24 Hours

 We had two days of very hot weather, in the upper 80's.  These were the days I travelled to and back from Bend.

I went to see my brother, who was there in Bend, from Idaho, for his 70th birthday visiting his daughter.

It was a hard push to get everything done to go, even if it was a 24 hour trip.   Once I returned the cats Thursday morning who had been fixed on Wednesday, I rushed back home, to vaccinate and flea treat the four small kittens in my bathroom, who had been too little to be fixed.

The Bufferoo crew, I called them.  

When vaccinating them I discovered their ears were full of mite debris.   So I had to clean out their ears, using an ear cleaning solution, as best I could.  They had so much debris they must have been nearly deaf from it clogging up their ears.

Then I took the four, along with kitten food, KMR and cat litter, over to the Lebanon lady who had offered to hold them.  She has FCCO appointments in mid July, so they can get fixed and they should be big enough by then.

I came home and cleaned all the traps, although five are still with the Pioneer Villa folks.   I sure hope they get them back to me soon.  When someone has my traps and has not made a definite time to return them, I worry they never will and I'll have to track them down.

After that, exhausted, I felt free.   I had to clean my car out and do all the cat chores here still.  Friday morning, I quickly did cat chores again, put a change of clothes in a bag and headed out.  When I go for 24 hours, I don't have to pack much of anything at least.

I drove straight through, took me like 3 hours, maybe 3 1/2 more like it.  From where I live, I drive highway 20 through the Cascades.  Highway 20 takes me from Albany through Lebanon, then Sweet Home, past Cascadia, the scene of many tragic cat trapping events, and on up to Tombstone Pass, where I tried in vain to find a cat lost in a car wreck years ago.   From there, its not far until highway 126 from Eugene connects and just a bit farther on east from that, highway 22 out of Salem connects and all continue east as highway 20 to Sisters, then Bend.

Traffic slow going up to the pass, as there were cars slowing to 25 on the extreme curves up to Tombstone Pass.   After the pass, the road is much straighter, so cars are not going so slow and then too, there are plenty of passing lanes from there on.

Just some mountain photos I took from the back seat of their car when we went to their daughters place.

Sisters is so overgrown now and a tourist trap trendy type town that attracts crowds.   It's changed so much.  Onward from there to Bend, and I've never been there before, but I drove straight to my brothers motel, where he and his wife had been staying a few days.   It was so nice to see them.

His daughter was there too.  Shortly after I got there, we drove like five minutes to some lunch spot and sat outside and had salad bowls that were quite delicious.  Then we just sat around at their motel.  There were little tables outside with chairs and we spent most of the rest of our time together right there.   At one point, we drove out in their car to his daughters tiny studio rental.  It's nice but teensy and yet very expensive to rent.  It's all she could find she could afford but its a commute to work since it way out of town.  I think it took half hour to drive out to her place from the motel.  She works in Bend but can't afford to live in Bend.

We had take out for dinner, since it was easier and played a colored ball instead of number soduku game they'd brought.   They had to leave early yesterday morning, for the drive back to Idaho.  It was going to be hot for them, going through the high desert, so they wanted an early start.   I  drove back home and got back about noon.  Again slow going through Sisters and also from Tombstone Pass on down due to the curvy road and lots and lots of slow traffic.   

By 5:00 p.m. here yesterday, it was nearly 90 degrees out.   But today is supposed to be much cooler.  For instance, it's almost 10:00 and just barely 60 degrees.   So our two hot days are over and now I'm not sure what we're getting today, maybe even rain I heard.  Guess I'll wait and see.

The video is going through Sisters, on the way home.  It was very busy even though before noon on a Saturday.  I had my phone set up as a dash cam but alas, the holder is flopping loose, needs some tightening.

Next weekend will be particularly interesting in Oregon because the major north south interstate, I5, will be closed four days up in the Portland area.  Sure, they're advertising the closure now, on the news and with big freeway signs you don't have time to read if you're going anywhere near the speed limit which is hard to achieve in Oregon because of the chronic congestion on I5.  And now to close that, well it will be entertaining, is all I can say, to those who know about it and don't have travel up there next weekend.