A Bit of Chill in the Air

The weather report says a bit of wind and cooler weather is coming our way, so we decided to drop down of the rim of Hole in the Ground where we would be more sheltered and have a greater supply of firewood. We found the perfect spot tucked back off a US Forest Service road.

A nice fire in our portable fire grate on a bed of pumice stone keeps the fire danger low. Everything in this area is volcanic…who knew?
Darrin calls this my old lady look, but check out whose jacket I am mending after he got too close to the fire…
A bit cooler was an understatement! Three nights of 25 degrees. I think we slept in almost everything we had with us! And lived to tell the tale😁

Stranger Danger

If you listen to the news or read a newspaper, the world seems to be a pretty dangerous place, there are people killing each other, blowing things up, and other odd crazy shit. I know all of this is “reality”, but what they don’t report is how incredibly kind most people are. They don’t talk about the innate core in people that drives them to want to help each other, well most people, I’m not naive. But, over and over during our travels we have met incredible people who go out of their way to be kind. We have met so many people who just want to help, be it a tip on where to go next (or not go), a drive to a grocery store, or a new water source and I know, something that sounds incredibly weird to most people, an offer to take our garbage for us (when dispersed camping, this is actually huge!)

Right now, we are remote camping in the Deschutes National Forest about 25 miles outside of LaPine, OR at a place called Hole in the Ground (see previous blog). Within a 30 minute period today, we had 2 visitors arrive to view ‘the hole’. While here, they not only were incredibly fun to chat with, they offered to take our garbage back to their RV park and to give us water out of their rig because they were headed to a campground with hook-ups for the night.

These might seem like small things in the everyday world, but when remote camping they are huge, and in this case will allow us to spend a few more days in this amazing location.

I hope somewhere along our journey, we have been as helpful, and to everyone who has ever helped us during our travels over the past year…THANKS!!!!!

Inies and Outies

No, we aren’t talking about belly buttons😊

We are talking about volcanoes, or what is left of an old volcano.


‘Devil’s Tower’ in Wyoming is an outie, a solid core plug being all that is left of an old volcano.

Devil’s Tower picture from last summer.

‘Hole in the Ground’ in Oregon is an inie, a huge hole from an old volcano that sunk in on itself because it erupted under water…so we were told.

Camping right at the rim of Hole in the Ground. It is 1 mile across and 3 miles around.
This is as far as I could zoom in with my telephoto lens. The can to the left of the kids is a huge trash barrel.
A few side by sides drove down in…to give you a better scale.

A very simple analysis, but all in all a lesson in how cool Mother Nature is😎