The Oregon coast (from last week).
Sunday
Idaho to Montana. The summer of smoke continues for Oregon and Idaho. Apparently the fires have not run out of fuel yet. Grass hay, alfalfa hay, straw, big bales, small bales, rolls, piles, even big plastic bags. Suppose there are different kinds of grass hay? It’s a better sky here in Montana. The clouds have distinct edges with blue behind. Grizzly RV Park at the west gate of Yellowstone, new and expanded since the last time we were here. We’ll stay here and fish for a few days. Juncos, yellow rumped warblers, a whole family of northern harriers.
Saturday
Central Oregon to Central Idaho. Bend to Burns to Boise, and stop for the night at Mountain Home. A small-town, KOA right in the middle of a residential neighborhood. A party at the senior center next door. Outside music. A street party. Would you believe they found a DJ who could provide ten hours of accordion music? Amplified. The music did get a little old, but of course those old people go to bed early, so it wasn’t a problem after dark.
Bend
Meanwhile, back at the RV Repair Shop…. The body work was quickly separated from anything else we wanted done. Some of minor body dings could be repaired right now, but one of the cabinet doors has to be replaced. It takes six weeks to get a new cabinet door. It doesn’t make sense to do any of the other body work until the new cabinet door is available and it can all be painted together. Now it’s Friday. We’re back in Bend. Central Oregon. They worked all week on the “wardrobe closet door off the rails”, “generator door makes a screech when it closes”, “one of the drawers in the bathroom has come loose” kind of stuff. All the little stuff you can’t really see. The big stuff we can see will have to wait for a return trip. They’ll get insurance company approval for the work, order the door, and let us know when we can come back.
Puffin
Got a lead on a wild puffin a hundred miles away. A nesting colony of tufted puffins. Can’t-miss, can-see-it-from-all-angles, slam-dunk. We found Cape Mears….., found the rocks, three arch-rocks offshore south of the lighthouse… found all the angles. Gulls…. Cormorants… Pelicans… White colored cliffs. Got the chestnut backed chickadee. We never saw a puffin, but the chickadee almost landed on us while we were looking out at the rocks.