We spent five days travelling north-east from Crater Lake to Glacier National Park.

This page covers the first three of those days, going from Crater Lake to Ontario (the Oregon one, naturally). This took us through some fantastic scenery, most of which results from volcanic activity, including incredible lava flows.

Monday 5th June - Union Creek to Prineville

Very cold in the cabin when we woke up. Les turned on the small radiator and only sometime later noticed a thermostat which when turned up produced heat from a very old fashioned unit at the far end of the cabin. By the time we’d showered the cabin was nice and warm although the stone floors were quite cold.

We set off just after 9 and were soon on the OR-230 - a new bit of road for us. This goes up the Rogue River valley and was spectacular in parts going through the wooded hills. Went through a strange set of roadworks. The usual manual control of shuttle working with stop/go boards but this time with a patrol vehicle leading you through. A huge length of road was controlled like this and it all appeared to be for the simple operation of clearing a small landslide/rock fall from the roadside. Stopped for various mountain views.

We turned onto the OR-138 going due east. At one point this was an amazingly straight road that disappeared into the distance.  Turned north onto the US-97 and stopped at Chemult for fuel and coffee. Nice helpful people in both places but the town itself (which we’d been through on the train) seems to be in steep decline. Carried on north through Gilchrist and went to the Lava Cave at the Newberry National Volcanic Monument. The Lave Cave was fantastic - absolutely huge for most of its length. Not the easiest walking in some parts over the rocky floor and it’s very cold, especially the handrails on the stairs and walkways.

Coming away from the cave we went to the Lava Lands Visitor Centre. We arrived just in time to get a timed ticket to drive up Lava Butte. An exciting spiral drive up the mountain and great views from the top. On coming down we went into the Visitor Centre. We’d been told we could get food and drink here but it wasn’t the case. We spent a short time looking at the very interesting displays explaining the whole geological history of the area. Staff advised us that the nearest place for food would be Bend so we drove onto there. At one point we saw a Walmart so we went in. By this time it was 3pm so we reluctantly decided to eat at the in-store McDonalds - filet of fish and apple juice for both of us. Once again Les had difficulty getting them to understand his name for the food order -  what’s so difficult about the three letters L-E-S. At Walmart we bought dinner for the evening - three different salads plus smoked salmon for Anne and cold chicken for Les, plus some rolls. It seems to us that it’s getting easier to get small portions of salad and we also noticed some small bowls of fruit, although we don’t need them at the moment as we have breakfast for the next couple of nights.

Strangely when we set off again the satnav didn’t take us back to the US-97 as we expected. Instead it took us east on the US 20 and then on the smaller road across to Alfalfa and north to Powell Butte where we joined the US-26 for the last few miles to Prineville.

When we arrived we noticed that the Best Western was right next door to The Apple Peddler (the chain where we had eaten in Crescent City). The hotel is very nice but unfortunately we’re on the first floor and had to carry everything up. It does have a swimming pool though, so we used the washing machine while we sorted out the photos and then had a swim while the washing was drying. Very refreshing. After all that was done we had our dinner whilst listening to last Saturday’s News Quiz. Les is able to download this while we’re away as he can use the VPN he’s installed to make the BBC website believe that we’re in the UK.

Tuesday 6th June – Prineville to Ontario

Slept well after the swim apart from being woken up once by a strange rushing noise from the bathroom as if the cistern was refilling. A quick breakfast and we were on the road by 9.15am. We turned from the Best Western onto the US-26 and the satnav told us that our next turn was in 220 miles. Out of the town and on through some terrific scenery, turning off after about 40 miles to go to the Painted Hills Unit of the John Day Fossil Bed National Monument.

National Monuments are funny things. They’re National Parks to all intents and purposes, but they can be created by the President by Executive Order, whereas National Parks need to go through Congress, etc. This was a wheeze included by President Theodore Roosevelt when the first National Park legislation was created (if we remember correctly from the Ken Burns documentary). The Painted Hills are spectacular. They are more volcanic rocks from this huge area created by volcanoes and igneous intrusions. There were mixtures of  volcanic ash and lava flows over huge periods of time. The different contents of the rocks have different colours, sometimes depending on the type of landscape that was engulfed by the ash, etc. There’s a mixture of reds, whites, greens, blues and pinks. We went to the Information Centre and then drove to the Lookout. There are several walking trails in the area (as there are all over Oregon) but sadly we didn’t have time to do the shortest one.

Continuing on the US-26 we then went into the Sheep Rock Unit which is the headquarters for all the palaeontology in the area. It has a really good display explaining how the area came to have one of the greatest fossil collections in the world and showing how the flora and fauna changed with changing climate. Many of the fossils were preserved by lahars, which are enormous mud slides caused by volcanic activity. We stopped and watched a short film in the theatre. Unfortunately none of the National Monument sites have any catering so we carried back on the 26 looking for food.

