Donaldson Crew Adventures

As with most spring breaks the weather this week has been just so-so. Typical early spring in the high desert but atypical in that there is a stay home order. The kids have been out biking on the trails outside our neighborhood so that’s been nice.  We get out for walks but still a decent amount of lounging.  Holly is clearly oblivious to the stresses of the world right now.

Kelly and I had a couple quick trips to town.  One was to pick up rubber bands for Noah’s braces.  Of course they were closed and told us they would leave them taped on the door.  It seems that we weren’t the only ones.

Abbie baked some cupcakes with homemade icing and we had an afternoon cupcake break one day!

With nothing to do many people have been outdoor recreating.  The trailheads are packed. That came to an end as of today. All national forests in the area are now closed - trailheads, snow parks, and day use areas, so unless it’s outside your backyard it’s off limits starting tomorrow March 28. We are grateful that e back up to so many trails right out our door. 

Today, in the afternoon we did a trip to a couple of close local caves. The last time we were here was March 2011 and it was just Hunter, Noah and me.

This first weekend of our spring break was supposed to be in the 60’s. Our original plan was to go camping but all campgrounds and dispersed camping has now been closed down too. I wanted to get away from the hordes around the local Bend options so we decided to do a day trip to The Painted Hills in north central oregon. It’s about 2 hours from Bend so my hope was it would keep the masses away. There were people but generally it was pretty quiet. 

Our first stop was the Sheep Rock section of The Painted Hills. Here is a picture of Hunter and Noah with Sheep Rock in the background across from the John Day River. 

From here, we headed to a place a few miles north called Blue Basin. The rocks have a blue green hue to them. I am red green color blind so it wasn’t that impressive for me but everyone else thought it was pretty impressive. 

From Blue Basin we headed north west and stopped for lunch in Spray, OR.

Throughout the afternoon we drove through some amazing desert and mountain scenery on our way to The Painted Hills. We spent the late afternoon and evening exploring The Painted Hills and having dinner there. I brought our camp stove and we ate on top of the lookout.

There were beautiful earth tone colors on these amazing hills that only got richer as the day started to wind down.  

With the CV19 lockdown changing everything, this will be a series of check-ins during this time so we can look back on this time on reflect on it. 

Our school was very on top of things. After the announcement was made Friday, March 13, the kids had a brief check-in on Monday, the 16 and daily classes started Tuesday, March 17.  

I know this picture is nothing new to anyone reading this.  It’s more for our own ability to look back when the COVID-19 is over. 

We actually had some fresh snow, so we took advantage of that to do some social distancing

Preston’s class performed a song about gratitude and each student got to say what they are grateful for.

After taking a couple years off Abbie is back skiing this year and loving it! She is skiing each Friday with the school elective From Jan to March. I have the pleasure of chaperoning her group with another Dad.

We were over at friends for Super Bowl today. Abbie and PJ both got to try a motorcycle for the first time. It was the highlight of their year so far. They both want one now:)

My friend Mark got a couple of snow machines recently so we rode them from Mt Bachelor where this road is closed for the winter to Todd lake to do some skiing. Cold and crisp morning - great fun.