Rain, Rain, Go away!

What a difference a couple day make! Yesterday we went into Bend to get our windshield that had been cracked replaced in our truck. We decided to do it in Oregon where there is no sales tax. It costs $240.00 total including labor which we thought was a good price.
I rode the scooter into town and Patty drove the truck, this way we were not stuck for the 4 hours they wanted the truck. We used this time to go shopping and also for me to get a haircut. I Googled barbers in Bend and found one named Sals Barber Shop. We rode over and found an old fashioned barber shop with a really nice barber named Sal. Go Figure!
Patty noticed that Air One which is a Christian radio station was playing in the shop. In addition, John 3:16 was painted on the wall. Interesting how God keeps guiding us!
It turns out that he attends WestSide Church, which is where we are going to go on Sunday with Matt and Joanne! Pretty cool, plus he is a very good barber!!!

Today after cleaning the trailer we went to Lava Butte viewpoint.

Lava Butte Viewpoint

You check-in and they give you an appointment to drive up to the top of the Butte which is actually a volcano lava cone. You can stay for 30 minutes and you must come back down. There is a limited amount of parking at the top and they want everyone to get their chance at the top.

Lava Cone

 We walked down the steep trail for awhile. Here is the other side of the cone. You can see the lava flows. You can also see on the left side of the picture where the tree line starts again.

Lava Flows

Looking back up you can see in the middle of the picture where we started, and on the upper right is a fire lookout tower. They have it closed right now because they are working on it, but I believe normally you can walk up to it.

Fire Lookout

 This is trail we walked down. It is all red volcanic rock.

Steep Trail

It was raining the whole time we were here at the Butte. Here Patty is displaying here amazing fashion sense!

Fashion Girl!

After we got back home (of course our 5th wheel is home to us now) and we dried off, it started pouring!

Matt White called us and asked us to meet him and Joanne and of course the kids, Matthew and Shelby for diner at Mazatlan Mexican Restaurant in Bend. Of course we accepted and had a great time catching up with all of them!
We spent nearly 2 hours at the restaurant enjoying all their company. Matthew and Shelby are really great kids!!!! Patty couldn't stop hugging them and they seemed to enjoy that!
Thanks Matt and Joanne for diner, next time it's our treat!!!

That's it for now,
God Bless all,
Brian and Patty

Benham Falls

Today we tried to go to the Lava River cave. We went there but it was closed! Apparently it is closed on Tuesday and Wednesday. We will try again tomorrow. Instead we went to Benham Falls. There was supposed to be a 1/2 mile walk to the falls. We parked in the designated parking area and started on the trail.

Benham Falls .5 miles.

It was a very easy walk. Very level and not very rough. Actually was an old railroad right of way. So we headed out and came to this bridge after a short distance.

Bridge in the distance

We had to cross the bridge. After we crossed the bridge there was another sign saying it was 1/2 mile to the falls. How is it we are not getting anyplace?

Part of the trail crossing the Descutes river

Beautiful view of the Deschutes river.

We love bridges!

 Across the river was lava rock on the river banks.

Lava Rock

As I said the trail was very easy. Not much rise or fall. It was in the 80's today, but with some water it was a great walk!

Trail to the falls

The river started getting rougher with some really great rapids!

Artsy picture through the trees!

 Another picture of the rapids..

Roaring Rapids!

Here Brian is on the trail almost to the falls. The falls are actually cascading falls, not really a tall fall like in Yosemite.

Brian on Trail

 We walked down to the river bank and took this picture because the river narrowed down into a gorge. We thought it looked really cool!

The start of the falls

You could walk down switchbacks to get to a view point of the falls. This is Benham Falls! It was Awesome and pictures of course don't do it justice!

Benham Falls

 Patty at the Falls!

Patty overlooking the falls!

We figure that with the extra from the parking to the bridge, and what we walked on the switchbacks to the view point we walked at least 1 1/2 miles. Not to bad.

We haven't shown you our campsite at our Thousand Trails Bend campground yet. This is site K7.

Our Cameo in site K7

 This is our view out our living room window! We hate to keep repeating ourselves, but we love this place!

Window view

We got back in time to go swimming while it was still hot today. This campground has a separate adult swimming pool.

That's it for now,
Brian and Patty