Sadly many of the roadside diners/cafes are closed and derelict. We eventually managed to find a cafe/gift shop at Dayville where they made fresh sandwiches to order. It was interesting talking to the lady who worked there. She was telling us that she and her husband drive miles to get their groceries because it’s cheaper than in the town. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to her that when all the other shops in the town close nobody will be coming into her cafe.

We still had a lot of driving to do but not as much as we thought as it finally dawned on us that our destination, Ontario, is just across the time zone and is an hour ahead (we'd been looking at the predicted arrival time on the satnav). After that we kept driving just making stops at one or two places to photograph the landscape. Amazing changes between bare uncultivated hills, thickly wooded hills and lush valleys. Some of the lushness of the valleys is explained by the almost constant irrigation that seems to go on.

Finally got into Ontario which is a lot bigger than we had anticipated. Unfortunately once again we are on the upper floor of the BW which means carrying suitcases upstairs. This one also has a swimming pool like last night but we didn’t have time to use it because of the ‘lost hour’. We had thought about eating in our room again as the satnav showed a Walmart less than half a mile away. However, there was a Denny's virtually opposite the BW so we walked across and had a cheap and very nice meal. Anne had plain Tilapia fillet with mashed potatoes (the over 55 menu) and Les had salmon fillet with lots of lovely veg. Certainly the cheapest and possibly the nicest meal we’ve had all holiday. Since we left Portland Les has had trouble finding sparkling mineral water to go with a meal. Strangely Denny's didn’t blink and eye and provided it, and it turned out to be free!

The weather has been hovering around 80F all day with constant sunshine. Les has been very careful with the sunscreen after his nose started bleeding again. He could really have done with a hat. We were talking to our waitress about the weather and she told us that earlier in the year they had an unprecedented 5ft of snow which resulted in the collapse of some building roofs. Our weather is supposed to continue like this until we reach Whitefish and Glacier NP where we’re due for two days of rain with thunderstorms and about 45F to 50F.

Wednesday 7th June – Ontario to Arco

Slept well apart from being woken in the night by a text message on Les’s phone from Wareham Surgery. After going back to sleep we woke up to find it was 8am. Got showered and dressed and had breakfast as quickly as we reasonably could. On setting off we drove straight to Walmart to stock up on dinner for tonight plus a few toiletries and breakfast for tomorrow.

Finally got moving on the real journey around 9.40am. A long but very simple drive with only a few junctions. Stopped to fill up on the outskirts of Boise as the fuel would only get us to Arco and it looked like there wasn’t very much on the road for the second half of the journey. There was in effect nowhere to stop for coffee. As we noticed yesterday a lot of the wayside garages and cafe/diners are gone or stand derelict. We left the I-84 at Mountain Home and went east on the US-20. We finally came to the small town of Fairfield where we spotted a diner so we stopped and went in. There was in effect nothing on the menu for Anne unless she fancied another basket of breaded fish. They were however more than happy to make Anne a cheese salad sandwich. Les tried a cheeseburger. This was fine as their burgers seem much better than anything anybody produces in the UK at similar places. They were also happy to give us apple juice although strangely it wasn’t listed on the menu. They had very good wifi in the cafe so we took the opportunity to download all 3 episodes of the Vote Now Show.

On the run to the cafe Anne had caught up with the last omnibus edition of the Archers and as we continued on the US-20 we listened to one of the Vote Now episodes.

It remained blazingly hot - well into the 80s most of the time. We seemed to be driving mostly along flat roads with hills in the distance as in effect we’re going across the Snake River plain.

Eventually we came to the Craters of the Moon National Monument and went in. We spent a little time in the Visitor Centre looking at the exhibitions and watching a short film. Les took the opportunity to put on more sunscreen before we ventured back out. We drove around the Loop stopping to do the North Crater trail and Les walked up the Inferno Cone. At the top Les was alone apart from a young couple. He asked them to take his photograph to prove that he’d made it to the summit. They turned out to be two young Iranians living in Mississippi. Les walked all the way back down with them chatting. They were amused that Les found it so hot (93F) and he explained that this was virtually unknown in England. They did tell us that there had been an ISIS attack in Iran with over 20 people dead and they told us that they regarded the BBC World Service as the most reliable and accurate source of news.

We would’ve done a couple more of the trails but when the sun was out it was just too punishingly hot for us so we finished the loop drive and drove the last 19 miles to Arco. The motel is very simple but clean and relatively cheap. There isn’t tea and coffee making in the room but we managed to ‘boil’ some water in the microwave in order to make a much needed cup of tea.

Had our dinner in our room with the salads we’d bought this morning and treated ourselves to a beer each. After we’d downloaded photos and done most of the day’s diary Anne sat and read while Les watched some British TV via the iPad. When we went to bed we couldn’t keep the aircon on even though the room was very warm because the aircon was too noisy. We resorted to opening the window a little and slept reasonably well in the end