OR-CA

Continuing our trip south:  Into Oregon, we stopped for lunch at this small-town cafe. This many bikers couldn't be wrong.

A little later we crossed the Crooked River and stopped to check out the gorge and the old bridge.  Just left of center you can see a girder that supports the new bridge. 

We stopped Saturday night at an "RV resort" in Bend, OR.  This one really merited the name.  A couple of pictures.

Spacious, level, brick paver pads.  Convenient connections.  Well shaded.  Good wi-fi.  Contrast this to the cramped scene earlier at our Vancouver RV park.  And this one cost less. 

Here's the premium site.  It includes a patio gas grill, refrigerator, and sink.  Its cost matched the Vancouver park.

Sunday. Some of our "friends" get a perverse kick out of hearing about the occasional problems we encounter in our travels -- such as getting into dead-ends and having to work ourselves out, such as mechanical problems.  So far this trip had been mostly trouble-free. Had a laptop computer crash that led to getting Windows re-installed at a shop in Vancouver, but that wasn't too bad because we have a back-up netbook computer with us that generally suffices. (Update.  The netbook became virus-infected two days before we got home.)  This happy state of things changed Sunday afternoon.  But first ...

Sunday morning started out great.  We attended the contemporary service at the Bend First United Methodist Church.  The musical guests were a men's quartet.  As we walked in they were doing a sound check and we knew we were in the right place.  They did some traditional songs: Just a Little Talk With Jesus, Swing Down Chariot, but the emotional highlight was "The Prayer of the Children."  This was new to us.  One of the quartet told us the background.  The songwriter, Kurt Bestor, was a Mormon missionary, working in a children's hospital in Bosnia in the 1970s.  One day, while he was away gathering supplies, the hospital was bombed.  Everyone there was killed.  Out of this heart-wrenching tragedy came this song:

Can you hear the prayer of the children
on bended knee, in the shadow of an unknown room?  
Empty eyes with no more tears to cry  
turning heavenward toward the light.  
Crying," Jesus, help me  
to see the morning light of one more day,  
but if I should die before I wake,  
I pray my soul to take."

Can you feel the hearts of the children  
aching for home, for something of their very own.  
Reaching hands with nothing to hold onto  
but hope for a better day, a better day.  
Crying," Jesus, help me
to feel the love again in my own land,  
but if unknown roads lead away from home,  
give me loving arms, 'way from harm."  
(oooooo la la la la etc etc.)

Can you hear the voice of the children  
softly pleading for silence in their shattered world?  
Angry guns preach a gospel full of hate,  
blood of the innocent on their hands.  
Crying," Jesus, help me
to feel the sun again upon my face?  
For when darkness clears, I know you're near,  
bringing peace again."

Dali čujete sve dječje molitve?

Can you hear the prayer of the children?

The melody is haunting.  Bestor said the melody came first to him, then he gradually added words.  Listen to it here.  Or at our Tuziblog playlist (if it's not already playing as you read this), or other youtube versions.  The first line has been looping through my mind ever since.


Here's a scene west of Bend, one of the Three Sisters peaks. 

Right after church we closed up, hooked up, and left Bend, bound for Reno - a two-day jaunt. There was a lot of construction around the RV resort. Coming in we had gotten excellent directions when we called in a reservation. When we checked in they gave us written instructions for getting out. Nevertheless, we made a wrong turn (I'll spare you the details).  I followed GPS instructions and found a way to return, but turned too soon – right into a  cul-de-sac. Thought maybe I could make it in one tight turn but couldn’t. At that point, the hitch is too cramped to disconnect. I had Susie start the Explorer and asked her to turn the steering wheel to make it easier for me to do a little backandforth to get us turned around, which I did. But, I hadn’t said, Put it in neutral, so consequently we scraped a little rubber off the rear tires.

Disconnecting, when in doubt, is very easy to do, so I don’t know why I try to avoid it - it ain’t rational. It got worse.


A half-hour down the highway, we stopped for lunch. I parked behind the restaurant. I had room to circle the restaurant and get back on the highway, but Miss GPS said the road along the back of the restaurant would connect with the highway just three miles along. This seemed reasonable and simpler, so I followed that road. About a mile and a half down the road A SIGN: Pavement ending. There was some turning room there, but it would require disconnecting. The dirt road didn’t look too bad.  I took it.  Then, it turned bad, worse than it looked.  But, at least it was flat and not rocky.

There were ruts that caused Tuzi to rock violently side to side.  The dishes crashed out of the cabinet.  After we put them back, Susie stood in the aisle holding the cabinet doors shut.  We could have disconnected and backed out, a quarter mile or so, but NOoo.  No sense being rational at this point.  We continued and eventually emerged on the highway.  I suspect the motorists who saw us waiting to drive on to the highway wondered, What?!

I had had occasional problems with rough shifting.  The transmission would try to shift down, then quickly shift back up, leading to a bucking motion.  I could control it, though, by manually shifting when needed.  The problem was worse after this escapade.  I had this problem a couple years ago.  The Allison transmission rep said it's a power problem, not a transmission problem.  At that time, as I remembered it, an oil change was part of the solution (I know, doesn't make sense to me, either.  More likely an air filter full of dust, which it was, but I was focused on the road, not the dust we were stirring up). 

SE Oregon is very sparsely populated.  Not a place you're going to get an oil change on Sunday afternoon.  We pressed on to Susanville, CA.  The last of the day's indignities: getting on the street for the RV park there required a sharp U-turn.  I missed it and ended up in the entrance to a trailer park.  Sign said, no turnaround in here, buddy (words to that effect), so I disconnected and Susie coached me through a turnaround, and we slunk into the RV park -- a very nice one, it turned out.  Sidebar: Walking around park the next morning I saw a motor home that had been given the name: Cramalot Inn.  Clever.

Monday morning I took Tuzi in to a nearby multi-purpose shop (diesel repair, towing, car rentals, ... ) and got an oil change.  The mechanic said, You've got another problem.  A leaking pinion seal.  I had to replace a lot of fluid (in a differential, I think).  The leak is not bad, but you shouldn't drive to NM with it.  Also, your air filter gauge says it needs to be replaced soon (Oh, really).  This is a custom air filter assembly, not readily available. Neither job could be done in Susanville, so we hooked up and headed for Reno (just 85 miles away).

At a rest stop I called Tiffin.  They said, We don't have dealer in Reno.  But, you should call the chassis-maker, Freightliner.  I called them and found out they had a shop in Sparks, a town on the NE side of Reno.   Great!

Just out of the rest stop we were meeting an oncoming line of traffic.  Suddenly, there was smoke, and tire fragments coming from a motor home in that line.  Blowout!  (Very) fortunately, the driver was able to keep it in his lane as we met and passed and we avoided the tire pieces on the highway.  We breathed another heavy sigh of relief and nursed Tuzi along to Reno.

That's enough excitement for now.  Next report from Reno/Sparks.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob