing the window will cancel it. When I look at Flickr, the pictures seem to be there but the set named “Crater Lake” hasn’t been created.

We’ve finished our playing in this part of the world. Tomorrow we’ll pack up and head back towards Pocatello. We’re going a different route back through Oregon than the way we came. We’ll go through Redmond and take route 26 through Prineville, Mitchell, John Day, and over to Baker City where we’ll get on the freeway back to Pocatello. The route is longer but a significant part of it through Oregon is a Scenic Byway and hopefully much more interesting than the sagebrush and rocks route we came through last Thursday.

We’ve had a very good time here. It was fun being with Nina’s cousin Linda. She’s delightful to be around and we’re looking forward to getting together again in some part of the world. We’ve certainly learned a lot about volcanoes and lava flows! This is definitely volcano country around here.

We have had a delightful Sunday here in Bend, Oregon. We were all up fairly early this morning and Linda packed up to head back to California. She’s not quite ready to stop playing, so she planned to stay at a small hotel on the beach in Crescent City, California on her way back to Burney and complete the trip tomorrow. We have had a fun time, the three of us, and the only downside to this day was saying our goodbyes. We’ll definitely need to get back together again Real Soon Now.

After Linda left, Nina and I went to Church at the Mountain View Ward. Meetings started with Sacrament Meeting at 10 a.m. It was High Council Sunday with good talks. This seems to be a very active, close-knit ward. Sunday School was on 3 Nephi 8-11 with a good teacher and very active class participation. There are some good scriptorians in that ward. We finished up with Priesthood Meeting and Relief Society. Then it was back to the hotel to change clothes.

We then took a drive for the rest of the afternoon. We first went back to Sisters, Oregon as there were some old trucks there that Nina wanted to photograph (see her blog for pictures and info). After that we headed east to Redmond, Oregon. On route 126 just before we got to Redmond, we stopped at two places almost next to each other where collections of old cars, trucks, mining equipment, and bunches of other things were on display. They were very fun stops. So much fun, that we didn’t stop at the Santa Claus Reindeer Farm nearby….

We had lunch / dinner at Applebees and then drove to Prineville, Oregon (no idea how the name of that town is supposed to be pronounced!) and then came back to the hotel. We’ve both been working with pictures (I uploaded a bunch to Flickr) and writing blog entries. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get some of them in the picture album.

Tomorrow we’re headed south to Crater Lake National Park. It’ll be a full day and I’ll think about blogging while we’re driving there and back. Maybe.

We’re in the Bend, Oregon area because Nina and her cousin Linda decided that enough years had passed since their last get-together, so they decided to meet at some neutral place for the weekend. Bend turned out to be the choice. We arrived from Pocatello in the late afternoon on Thursday and Linda arrived a couple of hours later from Burney, California. We’ve had a great time. Yesterday we poked around in a quaint little town not far from here and then drove the McKenzie Loop. Today we drove another scenic byway and then went to Redmond, Oregon to do the Crooked River Dinner Train. The event includes a three-hour train trip from Redmond to Prineville and back plus dinner on the train and a theater production. Tonight the theater was a kind of a melodrama titled “Who Shot Jesse James?” The mystery unfolded throughout dinner and the guests then turned in a piece of paper with their guess on the villan. We had a delightful time. The food was just OK, but the service and entertainment were excellent. It is highly recommended.

The only real issue was that the train car was COLD. I was very happy that I’d brought a jacket with me. We’re back in the hotel room with the heat cranked up to get toasty warm before heading to bed in a few minutes.

Tomorrow Linda will head back towards home. We’ll stay in the area for a couple more days as there is still a lot to see and do. We’ll go to Church tomorrow morning and then do some more sightseeing. All too soon it’ll be time to head back to Pocatello as it is.

We decided to take what we thought would be a short side trip to the Newberry Volcanic Nat’l Monument. It’s an amazing place worthy of several more hours of our time. But we have to go as we need to be in Redmond in less than two hours.

We’ve reservations on a train / dinner / mystery theater thing tonight. More later.

We’re driving the Cascade Lakes National Scenic Byway and Tour Route. Lots of lakes on this route and we’re stopping at the second lake on this cloudy, chilly day. Glad I’ve got a jacket with me! This one is Sparks Lake. We’re driving down to the boat ramp.

There are a gazillion people at Devils Lake camping and hiking. Some of these folks are very serious about this hiking and back country camping.

As we were driving along there was a sign “Beach”. Both Connecticut ocean girls said, in unison, “beach?” we turned around and drove down to the not-quite-sandy (and fairly rocky) beach on Elks Lake.

Lava Lake Lodge Store is just about sold out. They’ll close in about a week. We didn’t find anything that resembled a treasure, so we didn’t hasten their closure.

There might have been some osprey at Osprey Observation point, but we didn’t find the place. Meanwhile, I’m very happy I brought my jacket with me. It’s about 45 degrees with occasional sprinkles.

At South Twin Lakes, Nina found the pine cones she needs for the women at the prison to make Thanksgiving ‘turkey’ centerpieces. That was a good find.

LaPine has a couple of small restaurants. We picked Cindy’s Kitchen for lunch. BLT for Linda, burger for Nina, and chicken strips for me. Verdict? The food was very good. I’m sufencified.

Time to post this!

We left home about 7:30 am this morning for the drive to Bend, Oregon where Nina is meeting up with her cousin (she only has two first cousins, one on each coast). This has been a singularly boring drive. The middle of this state has only one claim to fame: US Route 20 is a nice, smooth road. We’ll be glad to see it end, though.