To the service center then over Santiam Pass

The insurance adjuster is to meet us tomorrow morning to look at the damage to the motor home. We packed up and took off. It was only about a 1/2 hour trip. The Jeep overheated, Marcie called and advised me, but it cooled off suddenly so we made it to the service center in time.

The adjuster seemed like a nice guy, we joked around and he and the repair technician looked over the motor home. I just tried to stay out of their way.

The service technicians drained and flushed the cooling system on the motor home, since we had to add additional water due to the hit. The control valve for the heater was unavailable, so they simply joined the two hoses together, which meant the heater would be on all the time, but this way we would have the defroster available if we needed it.

We went out to eat for lunch since the motor home wasn't available and had a nice lunch at Shari's which wasn't very far away. The evening was restful, fairly quiey as the only people there were other motor homes which were in for repairs. The motor home next to us had also struck a deer and had broken out the lower front corner. His cap was also to be completely replaced, so I guess this is a fairly common occurrence in this business. He had another estimate from a fiberglass "guy" to repair which came in at only $3,000 but he also wanted to make sure that the work was done properly, so elected to have the cap replaced instead of repaired.

We took off on Friday morning for Pacific City, Oregon Thousand Trails. We looked, on line, at the live cam of Santiam Pass and the roadway appeared to be clear. The temperatures were warm enough that we figured we could make it without encountering any ice. We also read and verified that we were required to either carry chains or traction tires, neither of which we have. The other way around the pass, either to the South or to the North were an additional 100 plus miles. We decided to try the pass. The trip was uneventful, not even a struggle. The scenery was really pretty, the streams were running full with the snow melt. We were only able to pull over once to enjoy the rushing water, but had excellent views of the stream from the motor home. The snow banks along the road were fairly high, not near the depth we saw at Crater Lake, but were a good six feet high.