After driving the remainder of the day we stopped for the night at the Walmart in Klamath Falls, OR. The following morning after gassing up we lost our brakes as we were pulling away from the pumps. Initially, we were annoyed at this breakdown, but later after thinking about where we "could have been" when we discovered that we had no brakes (like coming down a mountain pass) we realized that this was a blessing in disguise. I called Progressive Roadside Assistance and arranged for a tow truck to come for the RV. As I was doing that, Rene was calling the local Ford dealer to see if they could accommodate us. It turns out that their shop could not handle an RV, but they recommended another shop in town. Rene called Emmett's Auto Repair and they agreed to help us, so we disconnected the Jeep and waited for the tow truck. Once the tow truck got there we drove to Emmett's and waited for the RV to arrive. Inside the office we met the service manager, Jim Heath, who got a tech working on the RV in no time. It turns out that the two front brake lines had rusted out so they were going to replace them. In addition, they were doing an oil change and replacing the front and rear universal joints on the drive-shafts. (recommended by the tow company driver that had to drop the rear drive-shaft before towing the RV) Since they could not finish all the work that day they let us stay overnight in the RV in their fenced in facility and provided us with electricity and the key to the gate if we needed to go out. They finished the repairs the following morning and had us on our way. Once again, we lucked out finding a great repair shop with a friendly and competent staff. After having a quick lunch we got on the road about noon, drove through the afternoon and stopped at a rest area for the night.
We arrived at Craters of the Moon National Monument the following morning and set up camp at the Lava Flow Campground. This is a NO Reservation facility, all the sites are first-come, first-served. The campground has paved roads and gravel sites, but no hook-ups, or dump station for that matter. Fresh water was available and the rest rooms had a dish washing station for those that need it. So plan accordingly if you intend to stay here for any length of time. We know that our black water tank can go for two weeks (or longer if we use the public restrooms), but the grey water tank tends to fill much faster, so we keep a basin in the kitchen sink and an old cat litter bucket in the shower and dump this water down the toilet in the campground restroom. The water that does make it in to the grey water tank we remove using the bucket and dump this water in the restroom toilet as well. This system requires a little bit of work, but helps us stay in places longer that don't have dump stations. We actually prefer the dry camping/boon-docking and consider it a challenge. We enjoy overcoming the obstacles and making it work for us. As long as we can find a "not so shady" site our solar panel keeps our batteries charged and we are Happy Campers!
If you have never seen hardened lava flows before, this is one place in the U.S. to get a close up view of spatter cones, cinder cones, lava tubes, rope-like pahoehoe and rubble-like, crusty 'a'a. (Hawaiian Terms, No, I didn't make them up!) History shows that Shoshone Indians may have witnessed some volcanic eruptions along the Great Rift. Oregon bound pioneers passed along the Northern edge of the lava lands in the mid 1800's. In 1920 an explorer, Robert Limbert, hiked the length of the Great Rift in 1920 and brought national attention to the area and the need to protect it. A geologist, Harold Sterns, described the area as the nation's "most recent fissure eruption" (outside of Hawaii) in 1923 and became an outspoken advocate for preserving the area as a national monument, which it became in 1924. In 1969 NASA's Apollo Astronauts, Shepard, Mitchell, Cernan and Engle, learned basic volcanic geology here as they prepared for their moon missions. Today, the area is visited by National Park tourists interested in seeing this Moon-like setting.
We were planning the next phase of our trip from Redwood National Park in Northern California to Yellowstone/Grand Tetons National Parks in Northwest Wyoming. We knew that the shortest route would take us through Oregon and Southern Idaho, so this stop was a "NO BRAINER"! It turned out to be another great "National Park" experience in our Endless Adventure!
Best Regards,
Frank & Rene
PS: To view all of our trip photos, please use the link below to our Endless Adventure USA facebook page.
