Esotropiart

This long weekend was meant to celebrate a birthday. We took Thursday and Friday off and made our way toward Central Oregon via 26 over Mt. Hood, an afternoon departure. Oh, we bought a laptop before leaving Beaverton and brought it with us for the trip. We stopped at Government Camp for our semi-traditional trek up the trail for pictures close to Mt. Hood. There was an extraordinarily large collection of butterflies near the trail head. We saw these same orange and brown ones all throughout our stay. There was one other trip a year or two ago when we first saw large numbers of these migratory insects.

With no predefined plans, we turned on Franklin upon arriving in Bend. I figured we could start off by visiting one of our favorite regular spots, Drake Park. To our surprise there was a large Summer Festival that took over most of the park. There were numerous food, clothing and craft vendors and artisans. The main draw was live music, set up in the outdoor amphitheater. We ate there and spent most of the evening relaxing on the grass, listening to music. The first of three major food-related spills happened here. The bottom of my burrito sprang a leak, and a nice, large spotted stain appeared on my white (of course) shorts.

Friday was designated as a day on the town - mostly shopping. We first stopped at the 11-month new extension of Bend Pawn, close to the cabin on Hwy 97. As does the one we discovered in Bend, this new location has a good selection of used DVDs priced at $5 each. We bought a Harry Potter movie.

In Bend we stopped at Walmart, looking for a case for our new laptop (didn't get one). We landed at Starbuck's to attempt to connect to their WI-FI. Annoyingly, you had to pay to access Starbuck's connection - forget that!

To my amazement and excitement Bend Pawn had their entire DVD selection going for $3 each! The attendant said they might keep this price, dealing now in much higher volume. BEST PRICE I'VE EVER SEEN! and the selection ain't bad either. We bought the most movies we ever have in one purchase - my fault, since I happened upon a number of Jackie Chan titles. At lunch at Burger King.

We went back to Drake Park Friday afternoon to find the grounds entirely emptified. The whole festival had moved on, we guessed. We went to Ross in the new huge shopping area way north on Hwy 97, looking again for a laptop case. Almost, but no luck again.

We went downtown with a tip of some wireless hot spots. D wanted to check her email, and I wanted to download the M. Graham web site to work on it (dl'ed it, but didn't do much "work" later on). We passed a McMenamins that was a cool find. It has a $3 theater. I'm sure we'll check that out one of our next visits. I at least peeked inside.

Right down the street from McMenamins is Di Lusso Bakery, offering one of downtown Bend's free wireless hotspots. We sat down on the quite cozy couches and did our surfing/downloading. The new Vista-powered laptop worked like a charm. D ordered and shared a piece of nearly divine pumpkin cake with frosting - yummy!

Just outside the bakery a bicycle race was going on. Several dozen serious racers flew by about every couple minutes, their course being several protected downtown city blocks.

Drake Park ended up being our final stop of the evening. D just this week expressed interest in learning to juggle a soccer ball. I gave her some pointers as we juggled on the soft park lawn.

If you are looking for cheap groceries in Bend, first try Grocery Outlet on 97. They might not have everything on your list, but you might end up modifying your list after seeing the killer deals. I grabbed a nicely priced bag'o'Doritos near the entrance, thinking, "Cool, but big deal." As I walked up and down the aisles, suddenly all the prices looked good. Sure enough, almost every item in the store is priced impressively low. They don't have everything a major box grocery store has, but I was surprised at the decent selection. Keep in mind that this price review is coming from one who shops almost entirely at Winco, except when occasionally other stores have worthwhile sales. We bought what we needed to make Tuna Helper for dinner that night at the cabin and some other items we couldn't resist taking home. Late Friday night we watched "Dumb and Dumber", one of our new movies. It ended up not being as funny or good as I remembered/had hoped.

Saturday was our outdoors day. I chose Todd Lake as our destination because it is pretty close, and it is small. Big lakes are intimidating and impossible to take in and fully experience/appreciate in a single afternoon.

We stopped at Del Taco for lunch. Major food-related spills 2 and 3 occurred here. I overfilled my pop, and the excess spilled on my white shirt. D later whacked my cup accidentally, making an enormous mess on the floor and herself. We cleaned up in the bathroom and headed down the highway. FYI, to get on the north side of Century Drive, aka Cascade Lakes Highway, turn west on Reed Market. This will get you to Mt. Bachelor and a host of other beautiful and worthwhile destinations. We'll definitely be going back that way again!

Near Mt. Bachelor we encountered another group of bicycle racers, escorted by motorcycle cops. Todd Lake has a fairly well-maintained (a little muddy in spots) looping trail around. The views were stunning. We saw a good number of colorful flowers, butterflies, birds... and annoying flies, gnats and mosquitos. The lake is surrounded by a uniquely beautiful and vast meadow on one side, all sides sloping upwards into forest. From the meadow side you see a snowcapped mountain - I suck at identifying them!

After slowly making our way around Todd Lake (lots of stops = pictures), D and I decided we had enough time to continue on to another lake.

We made a quick stop at the huge (comparatively) Sparks Lake. We noticed the lake was quite shallow on the side where we parked because there was a distant figure wading knee-high, out quite far. We also noted the lake is good for camping, with nice clearings and large firepits (not too civilized, but more natural, like I prefer). The lake was so large that we felt a trek around would be impossible - and we'd end up forgetting where we parked anyway. On to Devil's Lake...

We had a hard time finding the entrance to Devil's Lake. A couple roadside turnoffs were deceiving. We found the trailhead crazily full of dozens and dozens of cars and people. Apparently a good number of trails start here. We'll definitely have to return to check it all out. Back to Bend...

Still nothing happening at Drake Park after that first night's surprise. Earlier we found a summer event calendar that told of music downtown, so we went there. Wow! Apparently this was a good time to come... the Drake Park Festival, bike races... now we happened onto a large outdoor market just like the Portland Saturday Market. There were 3 simultaneous live music stages strewn about - Jazz, International, and another. Tons of vendors and a food court.

Ate dinner Saturday at Baja Fresh - no spills to report. Skipped down the highway to Sunriver. Guess what, we arrived just in time for an outdoor concert. A group called "State of Jefferson" was performing, and quite well I might add. Actually, they were very talented and diverse in their instrument mastery. Their style was reggae and jazz mixed up. Come to find out that all summer long there are concerts like these every Wednesday through Saturday. Craziness!

The Summer Festival is still going strong in Bend. Tomorrow (Sunday) we are planning to pack up and leave relatively early. A Brazil-inspired band is going to perform.

Pretty good trip. No way to call it "uneventful".