Pendleton, Oregon: As I often do, I am naming this little road trip after a Jimmy Buffett song. This time, Take the Weather with You, a 1991 Crowded House song that Jimmy sings. Whatever. We are expecting some weather on this trip. Hot weather. Freezing weather. Everything in-between weather.
In reality, this isn't a vacation. It is blind delivery. And by "blind", I mean of the "mini-blind" variety. In this instance, wooden blinds. For a four bedroom, two-story home.

Why, you may ask? Steve & Mary's #3 child, Chris, has recently relocated from his job (he is in green energy) in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, to Provo, Utah. Chris bought a house. He ordered wooden blinds for his windows. He accidentally shipped the blinds to his billing address instead of his new home address. Since Chris has been living overseas, his billing address has been his Mom's house down the hill from us. To make a short story long... we were going to visit Chris in Provo during this trip, so we are schlepping the blinds along. Meanwhile, Chris is living in a house with no blinds. I would laugh at him, since he is freak genius with an engineering degree from Purdue... except I do crazy stuff like this all the time. Glass houses... throwing stones... especially if your glass house has no curtains.
Being that we are such nice people, we will probably help him install the dang things too.
And, so we hit the road, heading east along the beautiful Columbia River Gorge, one of the prettiest drives in America! It is a bit stressful driving through Portland, but once we escaped the city, the traffic eased and we decided to make lunch camp at the fish hatchery at Bonneville Dam. This is just a great stop - plenty of RV parking, shady picnic tables, pretty paths and flowers - and a fish hatchery. We had a sandwich (grilled tarragon chicken on brioche... you know, regular old camping food) and took a spin around the hatchery.







And so we arrived in 90-degree Pendleton, Oregon. The air is smoky due to brush fires in Central Washington, so I suppose we will have a beautiful sunset.




Until my next update, I remain, your Eastern Oregon correspondent.
RV Park: Wildhorse Resort Casino RV Park. Long pull-through sites. Pool. Hot tub (in season). Laundry. 30 & 50 amp, but make reservations if you need 50 amp. Walk to casino or take the shuttle. The tribe has a nice museum on the property also. About eight miles east of downtown Pendleton.