Our activity for today was scheduled as a visit to Costco in Bend for stocking the trailer before we depart eastward into the land of scanty shopping venues, revolutionary farmers and widely scattered small towns, otherwise known as eastern Oregon. Recently, some ranchers who figured they should be able to graze their livestock on federal land without paying for the privilege got in a heated dispute with our always-dutiful federal government, in this case the Bureau of Land Management. The ranchers elected to occupy the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns and to engage in a standoff with the feds. After only one death when a zealot was shot dead by the FBI, the standoff sort of fizzled out but the criminal trials are just beginning. Keep tuned to CNN to find out the fate of the deadbeats.
Fortunately for me, Jake’s Diner is next door to the Bend Costco so I got to enjoy another vessel-clogging chicken fried steak with gravy, eggs and hash browns before waddling out and heading for Costco. After a while in Costco, we emerged with many containers filled with groceries but no liquor because of Oregon’s weird liquor laws. We returned to our camp spot with our pyramid of loot. On the way home, we spotted a large cloud of smoke coming from the forest about 4 miles from our campground. After dropping the groceries off, we went back out in the truck to see if we could get in the way of the fire fighters. Unfortunately, the smoke was coming from a controlled burn that remained controlled and by the time we found out we could not get near the fire, the spoilsport firemen put it out.