6/26 - 7/2 The Other Deschutes
6/27 - Our interrupted & delayed second voyage is back on track.
We're headed back over the Cascades & on to Idaho, where I'll visit
family & hopefully get into the Sawtooth Mountains for a short stay.
That area along with the
Tetons and the upper Snake River country evoke strong memories from
boyhood camping & fishing trips with my family. My furry little
buddy Timmy has rejoined the crew for this trip. 
The first leg was easy. We took SR58 over Willamette Pass, arriving
at our destination, Bull Bend Campground a few miles west of the town
of La Pine, in under 4 hours. We're back on the Deschutes River, but
now at the far upper end, 150 miles south of & 3,000 feet higher
than Maupin. It's a much different river here, a meandering & smaller
river. There are a series of impressive falls a few miles downstream,
but here the river glides easily among the dispersed Ponderosa &
smaller Jack pines. At Bull Bend the river makes nearly a full 360°
loop separated by a neck of land barely wide enough for the road into
the campground. 
The inevitable rain arrived in the evening, but it was light &
barely settled the dust. It's overcast & cool, but the forecast
is for clearing & warmer later in the week, so I'm not too concerned
about the power situation. I don't know if the cool weather is part
of the reason, but we have several neighbors here at Bull Bend who are
running their generators nearly nonstop. Dueling generators: not my
idea for enjoying the natural world. The nearest is checking out today,
otherwise I think I would have to ask him to observe the campground
rules of no more than 2 hours at a time, twice a day.
Our other neighbors are of the furry kind. Several chipmunks have been busily scurrying about. We also have golden-mantled ground squirrels & gray squirrels. The latter was very fascinated with the rope I tied to a tree for attaching Timmy's leash; it crawled around the rope several times, smelled it repeatedly, gnawed at it & even sat on it.
6/29 - It just occurred to me this morning that the first day of this
trip happened to be the 6 month anniversary of the start of our RV adventures.
What a difference! I certainly had my doubts during some of those dark
& stormy days of last winter. The cool & cloudy weather here
for the first 2 days put us into the yellow zone, power-wise. But it
has warmed up nicely today & we
got a full dose of sun. Today was the first day that people other than
boaters have enjoyed the river. Several groups of swimmers & inner
tube floaters glided by during the afternoon. 
My friends Rhett & Nancy joined us yesterday afternoon & spent the night. Nancy floated around Bull Bend in her kayak while Rhett & I fished. We both caught several small trout & I brought in one nice 13" brown that we shared for breakfast today. They departed to visit East Lake, a caldera lake not far from here.
I've added a couple of additional critter pictures here, this time of the feathered clan. We've also seen several birds of the usual riverine varieties: mergansers (a hen with 2 nearly grown ducklings), a heron & an egret that circled the nearest river bend for 20 minutes or so a couple evenings ago, pulling out of several dives just above the river's surface. I always find the chirping of egrets charming, more like song birds. Although their cries carry for quite some distance, they are still nothing like what one might expect from such large raptors. Screaming eagles they are not.
6/30 - Another year half done! The last 2 sunny
days I've been trying to build my batteries back up with some success.
During the middle of the day, the sun high overhead supplies plenty
of watts, but otherwise we are getting substantial shading from the
tall trees surrounding our camp. The challenge has been keeping the
mobile panel located to maximize its solar exposure. Between the hours
of 7 - 10 AM and again from 4 - 7 PM I find myself moving it about every
30 minutes. But I'm glad to have that option. It is making a difference.
I fished a different section of river further down last night. At Pringle Falls campground, below the white water of the same name, there is a nice section of faster river with riffles & rocks, more like what I am used to on the McKenzie. But I was skunked, no sign of a trout. As I emailed to my buddy Rhett, maybe the fish of the upper Deschutes prefer slower waters. It was a nice campground though, deserted too. I would definitely consider it as an alternative to Bull Bend.
We had some unusual activity here at the Bend today. I had seen a boat
come round the bend with another in tow. Didn't think too much about
it until some time later when I heard the growl of a chainsaw accompanied
by a really annoying screeching racket. I checked it out & it was
the guy who brought in the tow hacking it up with a chain saw. It seems
he was hired to retrieve a sunken derelict motor boat & haul it
to the dump.
The other action was not really very far out of the ordinary, just
not an every day occurrence. A ranger from ODFW brought in a load of
rainbows & stocked this section of the river in advance of the holiday
fishing crowd. He said he had about 700 trout in that load. He also
said they were a strain of trout that put up a good fight. Maybe we'll
have to see about that.
7/1 - Here's a little nature lore for some who may not be familiar with the Ponderosa Pine, the dominant tree species in this region. On mature trees, the bark is deeply fissured & very scaly. And the scales flake off in shapes like jigsaw puzzle pieces. Click on the image to the left to see this in more detail.
We'll be heading for Boise in the morning. The drive should be fairly easy, with a curvy downhill grade in eastern Oregon providing the only modest challenge. We'll spend the weekend in town, visiting friends & family. I also want to check in with the local fly shop on some ideas for spending the next couple of weeks in the Boise & Sawtooth mountains. My map studies have identified some possibilities, but because there have been several large forest fires in recent years in the area, I think first hand information will be essential.
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