How many of you do this kind of stuff?  We got home from the mountains on Tuesday evening, spent Wednesday getting haircuts, doing laundry, sorting through the mail, etc to get up Thursday morning and leave the house at 5 am to avoid the Los Angeles morning commute traffic to begin a drive (in the car this time) to Oregon.  Flights were too expensive so we decided to drive – crazy, I know!

Our niece was getting married on Friday in Bend, Oregon.  Since San Francisco is (sorta) on the way, we stopped on Thursday night to have dinner with kiddo #1, her hubby, and the grandbaby!

(I so wish I had taken a picture or 2!  I would probably have to crop it so much you wouldn’t be able to tell anything about her!)

We got up the next morning to finish our drive to Bend.  Arrived about 4:30 pm and all the festivities were at 6.  And we were worried we wouldn’t make it on time!

Sorry, no pictures of the wedding – respecting their privacy!

Our hotel in Bend was the Best Western Premier – I would NOT recommend this place.  The other 2 nights we stayed in a Holiday Inn Express and the BW was the same level as these.  The Holiday Inn Express even has a better breakfast!

1.  What’s so premier about it that you charge $270 per night?  It was just like any other hotel we’ve stayed in.  Nothing special.
2.  When you reserve with a fireplace and a view, you expect a fireplace and a view.  We “got to” change from a king room to a 2 queen room with a fireplace and “view”.
3.  The view of the parking lot does not qualify as a view.  From our room the distant mountain tops were obscured by trees and cell phone tower!  Guess the 3rd floor isn’t high enough.  Maybe they should consider that when they market it as having a view.
4. the fireplace was an electric wall heater with a computer screen in front of it.  It was a virtual fireplace!  You click a button on the remote to change the color of the “flames”.  Talk about a disappointment!
5. After being moved, John lifted the toilet seat and it was obvious the rim and under the seat had not been cleaned.  Called for housekeeping to come and finish cleaning the bathroom.  Disgusting!!

Saturday morning we got up and began the drive home.  We stopped in Fresno for the night.

Now I know there are some who are wondering why we took the 99 instead of the 5.  We HATE the I5 through the central valley of California.  We avoid it at all costs!!  Limited services being one of the reasons, 2 lanes the entire way with too many trucks and crazy drivers trying to get around the trucks being another.  It only adds about 5 miles to your trip to Sacramento taking the 99.  Even when we go to San Francisco we take the 99. Worth it!!

Got up Sunday morning to drive home, stopping in Los Angeles to visit kiddo #2 – what we thought would be a “quick” lunch stop turned into 4 hours.  She was having computer issues and we worked on that for a chunk of the time.

Driving the car for this distance was so different than driving the motorhome.  We definitely made better time in the car but it was weird!

Our only pic of Bend.

• driving distances:
  Thursday – about 435 miles
  Friday – about 475 miles
  Saturday – about 595 miles
  Sunday – about 280 miles

So now we are home for the rest of our summer vacation, unless we do an unplanned trip.  Who knows what will happen!