From LaPine to Deschutes to Toppenish

We’ve been on the move the last few days.  We left LaPine, OR, Wednesday and drove north to Deschutes State Park near where the Deschutes River meets the Columbia in northern Oregon.  Really pretty park; we had a camping spot on the shore of the Deschutes River -- the same river we camped near at LaPine State Park.  After one night  at Deschutes, we again went north to the Yakama Nation RV Park in Toppenish, just east of Yakima, WA, and on the Yakama Indian Reservation.  Today we’ll move to Sportsman State Park in Yakima.  Later this week we're going to Twin Lakes on the Coleville Indian Reservation in northeastern Washington where Jim’s high school friends Pat and Cindy and Buddy and Nancy have cabins.

This lynx lives at the High Desert Museum in Bend, which we visited our last day at LaPine State Park.  My favorite exhibit at the museum explored how Native Americans maintain their culture. As for the poor lynx, he was found defanged, declawed and nearly starving in the wilderness by a northern California hiker.  He may have been someone’s pet who was let go.  I’m hoping no one is that cruel and instead the lynx somehow just got away. 

We’d read that there were several major wild fires in Oregon, and saw this smoke plume on our way to northern Oregon's Deschutes State Park.  It  turned out to be a field fire, however. When we got closer it looked reasonably under control.

Jim connects power and water to the rig at the shady Deschutes State Park near Wasco, Oregon.

A common sight along the Columbia River on the eastern part of the Oregon/Washington border.

Teepees on the Yakama Nation RV Park in Toppenish, WA, on the Yakama Indian Reservation. According to a nearby sign, the 14 teepees represent the 14 tribes and bands of Indians occupying lands in Washington Territory that signed a June 9, 1855 treaty with the USA. Per the 'net, the treaty created the reservation and forced the Yakama to relinquish other lands.  The Yakama were hunter/gatherers known for salmon trading.