Jen’s Journal – October 8, 2019

Day 101: SE Shea Ct, Bend, OR

Sunny and cool.

We went out for breakfast with Kay and Don, then Tom cleaned off the solar panels on top of Arvi. And we were on our way. We thought we should head back to the Oregon Coast for some warmer weather and to see the rest of the coast.

On the way to the coast we drove through miles of nothing but piles of lava rock and burned out forest.

We saw a spot with a little observatory and a walking path through the lava rock with some interpretive signs along the paved, .4-mile walk. The weather was fiercely blowing and raining now and we debated if we wanted to do the walk in this weather or not. I really wanted to read about the lava so I went on the trail and Tom went in the observatory. By now it was snowing and blowing fiercely. So I ran most of the trail and snapped pictures of the interpretive signs to read later.

There are some 50 square miles of lava rock around here from three different craters. Several interpretive signs point to mountains from the Cascades range. I can only assume the mountains are very visible in a clear day. Fortunately we got to see these mountains from Pilot Butte Sunday.

I do not regret my wild run through the lava trail. I learned a lot about what happened to the landscape and what is still happening to the landscape today.

We get emails from the Postal Service containing a preview of our daily mail to our old address on Lewis St. A couple weeks ago, Tom noticed that we were mailed something from the company who provides insurance for Arvi. Perhaps we forgot to give them our address change. We phoned the insurance company and learned that not only had we not updated our address with them, our insurance lapsed three days ago! We paid up over the phone and took care of the address change. By then we were in Sisters on our way to the coast. The library at Sisters was very friendly and the librarian helped us print a proof of insurance. So we are insured again. Phew! Good thing the only driving we did during the lapse was today from Bend to Sisters!!

We made it to Florence, Oregon and are parking at the casino. The casino here allows RVs free parking for one night and gives new customers a $10 credit to play the machines. We walked through Old Town Florence and considered playing the machines at the casino. Maybe tomorrow.