Bend

Lava Lake at sunset

Mountain biking in the Cascade Lakes area

We shook our trip up a bit recently – shortened our time in the Wallowas, and blew up the next week or so.  We decided to target spending our anniversary in Napa, CA, and hit a few other places along the way.  Bend, and the Deschutes forest, were a top priority.

We left the Wallowas and drove all day through central Oregon en route to Bend.  Honestly, our time in Oregon to this point didn’t feel much at all like the Pacific Northwest.  We’d seen some high alpine peaks and some dry, extremely hot desert.  But as we snaked our way West on I-84 along the Columbia River, we rounded a bend and BOOM there was Mt. Hood, dominating the horizon.  For me, that was our introduction to the Pacific Northwest.  From there to Bend, we had view after view of amazing volcanoes – Hood, Jefferson, the Sisters, and Bachelor.  Wow.

We stayed the night at the Lava Lake campground in the Cascade Lakes region, just West of Bend.  We had a fantastic sunset with Mt Bachelor as a backdrop, and cooked a nice pasta dinner with some canned chicken.  Kristen later remembered that she had bought the canned chicken while in college, and she promptly got a stomachache.  It was probably fine, but yuck.

The next morning, we went for a fantastic, flowy mountain bike ride in the Cascade Lakes region, and then stopped off in Bend for an all-you-can eat Indian buffet lunch and a fancy coffee.  Bend is an extremely nice town, and again we thought it would be a great place to live if it wasn’t in the middle of friggin’ nowhere.

Picture album here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22845041@N08/sets/72157630552813280/