The Two Bulls Fire, June 9

It has been a rather eventful weekend! On our way from Sisters, Oregon, to Bend, Jeff had a last minute change of route. He was convinced by some cyclists that hwy 126 would be better, with more services, than hwy 20. It seemed to make sense, so off to the northern route we went. A few miles out of Sisters, I noticed a rather large column of smoke off to the north.

Of course, Jeff noticed it also and took pics when it was even smaller and clearly 2 separate fires.

Once we got to a point where we needed to head for Bend where  we were to stay with Jeff's sister, Lisa and her husband Steve, we headed south. The fire was looking more and more ominous as we got closer to Bend! In fact, it looked as though it was right behind the mountain Lisa and Steve live on!









Once we got to their house, they drove us to the ridge, and it
seemed like the whole town had shown up to watch the fire from the top of the mountain! I found it quite humorous that there was a fire engine with 4 guys standing on the top of their engine to get a better view!

The smoke was hanging low in the valley the second day, which was Sunday. The smoke plume was never as impressive as it was that first day, although by Sunday they were saying it was over 6,000 acres and had evacuated 250 homes. And Monday morning, it was only listed as 5% contained. And, it is a good thing we changed our route, as some of the area the first route would have gone through, was in the middle of the fire/evacuation zone! So that was ultimately a GREAT decision on Jeff's part!


The dogs enjoyed visiting my sister and brother in law, even though they have a cat! And, we had to basically keep them in the crate most of the time, as one of them had an upset tummy, and Lisa and Steve have white carpet! But, they enjoyed going out to the yard, and scratching their backs on the coarse grass.

                      

And my sister in law, Lisa, is a whiz at sewing. She made a quilt for Jeff once out of all his old running T shirts, the old cotton style ones, with cool logo's. He loves it! So, he came up with the idea that maybe he should have a cape, like a super hero cape, that said "9-11 or Bust" on the back. Lisa was more than willing to help us out with this, especially since I am not good at sewing AT ALL! At the fabric store, we found the most perfect fabric for the cape, and made block letters out of yellow fabric. I will take a pic of him wearing it tomorrow as he goes down the road.

We didn't think we could have found a more appropriate fabric! Red, white and blue with the pic of the flag being raised in the rubble of the Towers.

The weekend was very relaxing, although Jeff still ran a few miles each day. It was great to have Lisa and Steve cook a couple of wonderful meals for us, and to get some of the piddly little errands done, also. I think that the next few days, we may be in the middle of Oregon with no cell service, and ultimately no internet! Oh, the horror! ;)

I'm thinking we should fall into a pattern pretty quickly. I am planning on adding a couple miles of my own to the tally, once we figure out the best way to do that. We are doing a fair job of over-nighting in a spot where Jeff can just take off in the morning, early, without having to wake me. I like to sleep a bit past 5 am! So maybe my miles will be later in the day, to give him a rest for a bit. We will figure it out.