We have now made it out of Oregon. We arrived yesterday in Twin Falls, ID where we spent an enjoyable day today touring Twin Falls with Shannon's niece, Candise and her wonderful family. We had much in common, but I only think so since I didn't get much of the conversations. The amount of laughter indicated that all were having a good time. Candise's two daughters stayed around all day, and that is no little feat to hang out with a bunch of old folks for the day. We enjoyed getting to know Jason, Candise's husband, who was a real hoot and had a most admirable beard. I kept thinking, do I have enough years left in my life to be able to grow a beard like that? Imponderable question, indeed.

Our trip though OR went off without any major hitches. We spent two nights in Bend, and decided if we ever move to OR, Bend would be high on our list of places to settled down. We spent most of our full day between the High Desert Museum and the tasting room at the Deschutes Brewery. The museum was well done and very informative about life in the High Desert region, and we would definitely recommend it to anyone getting close to Bend. Oh, and the tasting room at the Deschutes Brewery, too.

Bend is on the eastern slope of the Cascades and is starting to feel the effects of the rain shadow from the Cascades. Ponderosa pine dominates the vegetation. As we traveled eastward toward ID the pine soon gave way to juniper which was then replaced by rabbit brush and sagebrush. Along the way we passed through framing and ranching areas primarily raising alfalfa hay. After Burns (OR) the terrain grew more mountainous and quite pretty as we followed the Malheur River to Vale where we spent our list night in OR.Vale was advertised as the onion capital. I think we saw more potato fields and were close enough to ID to call them Idaho potatoes.

Tomorrow we head for Provo, UT and the next day onto Grand Junction, CO where we will spend about 5 days visiting Shannon's sister.