Oregon Cascades and High Desert

Today we left Albany in our little Ford Focus at 11:05am after both of us getting out teeth cleaned at the dentist's office.  The weather was slightly overcast, but with hopes of becoming clear.  As we drove we noticed that the harvested fields are again green with newly sprouted seed crops.  And we are both smiling as we drive through the small towns on Highway 20 toward the East Coast.  We feel so thankful that we are able to take off like this and to have the personal health to be able to make a trip of this magnitude.  Crossing the Mts. we enjoy the barren beauty of Mt. Three-fingered-Jack and Mt. Washington.  The hot summer has stolen all the snow from the Mountains and turned it into little streams to disappear into the rivers below.  The Cascade Lakes....Suttle and Blue...are calm and glasslike as we pass by.  We grabbed a bite at a McDonalds in Sisters and continued past Bend and Pilot Butte....to Brothers Station where we hoped to meet up with Dixie and Jerry Hannah who run the store and who are still members of the Linn Co. Sherriff's Posse.  They were in town picking up supplies and left the store in the hand of "Tone" who was holding down the fort while they were gone..."Tone" was an elderly tall thin bachelor who insisted that we take a couple of cold soda's from the cooler on him.  We thanked him generously and headed on down the road toward Burns.  We saw probably 150 antelope enjoying dinner in a soon to be harvested alfalfa field.  Temperature has been running a comfortable 68 degrees with severe clear skies. Had Mexican food in Burns and filled our car with gas...only 6.9 gallon......36.8 mpg....wow!