Prineville to Unity Lake State Park, OR

We didn't take any photos yesterday of the campground, so I took photos while Mike was breaking camp.

From Prineville to Unity Lake State Park, OR

We stopped at the Shell gas station in Prineville and got gas in the RV ($3.899 gal). On our way out of town we passed by the Crook County Courthouse.

From Prineville to Unity Lake State Park, OR

The terrain changed from prairie

From Prineville to Unity Lake State Park, OR

to mountains.

From Prineville to Unity Lake State Park, OR

We drove through Picture Gorge (here's a short movie)

From Prineville to Unity Lake State Park, OR

and then back on to prairies and farms.

From Prineville to Unity Lake State Park, OR

We drove through the town of Dayville and took a photo of the post office there that had been a stop for the Pony Express.

From Prineville to Unity Lake State Park, OR

We next drove through the town of John Day and passed by the Saturday Farmers' Market.

From Prineville to Unity Lake State Park, OR

There are towns named Dayville and John Day, the John Day River and the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument named after the early frontiersman John Day.

When we were about 2 miles west of the town of Unity, we turned north onto SR-245 and drove about 2 miles out to the Unity Lake State Park.

From Prineville to Unity Lake State Park, OR

From Prineville to Unity Lake State Park, OR

We arrived at the campground around 12:30 after driving 167 miles from Prineville. We chose campsite #17 which is a pull-through and parked the RV. We filled out a registration form and wrote a check for $22 for 1 night's stay.

From Prineville to Unity Lake State Park, OR

After we leveled the RV and put out the slides, I fixed lunch. There are several RVs here and there is a group of people having a family reunion here this weekend.

We have electric (30 amp) and water hook-ups and we're on a paved pad that is level and grass on both sides of the RV - Tinker REALLY appreciates that.

We are able to see Unity Lake from our RV.

From Prineville to Unity Lake State Park, OR

The state park is a pleasant break after driving through the high desert that we've seen most of today.

The Dalles to Prineville

Since we only had about 140 miles to drive today, we took our time breaking camp at Memaloose State Park this morning.

We stopped at the Safeway in The Dalles to get gas in the RV and to get our 10¢ a gallon discount which we had earned yesterday after buying groceries. Of course, the 10¢ discount is only good for 30 gallons but we still got our 3¢ a gallon discount for the rest of the fill-up. However, the pump cut off at $100 so we got 26.889 gallons for $3.719 (our 10¢ discount) and we got 7.984 gallons for $3.789 (our 3¢ discount).

We left The Dalles at 11:30 and headed east on US-30 through downtown.

From The Dalles, OR

After about a mile we connected with US-197 and headed south through farmland and rolling hills.

From The Dalles to Prineville

A little after 12:00 we found a large pull-off and stopped there to fix lunch.

From The Dalles to Prineville

We drove through the town of Maupin and crossed the Deschutes River.

From The Dalles to Prineville

About 20 minutes south of Maupin we were able to see Mt. Hood to the northwest of us - it was real hazy, but I did manage to get a photo of it.

From The Dalles to Prineville

We arrived at the Crook County RV Park at 3:00. When we went in to register, we also took Tinker. Mike had talked with Karen when he made our reservation and told her we had a Bichon and she said to be sure to bring Tinker in to the office when we registered. Karen has 2 Bichons (the standard Bichon size) and she wanted to see Tinker (who isn't standard Bichon size).

We are in site #68 with full hook-ups (50 amp), wi-fi and basic cable - with tax our site is costing us $29.57 for tonight. I cranked up the satellite dish and found a spot through the trees where we could receive satellite TV reception.

Sightseeing in The Dalles, Oregon

We ate an early lunch today and left the campground at 11:30 to go sightseeing in The Dalles. We pulled over onto the shoulder on I-84 to take some photos of the RV and the Memaloose State Park.

From Ft. Lewis to Memaloose State Park

We arrived at the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center and Wasco County Historical Museum a little before noon.

From Columbia Gorge Discovery Center

The cost of admission for seniors is $10 each. One of the first sights we saw was Pearl, a female American Kestrel or sometimes called a Sparrow Hawk. The American Kestrel is the only kestrel found in the Americas.

From Columbia Gorge Discovery Center

The first exhibit we entered was the one for the Lewis & Clark Expedition. We saw a display of weapons

From Columbia Gorge Discovery Center

and one of navigation tools - sextants, compasses and telescopes.

From Columbia Gorge Discovery Center

The next exhibit was on the Ice Age on the Columbian Plateau. We saw a painting of a Giant Short Faced Bear

From Columbia Gorge Discovery Center

and a comparison between a Giant Short Faced Bear skull and a Black Bear skull. I REALLY wouldn't want to meet up with a Giant Short Faced Bear!!

From Columbia Gorge Discovery Center

We saw exhibits on the Oregon Trail

From Columbia Gorge Discovery Center

and on the history of Wasco County.

From Columbia Gorge Discovery Center

We stopped in at the Basalt Rock Cafe for some coffee while we waited for the Live Raptor Exhibition at 2:00. We sat outside of the cafe on the patio to drink our coffee and Mike noticed these ants that had crawled into the salt shaker and died.

From Columbia Gorge Discovery Center

At 2:00 we walked back into the River Gallery to watch one of the volunteers with "Killer", a female Red-tailed Hawk,

From Columbia Gorge Discovery Center

and "Junior", a Great Horned Owl.

From Columbia Gorge Discovery Center

Both raptors had suffered injuries as young birds and are unable to fend for themselves in the wild. We learned about their different life habits and styles of hunting.

After leaving the Discovery Center, we drove into town to go to the Fort Dalles Museum. On our way to the museum we took some photos of some houses

From The Dalles, OR

and of old St. Peter's (Catholic Church 1897-1970) Landmark which was built in 1897 and can now be rented for weddings.

