Bend..... an alteration or change in the direction of the path. When you think you're going in one direction and something happens to bend your plans.
Bend.... or is it dent... when money flies from your wallet unexpectedly. A bend in your budget occurs due to circumstances.
Now let me tell you how these three bends go together. When last I wrote, we had arrived in La Pine Or, just south of Bend, the city mentioned above. We were going to spend 4 days exploring the city and the area. Our first day was scheduled for the lave fields. This was a volcanic area and there are lava fields, lava tubes in among the ponderosa pine forest. We went to see the 2 lakes (Paulina and East ) that were formed by the collapse of the volcano after it had erupted and spewed out all the lava. Paulina is the largest of the two and has falls at one corner.
On day two we toured Bend and did some shopping. Day 3 we went to the lava fields. They run for miles. We went to the visitor center and guess what happened. The jeep wouldn't start. John had purchased another relay switch and he replaced it and it started. We decided to go back to the campground instead of going through the lava tube....just in case we had more problems. On the way back, just as we were making the turn into the road where the campground is we heard a loud thunk under the jeep. I thought we ran over something. We continued to the campsite and I asked John to look under the Jeep to make sure there wasn't any damage underneath. Look what he found sticking out of the rear tire.
So he changed the tire and put the spare on. The next morning we called around and found a repair shop with the type and size tire we needed. On the way to the tire shop the Jeep stopped running again, but we were able to restart it. The repair place, Mike's tire and auto care, said they would check out our problem after they put the new tire on. Two hours later they said that they tested the Jeep and it didn't stop and it started every time they started it. They crimped some wires around the relay switches in case that was causing a short. On the way back to the RV it stopped again.
The next day we went to Crater Lake. We stayed at the park campground. Not many people there so we had our pick of spots. Sydney found a patch of snow and settled in.... he hasn't seen it in years.
The next morning we took of for the lake about 5 miles away. Yep........... you guessed it, the Jeep stopped right in the middle of the road. After sitting for a few minutes we were able to restart it... but we went right back to the campsite. I refused to risk getting stranded again. For the next 2 days we stayed at the campsite (we has already paid for the days). We had no phone service and no Internet. I used the GPS to find the nearest Jeep dealer. That was Lithia Superstore in Medford Oregon about 80 miles away. Sunday morning we hooked up the Jeep (it started... we didn't have to push it) and drove to Medford. The dealership was open (without the service department) and a spokesperson told us where to park the Jeep for service in the morning. He told us where to park the RV for the night (right at the dealership) so we didn't even have to go find a campground. The next morning they put it on the computer and found a cam sensor and a crank sensor were faulty. They replaced them and we were back on the road by 2PM on Monday ($414.00 later).
We drove to Klamuth Ca just 20 miles inside the California border to the Redwood National Forest. Just beautiful trees.
We found an over look along the coast and watch the sunset over the Pacific Ocean.
Now it's back to Oregon and up the coast....first stop Florence.
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