Welcome to our second blog on some super fun ways you can experience the local beauty that is Central Oregon, on the cheap. Central Oregon has long been a vacationing hot spot, due in part to it’s beautiful landscape, friendly locals, sweeping mountain views, and neverending opportunities for outdoor recreation and famly fun. Located just about 5 miles South of Bend, Oregon, on Hwy 97, lies the the local treasure known as the High Desert Museum. Now, I know that when the parents say “We’re going to visit a museum”, sometimes the kids start to moan and groan. Sure there are some kids who are delighted, but many youngsters think visiting a museum means a long, torturous, walk through a boring history lesson that is WAY more interesting to the grown-ups than it is to them.

The High Desert Museum is not that museum. Here, your family will encounter wild eagles, owls, otters, bobcat, lynx, porcupines and other High Desert animals living in their natural habitats. You will get to meet stagecoach drivers, pioneers, and others from the American frontier. You will experience Native American and Western art and culture through fun and interactive exhibits. The Donald M. Kerr Birds of Prey Center let’s you “Get a close-up look at some of nature's fiercest predators - owls, hawks, and eagles, and other wildlife of High Desert forests. Some of the animals who await you at the center include Charisma and Kokanee the bald eagles, Nicholas the golden eagle, Luna the great horned owl and more.”  The museum offers play areas where little kids can really let loose. They can climb up to the eagle’s perch and slide down the small rock slide. They can climb inside the packrat nest and raid the rancher’s shed. This place is hands on to help your kids get engaged in this unique and fun learning experience. You’ll want to plan on spending 2 or 3 hours at the museum to enjoy all of the exhibits. On your way out, swing by the Silver Sage Trading Store for unique gifts, books, and toys from the High Desert. They offer an in-depth selection of books on the High Desert history and culture as well as local and regional crafts. You can pick up some delicious local jams and bbq sauces, museum souveniers, games, stuffed animals and toys for the little ones, or authentic artisan Native American jewelry featuring inlaid sterling silver with opal, onyx, lapis, turquoise, freshwater pearls; porcupine quills and more. The museum is open from 9-5 all summer long, but is closed on the 4th of July holiday. Adults will pay $15, seniors $12, children 5-12 years old $9, and little ones under 5 are free. The museum offers a 10% discount for all active and retired Military personnel year round, and this Memorial Day, May 27th, the museum offers free admission to all active duty personnel and their families, up to five family members. This is a partnership with Blue Star Museums. This is a perfect mid morning stop on your way up to Newberry Crater! There’s plenty of RV parking, and you can eat lunch at the Rimrock Cafe onsite, or bring your own lunch and eat the outdoor picnic tables near the parking lot. Wear comfortable walking shoes, and don’t forget your camera... Those otters are cute!

Central Oregon has long been known as one of the most desirable places to visit and vacation. With panoramic Cascade Mountain views, clean beautiful waters, gorgeous high desert landscapes, and tons of outdoor and family activities, it’s no wonder people are flocking there for year-round family fun. That’s why we have decided to focus our next few blogs on some great, inexpensive, summer activities that you can enjoy around Central Oregon. Though there are enough things to keep you busy around there that we could write dozens of blogs, we’re going to focus on the natural beauty of the national monuments, and museums.

In this blog, we will be highlighting Newberry National Volcanic Monument, also known as Newberrry Crater. Newberry Volcano is the largest volcano in the Cascades volcanic arc and it covers an area roughly the size of Rhode Island. Unlike the other cone-shaped Cascades volcanoes, such as South Sister, Newberry is in the shape of a broad shield due to repeated eruptions over the past 400,000 years. About 75,000 years ago a major explosive eruption anCd collapse event created a large volcanic depression at its summit that now hosts two caldera lakes, East and Paulina. Newberry last erupted about 1300 years ago, and is still an active volcano. Located just 10 miles South of Bend, this crater boasts one of the most amazing collections of geological wonders found anywhere in the Pacific Northwest: cinder cones, lava flows, lava tubes, waterfalls, crater lakes, several gigantic black, shiny, obsidian flows, jagged cliffs, and steep yet forested crater walls.  One accesible lava tube is known as Lava River Cave. You can take an unguided tour on your own, but be sure to dress warm as it is an average of 42 degress Farehnheit inside the cave. It takes approximately an hour and a half to explore the entire thing and costs just $5 per car. You will need to bring along a lantern, or you can rent one onsite for an additional $5. About 30 miles more will get you to East Lake and Paulina Lake. Located just 6 miles apart, these crater lakes are home to brown and rainbow trout, as well as kokanee and Atlantic salmon. There are seven campgrounds in the Crater, offering shoreline camping, boat ramps, restroom facilities, group camping areas, and a horse camp with equestrian trails.  East Lake Resort offers an RV campground, as well as tent camping and cabin rentals. It is home to miles and miles of hiking and mountain biking trails, as well as some of Central Oregon’s best ATV off-roading trails. This entire area is a virtual outdoor playground, so bring your hiking boots, your fishing poles, your kayaks, your atv’s, and your mountain bikes, and see some of the most spectacular natural beauty in the Pacific Northwest. Watch for our next blog where we will highlight the High Desert Museum, another Central Oregon gem to keep you and your family entertained on the cheap! Have you had a wonderful Central Oregon vacation? Have any tips for our readers, or photos to share? You can comment here, or post them to our Facebook wall.

photo credit:great-oregon-vacations.com

Now that the travel season is kicking into high gear, many families will be heading out to our National Parks, and especially, our beloved Yellowstone. What you may not know, is that Yellowstone offers many different packages, learning programs and special deals thoughout the year, varying from season to season and month to month.  

