SLOWLY WORKING OUR WAY SOUTH

We are making our way south in fits and starts this year.  Looking at the weather on the coast makes me glad we changed out travel plans.  We haven't had any precipitation at all so far.  We stayed at Brinnon, WA the first night and the next morning the drive along Hood Canal was not that pleasant.  It is a very twisty narrow road and the local traffic wanted to go faster than us.  It was a tiring start to the day.  From Redmond, OR, the GPS took us on a scenic route, again very twisty, but not much traffic.  I guess it was shorter than going down #97 to Bend then turning onto #20 but I doubt it was faster.  We spent the second night at Lake Timtustus which was reached by a goat path paved route west of Madras, OR.  There were a couple of regulars but we were the only over nighters in the park and we had our choice of spots.  We chose one on the hill overlooking the lake and it was so peaceful.
For night three, we stopped at Crystal Crane Hot Springs RV Park south of Burns, OR.  Last time we were there, the rent was really cheap and we had difficulty keeping warm in the pool.  They have done major upgrades to the pool and drilled new wells.  The whole pool was a minimum of 100F and the intake was too hot to approach closely.  I thought it was great and Aileen managed to stay in the cooler sections.   It did cost quite a bit more to stay this year.
We moved on to Winnemucca, NV for night four and had nice temperatures.  Leaving there, we had planned to make it to Beatty, NV in one long day but decided to change our route.  Since we hadn't been via Fallon and Hawthorne, NV we decided to make it a two day trip.  It is 45+ miles longer but each day is far shorter.
We pulled in to Whiskey Flats RV Park in Hawthorne, Nevada early afternoon yesterday with no wind with 22C temperature (that's 70F or so for US friends) and blue skies.  I noticed there were several geocaches within walking distance to the park so I wandered off and picked up four before supper.  It was such a nice warm evening, I went out again after supper and found ten more most by flashlight.  It was a little tricky finding my way home afterward though. 
We had some wild winds in the night and still blowing well today.  We had thought about holding over for the day to do some more caching and maybe exploring but the wind really decided it.  When we were driving this way yesterday, we saw several signs and lights that said when flashing, no trucks or RVs and we wondered what they were talking about.  Now we know.  I went on another big walking loop this morning and picked up another eight caches and I hope to get two more before supper.
I think we will head to Beatty tomorrow via Tonapah.  We may hang up in the Beatty area for a few days but will have to depart before next Friday as that is the start of Beatty Days and the town is full apparently with all the RV sites booked in advance.  It is still looking a bit warm down in the Phoenix area.  We'll have to see what the temperatures are doing after leaving Beatty.

Aileen captured this image of Mt Hood through the windshield on day two

Signs of fall at Lake Timtustus, OR

Great Blue Heron at Lake Timtustus.  For my photo friends, this was shot with my Canon 6D using just the 24-105 lens.  I was wishing I had a longer lens.

Lake Timtustus is on Indian land and you require a special licence from them to catch the large fish I saw jumping.  The lake is formed by an old dam with a small hydro generating system.

After leaving Lake Timtustus but before arriving at Madras, OR we had these great views of the mountains.  This is Mt Jefferson, 10, 497 feet.  It is the next south of Mt Hood and north of the Sisters.

South Sister 10,358' on the left, North Sister 10,085' on the right and Middle Sister 10,047' peeking out from behind

These two hills are on the west side of Hawthorne, NV.   This is the view out our front window and you can see the dusting of snow on top.  

This is some of the terrain I was walking for geocaches this morning