From The Dalles, OR

From St. Peter's Landmark we drove up some fairly steep hills until we reached the Fort Dalles Museum, which is Oregon's oldest historical museum.

From Fort Dalles Museum

After paying the $4 senior admission for each of us, one of the volunteers gave us a short orientation on the exhibits in the museum.

One of the first things I noticed was this custom-made Hoosier cabinet with all of the compartments and drawers labeled sitting in what had been the kitchen in the Surgeon's Quarters.

From Fort Dalles Museum

We walked through the first floor rooms with exhibits of period furniture and clothing.

From Fort Dalles Museum

We next went upstairs and saw exhibits of more furniture, clothing,

From Fort Dalles Museum

saddles, and this beautiful window.

From Fort Dalles Museum

We walked outside to view the antique vehicles that are stored in a separate building. Unlike the WAAAM museum we visited in Hood River, the autos and wagons here are not restored.

From Fort Dalles Museum

From Fort Dalles Museum

The Anderson Homestead is just across the street from the Fort Dalles Museum, but because it was now 4:00 and the museum was closing we just took photos of the 1895 Swedish log house.

From Fort Dalles Museum

We stopped a couple of more times to take photos of houses we saw on our way back downtown.

From The Dalles, OR

We stopped at the Safeway in town to buy some groceries before we drove back to the campground.

Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum

We both slept well last night and the traffic noise from I-84 didn’t bother us. This morning after breakfast we walked around the campground and took photos. It’s still windy and pleasantly cool.

After lunch we drove west to Hood River to visit the Western Antique Aeroplane and Automobile Museum – WAAAM.

From Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum 1

We were greeted by museum volunteers Perry and Don.

From Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum 1

We paid the $10 each (senior tickets) and were given a diagram of the museum. We walked through a door into the first display area called Hangar M1 which covers pre-WW II and is 37,500 square feet.

From Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum 1

There were antique tractors, automobiles and airplanes. This is a photo of just ONE row of antique autos.

From Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum 1

The best way to describe Hangar M1 is WOW! I’ll just let the photos Mike took speak for themselves.

From Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum 1

We saw these 2 airplanes that had appeared in the movie "The Tarnished Angles" with Rock Hudson, Robert Taylor and Dorothy Malone.

From Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum 2

From Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum 2

There was a small section devoted to women aviators.

From Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum 2

We next went into Hangar M2 which contains vehicles from WW II and later and is 45,000 square feet. Again another WOW!

From Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum 1

There were classic autos, more motorcycles, military vehicles and airplanes and a play area for children with a motorcycle and helicopter for them to get on.

From Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum 1

He took so many photos that I’ve divided them into 2 web albums – one album for autos, motorcycles and other vehicles, and one album for airplanes.

I am so glad that I picked up a brochure for the museum at the campground last night. We wouldn’t have known about it and we would have missed a great museum.

We even had a good view of Mt. Hood from the museum. We learned that there is a huge forest fire near Mt. Hood and that is smoke not haze that we see.

We drove through the downtown are of Hood River and it is very attractive and a LOT of coffee shops.

Along the Columbia River to Memaloose State Park

We set the alarm clock last night for 7 a.m. so we could get an early start today even though we only had about 200 miles to drive. It was cloudy and in the low 60's this morning.

I think I forgot to mention in an earlier post that we had to check out a Comcast Digital Transport Adapter in order to receive all of the cable channels at Ft. Lewis RV Park. We do have a digital converter for the local antenna, but this is different from that. So while Mike was driving the RV to where we could hook up the car, I went to the campground office to turn the adapter in.

This was our first time hitching up the car with our new Roadmaster All Terrain Tow Bar and all went well. We left the campground at 9:16 and headed south on I-5. We made a quick stop at a rest area near Maytown and while I walked Tinker, Mike did his walk-around the RV and car.

From Ft. Lewis to Memaloose State Park

We stopped at 11:30 for an early lunch at a rest area about 12 miles north of Vancouver. Shortly after leaving the rest area, we connected with I-205 south and crossed the Columbia River into Oregon at 12:15.

From Ft. Lewis to Memaloose State Park

Shortly after entering Oregon we exited I-205 to I-84 east along the Columbia River. It had been cloudy and in the low 60's most of today, so we weren't able to see the tops of the mountains.

From Ft. Lewis to Memaloose State Park

A little before 1:00 the sun came out and the haze cleared up. We passed by the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River and this is all we got to see of it.

From Ft. Lewis to Memaloose State Park

Eventually I-84 was close enough to get some great views of the Columbia River.

From Ft. Lewis to Memaloose State Park

The Memaloose State Park is located on the Columbia River 10 miles west of The Dalles. The only way to get to Memaloose State Park is through the rest area located on the north side of I-84.

From Ft. Lewis to Memaloose State Park

We exited I-84 East at exit 76 and got back on I-84 heading west for 3 miles to the rest area. We drove through the rest area to the entrance to Memaloose State Park.

From Ft. Lewis to Memaloose State Park

We located our campsite and stopped to disconnect the Vue. Mike then backed the motorhome into our campsite. We are in site #A-13 with full hook-ups (30 amp elec).

It is so windy here that Mike set up our portable satellite dish (the one on the rooftop would "flop" in the wind and we would lose our signal). After setting up the RV and watching a little TV, we all ended up taking a nap - Tinker on the sofa with  me and Mike in the recliner.

Our campsite backs up next to I-84 and there is a lot of traffic noise, but it didn't seem to bother our naps and I doubt it'll keep us awake tonight.

We didn't get any photos of our campsite this afternoon, we'll do that in the morning. We're going to be here for