Throughout May, they are offering a Wolf and Bear Discovery course. It is for ages 12 and up, and is described as “... your opportunity to delve into the world of Yellowstone's wolves and bears.  You'll join an Institute naturalist guide for sunrise trips in Yellowstone's Northern Range to look for these charismatic carnivores.  During the day, you'll take leisurely hikes in their habitat, learning about their behavior, ecology, and conservation.  Throughout, you'll be immersed in the beauty and wonders of Yellowstone in the spring.” Imagine the thrill of seeing wolves and bears in the wild!

There are family programs available for those of you with even younger children, and of course there is spectacular camping. Yellowstone offers 12 different campgrounds, many with RV dump stations (but no utility hook ups), and one, Fishing Bridge RV Park, that has fulll hook-ups. According to their website, “The Fishing Bridge RV Park provides approximately 340 sites designated for hard sided recreational vehicles only. This is because the RV park is located in bear habitat. Also because of its location, we ask that RV campers be especially diligent in their compliance with park food storage regulations.Sites are double-wide with a limited space for slide outs. Recreational vehicles up to 40 feet in length can be accommodated in the sites. All sites are open with back-in access. A pine forest surrounds the RV Park.  Fishing Bridge RV Park offers full hookups (50 amp electric service, water and sewer hookups) There is a coin laundry and pay showers in the nearby Camper Services facility. Rates for this campground include 2 showers per night. An RV dump station is also available near the entrance.”

The National Park Service has a fantastic website, with loads of helpful information to aid you in planning your vacation. There is an especially helpful page with Visiting Yellowstone Orientation Video’s. There are videos to familiarize you with every aspect of planning your trip, from food/lodging and tools for exploring, to touring the different campgrounds. Yellowstone is a national treasure, and is an experience that we should all have at least once in our lives. If you haven’t yet been, or it’s been too long since you visited, Now is a great time to plan your vacation and take your family to experience this magical outdoor wonderland.

photo credit:yellowstone.about.com

If you’re like most of us with kids (okay and some of us without), making smore’s is just an essential part of RVing and camping. The only downside of those ooey-gooey, delicious treats is that they can be terribly messy. We found an excellent modification on Pinterest called Campfire Cones. The recipe is quite simple, and only calls for putting all of your usual smore’s ingredients chopped up into small bite size pieces into a waffle cone, wrapping it in aluminum foil, and placing it over the coals for about 5 minutes or so, turning every so often to warm all sides. When you open it up, it will be a cone full of gooey goodness, and keeping the foil on and peeling as you go down will help to contain that sticky mess. Another option to make it more interesting is adding fruit to this recipe. You could basically go crazy here... You could chop up strawberries, bananas, or raspberries, add peanut butter chips, butterscotch chips, or white chocolate chips... You could throw in pretzel bits, or even your favorite mini candies, such as peanut butter cups. The possibilities are endless and it’s a fun treat for the kids to get to assemble themselves with their own unique concoctions. You can even make them at home ahead of time, wrap them in foil and have them ready to go on the fire if you don’t want to pack and carry all of the ingredients on your trip. Your kids will have fun stuffing the cones full, and it may just encourage them to eat their dinner without a fuss or a fight!  Have you made these yummy treats before? Do you have any tips or a favorite recipe? Share it with us here, or post it on our Facebook wall.

photo credit:KidsActivitiesBlog.com

If you’ve been curious about kayaking and what the big deal is, we’re here to give you a little info. It turns out that kayaking is a perfect compliment to the RV lifestyle. Since many of your RV travels will land you directly at the water’s edge, be it the beach, lake, or river, having a kayak makes perfect sense. One of the most appealing aspects of this recreational sport is that after the initial cost of the actual boat, paddle and life vest, enjoying it out on the water won’t cost you a dime. Unlike skiing or golfing where you then have to pay to play, when kayaking, you just get to the water, put your boat in, and paddle away to happiness.

There are many different types of kayaks to chose from, and it varies greatly depending on what you are wanting to do with them. There are sit on top boats, tandem boats, white-water boats, touring boats, fishing boats, and inflatable kayaks too. You can do anything from mellow, flat water paddling, to wild and rushing rapids, depending on your interest. If you do not have the ability to carry them on the roof of your towing vehicle or in a toy hauler, you can have a special kayak rack mounted to your RV very inexpensively.

There are a lot of misconceptions about kayaking that hold folks back from trying it out. Many people are afraid of them because they think they will be trapped in it tightly, and if it flips over they will have to be able to roll it back over or be stuck under water. This is not the case. The truth is, if you are in a kayak that is fitted properly for your body, you will have plenty of room to just slide out of the cockpit, especially in a recreational or touring kayak. These boats are wide, have a large cockpit and are quite stable. Sometimes you will see people that look like they are zipped up in the skirt over the kayak cockpit and it looks as though they would be stuck, but even in those kayak skirts (used to keep rough water/rain out), you can simply pull the loop at the front and exit quickly. Kayaking doesn’t require great upper body strength and can be done by most anyone, from young children to the elderly. You use your core muscles moreso than you do your arms and shoulders, and learning to properly paddle is quite easy.

If you are interested, you can likely find an insructor and/or a kayak rental shop in your area so you can take a short lesson and try it out. You may just fall madly in love! There is something so freeing and serene about viewing the world from the middle of a gorgeous lake. If you want to read about all of the features of the different types of kayaks and find out which may be best for you, check out this informative website. Do you have a favorite kayaking spot? Want to share it with the rest of us? You can post it here, or comment on our Facebook wall.