New reefer, that's refrigeration type, even if we are in Oregon:-)

We took a different route over to Bend than the one we took westbound.  Lots of curves, lots of views, and one pretty good hill.  Not as big as I wanted, but it went up about 5000' over a course of 4-5 miles, pretty steep.  I did not baby it at all, in fact I kept my foot on the gas, floored the whole time, and our new pump seemed to perform, no higher temp than 201df!  I am not calling it 100% yet until we actually pull a real steep, real high pass on a hot day, but it's looking good.

One of the views on the way over to Bend

Now, usually I don't bash RV parks on here, but we really had a poor experience at the park we stayed at in Bend, Crown Villa.  First off, we did not intend to stay there at all, their rates are higher than we wanted to pay, $85-$109 a night plus tax.  When we knew we were coming to Bend to get our new refrigerator we called 3 other RV parks, but they were all full.  We had to find somewhere to stay as our refrigerator was already there.  So we booked, supposedly their last site for $90/night, with tax $100.98.  When we pulled in, it looked very nice, very parklike, very shady with big pines everywhere, large sites, all done with pavers, our hopes were high.  A bunch of sites were empty, but we figured they just hadn't arrived yet. As it turned out there were numerous empty sites each night.  We got our site and then drove over to find 2 huge branches hanging down over the road, we were just able to mostly get around them, and then backing into our site, we had to drive through 2 more branches, which were fairly benign, but this is at a $100/night resort?  So after we got hooked up, Jan went to the office to tell them about the branches and that we had to leave early the next morning to get our refrigerator, and that we'd be back.  They told her a maintenance man was coming in at 4pm and would take care of it.  Super!  Well at 6pm, nothing had been done, so I went to the office to find out what was going on.  I was told nothing would be done until the next day earliest, and then the lady said, I'll walk down with you to see what's going on, okay.  She doesn't seem too concerned, and I remind her that we have to leave early, what is going to be done?  Well, you can drive over the grass to get out.  I said all you need is a ladder and a hand saw and this would be taken care of.  Well, she said, we don't have any tools like that and will have to call a tree service.  Anyway we left, over the grass in the morning.

Jan gets a call about noon that they have taken care of the 2 main branches, but did not do anything about the other 2, so we are going to move you to another site?!?!?  Okay, whatever works.  So when we come back we are instructed to move to a pull-through, one of the most expensive sites in the park at their expense, okay.  So we go to the new site, and is it long, must be 140' long!  But there isn't enough width to even step out the door without stepping in soft grass covered mud, and we can't get our satellite dish.  And to boot we have a close and personal view of a decrepit junk yard next door, only accentuated by the roaring of a dirt bike buzzing back and forth.  The attitude and actual experience of the place overwhelms the visual impact you get driving in.  We will not go back.

Okay I'm off the soapbox now, on the refrigerator.  Our time in Bend was short and focused on getting the frig.  Now I will say we did underestimate the simplicity of this operation.  I had arranged and paid for the new one at Lowes in Bend, the perfect storm of a very good sale, no sales tax, and the assurance of having help.  So off we went early in the morning, we were assured the parking lot would be more open and we would have more help.

Our temporary work zone:-)

First Jan emptied the frig in the sinks and on the counters, we figured, right this time, that the food would be fine for a couple hours.  We arrived at 7am by the way, and once the food was unloaded, we needed to get the restraining bar off and trim removed so we could pull it out.  Then we had to remove the top 2 doors and the bottom freezer drawer, then all the shelves, turn off the water and disconnect the ice maker line.  It definitely took more time than we anticipated.  Then we flipped our rug over and used it as a dolly to slide the frig across our wood floor to the door.  We also had to remove the co-pilot seat to make room.  Easy to do, but that chair must weigh 200 pounds, but we got it up on the couch.  Also we took off our screen door to open it up a bit more.

Everything out and the frig pulled

Screen door off, co-pilot seat removed

Almost in position with my wonderful helper

We're ready, time to get the new frig delivered

We made a pile in the parking lot, and went in to see if we could get the new one delivered, it was sitting right there and they brought it out immediately.  That gave us time to unwrap, and remove the doors and shelves before we needed help.

The new frig arrives

Getting it unwrapped, off the pallet, and dismantled

Then came the moment of truth, to get the old one out and the new one in, luckily we had two excellent helpers, Ralph and Tony which made this all possible.  There would have been no way Jan and I could have done this, even dismantled the refrigerators are extremely heavy and very cumbersome, and we only had an extra inch of room.

Ralph and Tony outside and me inside
Out comes the old one

Out!

Getting the new one in I deferred to them and just helped and guided it in

Almost

Hooray!  In the door!

Once it was in Jan and I took over to put it all back together.  Meanwhile our old one along with all the shelves and doors disappeared.  We took our time getting it together correctly. I should mention somebody was extremely pissed about this operation and about being restricted to the bedroom, Bert definitely made it known how he felt.

How dare you! You are killing me back here!!!!!

So we got it all back together and all we have to do is cut off the end of the ice maker line and slip it in the fitting that is just like the other and we are good to go.

Ready to go back in as soon as the ice maker line is connected

The fitting

AND IT STARTS LEAKING!!!!!!!!!  Well, we are at Lowes.  So in we go to get a new fitting, finally with some help find what we need, come back out, hook it up, and IT KEEPS LEAKING!
So back in for a different part, back out, get it installed, and it doesn't leak! Yeah!

Bert is totally exhausted from this ordeal and is trying to recover

And so are we, it is now 2:30pm, we have been at this project for 7 and 1/2 hours with a five minute break for lunch.  And we are whipped, but the new frig is in, secured, and we are ready to get back, only one more thing to do, install the lock on the door.

Lock installed

So our time in Oregon has pretty much come to an end.  It was so worth going way out of our way to get all these items accomplished.  We can be confident our slide is repaired, our new hydraulic pump is installed and seems to be working well, got a chance to visit with some old and dear friends, our countertop is repaired, a new drawer that will make life easier is installed, new manly tires have been installed on the truck, and we have a new refrigerator.  Wow, wears me out even just saying it.  We have now moved on down the road after our very brief stint in Bend.  We are on our way easterly to intercept our original itinerary, and make a small unexpected detour before we do.  If all works out we should be back on plan by the middle of July in Colorado.