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Juniper Park (Bend)

June 23, 2013

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What's with the different types of wheels?

Our cars and trucks have all different kinds of wheels. The wheels on personal cars are often a fashion statement. If it's not the owner's style, it's the car designer's style. Commercial truck wheels are all about function. Sure, you might see some polished aluminum wheels with spike shaped lugnuts, but most truck wheels are all about practicality. The first thing you've probably noticed is that the front wheels look different from the rear wheels. That difference isn't so much the wheels themselves, but the way they are mounted. All of the wheels that are mounted next to the truck frame have the convex side mounted outward. This allows room for brake hardware on the inboard side. In the rear of the truck, a second tire is mounted on the same axle, this time, with the concave side facing out. This allows for shorter studs (bolts), a stronger arrangement. A second visible difference has roots in technology, tradition, and thievery. Most mode

Central Oregon's Best Playgrounds

Whether you live in Central Oregon, you plan to vacation here, or you're just passing through, you probably want to know where your children are likely to have the most fun. Here's my list, separated by city. We'd love to hear what you think. Please comment below. Bend Columbia Park Columbia Park : A pirate ship and a tunnel slide down the hillside toward the river. Larkspur Park, Bend Farewell Bend Park, Bend Larkspur Park : The largest of Bend's playgrounds, and an urban trail to explore. Farewell Bend Park : A very nice playground with a great play structure, climbing rocks and trail links to the Old Mill District on both sides of the river. You can watch the paddle boarders from the adjacent footbridge. The downside is that parking can be an issue because of all the river users. Harmon Park, Bend Harmon Park: A vintage tugboat is the major draw. You can walk here from downtown Bend. Just go through Drake Park and cross the foot

Log Trucks

It wasn't until my freshman year of college that I saw a flatbed trailer equipped with bunks transporting logs. I was travelling from LeTourneau College to a cross country meet at Stephen F. Austin University in Nacodoches, Texas. The mills we passed looked strange. No towering stockpiles of logs equipped with sprinklers to maintain moisture content. Not everything is bigger in Texas after all. There were no huge log loaders splashing through Texas-sized puddles and it didn't smell like damp Douglas Fir bark. Worst of all, the log trucks were all wrong--for Oregon and Washington and other mountainous states. Driving a log truck in one of these mountainous regions requires guts, skill and something other than a traditional fifth wheel setup. Steep gravel roads, switchbacks, narrow landslide prone double track goat trails, often on the edge of steep canyons that can be hundreds of feet deep. It is very important that the wheels on the trailer follow the path taken by t

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Text and original art copyright David Swift

Juniper Park (Bend)

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