Bend, Oregon

December  2003

	Shilo Inn 1:30 a.m. December 28, 2003
Longhorns in a field near the Bend airport.	These guys definitely didn't look happy!	Poor, poor 88Z!
	Dump Truck The white spots are reflections on the falling snow from the flash.

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Previous trip to Bend -- The day of the too littles..
too little daylight
too little visibility
too little fuel

Our trip from El Monte to Bend in mid-November was made in two legs.  Leg 1 was from KEMT to
 R03 (Alkali Lake, OR) and leg 2 was from from R03 to S07 (Bend, OR).  This was not planned,
but was the result of a late start and poor weather.  Bad weather along our planned route of flight
from El Monte to Bend forced us to divert east of the Sierras and to take a longer route.  About 75
miles from Bend as we faced low fuel, a wall of clouds, and as the darkness began to fall we
decided to land at the closest airport and spend the night.  After landing, a cell phone call to
Doug brought the promise of a fuel delivery in the morning IF the weather improved.  We
unloaded the majority of our stuff from the plane and stowed it directly under the plane.  Then
we spread out a moving pad in the back of the plane, and donned every piece of
clothing in our bags (more of a necessity than a fashion statement).  Now, fully attired,
we settled in as the temperature dropped into the 30s and a light rain began to fall.

 Alkali Lake, OR

Alkali Lake aka Desolation Desert

The Calvary arrives .. with fuel jugs.

Payback time... for the time in Alaska when we had to stop and siphon fuel out of our tanks for Doug's Cessna 180.

The strip is 150 feet wide gravel and 6100 feet long and other than the sign (first picture) the only man made object in sight was the gravel runway.

  By midmorning the weather had cleared enough for a
very nice, low-level flight on to Bend. 

Click on the photo to enlarge the image.

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