RV’ing In the Land of Volcanoes and Wildfires

I have adored Oregon from afar for a very long time. So much so, it’s been on my short list of places to move to. Ironically, other than driving through a piece here or there, I’ve never really been to Oregon, until now. Here’s a recap as we checked off state number 41 in our RV life!

My knowledge and the pictures I’ve seen have included mountains, forests, and jagged Pacific coastlines, much like Northern California. And when we drove up the coast from California via the 101, it was exactly that. But then we took a hard right towards the center of the state, traversing the Cascade Mountains with their steep grades, high summits, and snow-covered peaks even in late summer, finding ourselves in an arid region surrounded by volcanoes and ski resorts alike. I was taken aback, both by beauty, and the shock of it.

Volcanoes were something I was aware of, the Ring of Fire and all, but never thought of inner Oregon and its roll in that. I took to the web to research and found that the Cascades aren’t just mountains, but an active chain of volcanoes, and we were spending the next two weeks surrounded by them, and only a few miles from a lava field and other volcanic features. That gave us a list of awesome places on our list to explore, and not just nearby Crater Lake National Park.

This region is also quite dry and prone to wildfires, which have been pretty active again this year. It was similar to what we saw in Arco, Idaho, but with the addition of pine trees covering much of the area, as well as low brush and lava rocks everywhere.

The Wildfires We rolled into town the day that the Flat Fire in Sisters (30 miles to our North) was getting started, just north of us, and a few days later, the Emigrant Fire (70 miles to our southeast) started to our southeast. Needless to say, we quickly subscribed to local alert systems and came up with an evacuation plan. Lucky for us, the amazing first responders had it under control, so our two weeks in the area had some days of smoke or falling ash, but we were able to stay.

Lava Butte On our second day here, the smoke eased up, so we grabbed Luna and headed to nearby Lava Butte. As part of the forestry service, our National Park pass got us free admission. We explored the visitor’s center to glean information about this area and its volcanoes and geological wonders. Then we hopped on the tram to the top of the butte ($5 per person–pets free, or you can hike up–during the busy season, no POVs allowed up the road). It was still a bit smoky but we were treated to some amazing views of the surrounding mountains like Three Sisters, Broken Top, Mount Bachelor, Mount Washington, Mount Jefferson, and several others. Luckily the viewing area has beautiful windows and labeled panoramic pictures to identify which mountain you are looking at. There were many trails around for biking and hiking, but between the elevation and smoke, we were ready to relax the rest of the day.

Lava River Cave In the same area as Lava Butte, is Lava River Cave. This area required a reservation a few days in advance ($2 processing fee only). The cave is 42 degrees inside, so in spite of outside temperatures in the 90’s, we put on jeans and grabbed our coats and flashlights, making sure to not have the gear we had taken in the last lava tube we hiked in Arco. White-nosed fungus is fatal for bats as it awakens them from hibernation and they starve to death, and there is no current cure or method of cleaning the spores.

After checking in and getting a quick safety briefing, we headed into the caves, feeling the cold air long before seeing the entrance. We descended the 180 stairs at the cave entrance and spent the next hour walking a mile deep into the cave. Lava tube caves are different than the limestone caves we are used to that are alive and growing. Lava tubes were formed from the slow crawl of molten lava, working toward the surface, leaving the walls looking as though you are walking through a digestive track of some slumbering giant–which I guess you kind of are. After reaching the end, we worked our way back, emerging to the heat of the day two hours later, and ready for the picnic lunch we had packed.

Tumalo Waterfalls Since the Lava tube hike was only a couple of hours, we decided to hike to a waterfall after our picnic lunch. Not the best plan after descending, I found out later, but it made for a fun day! This waterfall was quite popular on the Labor Day Monday we ventured over, but we found parking at the end of the rough unfinished road. Luckily, the viewing area is just off the parking lot, or you can hike to the overlook at the top of the falls a quarter mile further. There are lots of other trails in the area to make a full day of it, but we opted for the short hike and beautiful views before calling it a day and heading home to rest…and shower all that dust away from the cave.

The Last Blockbuster Store We found out from some friends that the last Blockbuster store was located in Bend, not too far from where we were staying. Being movie buffs, while running errands in town, we stopped by, walking our son through the process. For a teenager born in an era where there had always been WiFi, he was entertained by us and what we had to do to watch movies at home “back in the day”. It was also great to see some of the memorabilia they had on display around the store, and the clerks working were so friendly, even knowing we were just there for the nostalgia and not a rental–I guess they are used to it!

Crater Lake NP With only one day in our schedule, we made a day trip to drive the rim road at Crater Lake. We packed a picnic lunch, loaded up the dog, and made sure we downloaded our Shaka Guide app tour for the park. We enjoyed the stories, the views, and our time together. If you missed the earlier blog, here’s the link to it get more details on both Crater Lake National Park and the Shaka App.

Catching Up On The Life Stuff While we were there, we had a bunch of life stuff to get caught up on. We needed to get Luna to a groomer, get mail from home, including our replacement license plate, get some supplies both from the store and from Amazon for the new school year and for life, in general. We also desperately needed to get the vehicles washed, get caught up on blogs, and I wanted to get the RV Life Planner workbook finished–which I did! We enjoyed Labor Day weekend, and got all set to start a new school year when we get to our next campground. It was a busy couple of weeks, but we got it all done. We even found time for some community service and did a campground clean up after the holiday around our loop.

Thousand Trails Bend/Sunriver We hadn’t planned on this campground, but when trying to find someplace in Oregon for the holiday, this was available and it turned out to be in a great location. We did have fires to both the north and south to keep an eye on, but other than smoky conditions, we were safe. Check out the previous blog with a full campground review and all of our likes and dislikes.

Oregon sure surprised us with beauty and life we didn’t expect. Will the road bring us back through? Only time will tell.

The YouTube video of Oregon will be out later this week for more on life here. If you have questions on anything we didn’t go in depth on, send them our way, either via email, or comments on the blog or social media posts. We are happy to answer what we can!

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