Donaldson Crew Adventures

First family camp trip for Abbie and PJ.  We went with some neighbor friends of ours (the Gillettes) to Rock Creek campground on Crane Prairie Reservoir in the Cascade Mountains.  Just one night but a fun time even though it was a bit of a cold night.  Here are a few pictures around camp.

On Saturday afternoon we did a hike to Lucky Lake.  Preston gave it a good go but I ended up carrying him most of the way:)

A couple of panoramic shots from down at the lake below our camp site

Hunter is in the second lane. This is a race he won.

We had a nice leisurely hike today along the Deschutes river south of Bend finished off by a picnic lunch.  We started at the Meadow Picnic area which is accessed about 4 miles south of bend on the Cascade lakes highway.  From here we simply walked south along the river.  

Today they had a 'Panning for Gold' activity at The High Desert Museum that the kids wanted to go check out.  The pictures show them with the pans trying to strike it rich and the video is a device that prospectors used to use called a Rocker Box which made the process more efficient than traditional panning.  

Today the boys and I did an rock hounding outing to an area about 75 miles east of Bend called Glass Butte.  This is an area where there are veins of obsidian (volcanic glass) everywhere all different types and you are free to collect whatever you find.   We wanted to go now before it got too hot.  It got up to about 78 degrees F today so still pleasant.

Here are a few shots of pieces we collected including standard black obsidian as well as some mahogany obsidian.  See the size of the one chunk we found.  It was actually bigger but I had to knock some pieces off to make it small enough to carry.

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Movin' on up to 1st grade!

Next year Abbie will be going to all-day kindergarten! Today was her end of year ceremony.

In the winter they do not plow the roads past Mount Bachelor. Then around mid may usually before Memorial Day weekend they get the roads clear. Still lots of snow on the peaks and beside the roads but makes for a nice drive. Today we left bend, and it was 73 degrees. Up past Mt Bachelor it got down to 52 so a 20 degree drop from town only 20 minutes away.