Friday, July 27, 2007

10:00 a.m. - Leaving this lovely place. It sure is nice staying at these "in the Pines" type of RV Parks. We had a good nights sleep and a good morning walk and breakfast. We are now on the road again, but we don't have to go very far, it will be a little more laid back and relaxing, I hope. Mount Shasta is called "The City of Pure Water." At least that is what the entrance sign to the city read. The temperature has gone from a pleasant 62 degrees this morning to about 75 degrees now, we have beautiful blue skies.

10:30 a.m. - The elevation here at the top of Grass Lake Summit is 5,101 ft. We are going North on Hwy. 97 and there is NO traffic. It is great, we can actually go as slow as we want and no one is behind us tailgating. We are leaving the Kalmath National Forest with lots of Pine trees here. This road is bringing back memories for Frank, because he used to come this way as a kid. His Dad had a ranch up here and they would come up here to do the hay and cattle. This is also potato and horseradish country. Most of the horseradish made comes from a town up here called Tulelake. They have "Snowmobile Parks" here also. We are about 411 miles from Williams, CA.

11:00 a.m. - In this little of Dorris, CA there are only 1,080 people here and the gas is $3.l79! This is the last town before the Oregon State Line, it is about 20 miles to Kalmath Falls. There is a 7% grade downhill that we are taking now.

11:15 a.m. - We just crossed into Oregon and the speed limit here is only 55 m.p;.h. so we are just cruising.

11:30 a.m. - Driving through the city of Kalmath Falls, with a population of 41,000. We stopped at a park and walked by Kalmath Lake to stretch our legs and now we are back on the road.

1:45 p.m. - Not much has changed on this road of Hwy. 97 since we got on it. Frank used to take this road from Tri-Cities, WA to visit his Mom and Dad in Williams. He says the road and seeing the small towns along the way haven't changed at all. Taking a break at probably the last rest stop before we get to Bend, OR. The weather has warmed up to about 95 degrees. We stopped in a small town of Chemult and got some gas for $2.85 gal.

2:15 p.m. - We pulled into the Wal-Mart parking lot where we are going to meet up with Dave Weldon, our friend from Michigan, and he will lead us to his place. Dave took us all around the town and up a pass and vista that showed the whole area of Bend. Bend has the Cascade Mountains on one side and many other mountains around it. It was just beautiful. Laurie came hone from work about 7:30 p.m. an we had a nice visit with her. Their daughter Carrie has been there visiting, and will be flying back to Michigan on Wednesday. She still has one more year at Michigan Tech and then is thinking of moving out West to live. Dave and Laurie are very pleased at living here in the West and it was good visiting with them. We had a great evening. We drove 315 miles today.