November 11-12, 2014
When the universe wants you to be somewhere else, the easiest thing to do is to go. Bend is a town that many travelers along the way have told us we would love. We had been looking forward to exploring Bend since we arrived on the west coast.
We arrived in Bend a little weary from the drive, but our main concern was freezing in place as the first polar vortex of the season was quickly approaching. We’ve had this happen a few times along the way and each time has been the same, not fun. This time we thought we would be better prepared, so virtually upon arrival we set off to the local hardware store to buy some heat tape and a safe heatproof water hose. We set them up and hoped for the best. It got in the teens that night and in the morning we were once again frozen in place. Despite our new heated water hose the water froze under the RV, in the walls or floor, so there really is nothing we can do not to freeze at these temperatures. Bummer.
Frozen in place we set out to see if we could figure out how to better keep ourselves warm. Shortly after poking around with the water we realized that our furnace was not kicking on. One of our temperature sensors was reading 103 degrees, the max. Our furnace runs off this sensor but since the max temperature we can set is 90 degrees it would never turn on. Great. Frozen water and no furnace, this was our omen to leave and fast before the snow hits and gets us stuck into place.
You would think that this would be stressful and it was, but having the ability to move makes all the difference in the world. We checked our phones for local temperatures and noticed that only a few hours south we would be well out of the cold snap and could use our electric heat pump unit. So we reluctantly left without a shower, a dip in the hot tub, or even a real breakfast. Sometimes you just have to go even if you really don’t want to and this was our sometimes. Leaving Bend without seeing it was painful for us. Driving past Crater Lake National Park on our way south only added salt to our traveling wounds. Oh well that’s life, next up is Mount Shasta California, and some well needed heat, you know a low of 32. Ahhh….much better…time for a hot shower.