The plan was… after leaving Albany, we had reservations to stay at another Thousand Trails resort in the Sun River/Bend area. We were looking forward to this, we love Bend. We saw that there was a winter storm coming for the mountains between us and our destination, so we chose a southern route, that would take us through Eugene and then through Willamette Pass and come out south of Bend near La Pine. The forecast for that route only mentioned rain and some flurries.
So we proceeded the next morning and made it into Oakridge. Then we see the highway sign blazingly report that chains were required. We didn’t check the highway report before we left, which was bad on our part. Willamette Pass got almost 10 inches of snow overnight.
After some deliberation, we decided to cancel the plans to Bend, and just head back out to Eugene, drive north on the 5, and head around on Interstate 84 toward Boise, until we felt like stopping.
In the past the town of Rufus had been thrown around as a place to boondock, or even just spend a night while traveling from place to place. At around 5 o’clock in the evening, we rolled into Rufus, and decided to check out the gravel bar that’s owned by the Army Corps of Engineers. They allow you to stay up to two weeks here.
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We ended up staying a week. It was fun. We had great cell service on both Verizon and AT&T. In our time there, we had some good food from Bob’s Texas T-Bone, figured out The Dalles wasn’t too far for groceries and propane, saw HUNDREDS of wind turbines, and visited Cottonwood Canyon State Park.
On our last night before heading to Boise, we decided to check out Maryhill State Park, on the Washington side of the river. There is a bridge at Bigg’s Junction. Lots of grass, and felt like a great place to stay if you need to plug in. It was a little on the expensive side (40$ a night) but there were full hookups.
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We’re still in Boise, the trailer is back from warranty work, the truck is getting some recalls done, and our girl pom Mica had her knee surgery. We should be able to start our solar project very soon.
