Spent some time cleaning around the house and put new tires on the truck. Dad and I did go fishing once, but the skeeters were thick and the fish weren't biting much. We forgot the poles to one tent, so that's where I slept. See the camping trip pictures here.

I left home around 7am and headed up to Creswell. I stopped at the cheapest gas station in the area to fill up. My truck only had about a ½ of one tank, and my 95 gal spare tank was totally empty. So the young man filled my truck tanks and put the nozzle into my big tank. And he pumped, and pumped. 200 dollars later I was full. The kid had never pumped that much gas before in his life, and was amazed. The sales lady also thought her machine had acted up.

Over the pass, stopped and took these typical Oregon pictures.

I was leaving the Brothers rest area when I saw an elderly couple working on a class C motor home tire. I pulled back in and offered my assistance. They had left California heading for South Dakota and had the flat about 40 miles outside of Brothers. The road was narrow so they limped into the rest area to change it. The right rear inside tire had gone flat, and they were trying to change it. I asked if I could help and he let me place the bottle jack under the axle. After I had jacked it up, he asked his wife to help him loosen the lug nut I told him to let me do that. I hadn’t noticed it at first, but soon realized that he had a very bad back; and had a permanent tilt to his neck. He was a retired diesel mechanic, and I knew it bothered him to have someone else do what he used to be able to do. I didn’t realize that I was being critiqued until he commented, "You look like you know what you’re doing" as I tightened the lug bolts in a proper cross pattern. It was only another 60 miles to Burns Oregon, but they were nervous to even drive it without a spare tire, however there wasn’t anything that could be done about it at Brothers.

I pulled into another almost vacant rest area and saw a couple of strange animals in the pet area. They were Llamas, and as the sign said "Pets allowed on leash in this area" and they were on leashes. I talked with the lady and asked her what she was traveling in, for I didn’t see any trucks or trailers for the Llamas. She pointed to a mini-van. She showed me how she loaded them up. I hadn’t thought about how you travel with llamas.

Over in Ontario Oregon there was this fire, the start of the big fire summer. I hit the freeway and noticed that all the northbound traffic was leaving the freeway. The freeway north of Ontario was closed due to the fire. A few miles down the road at a truck stop; the place was packed with all the trucks waiting for the freeway to open up again. It was a pretty impressive truck stop complete with convenience store, Taco Bell, showers, video arcade, restaurant, and even a lounge area with a sofa’s and a big screen TV.

I made it to Blackfoot Idaho and got a room. The only ones left were smoking rooms, and while it smelled I was tired.

It was 9 o’clock when I went to the continental breakfast, and met an elderly couple that was taking a "last" family vacation as he put it. It seems that they and their 40-year-old daughter and family were traveling and seeing the sights that is if they couldn't get her out of bed before 10am. They were trying to see Yellowstone and get to Cody Wyoming to meet up with some friends. As we all know, that area has so much to see that you need every moment of the day to try to see it. There final area to see on the trip would be Mount Rushmore, but the elderly gentleman was so upset that they were seriously thinking about going home early.