Katherine of Oregon

Daily Mileage=476; Trip Mileage=4619

Today we drove quite a way and ended up at Bend, Oregon. The journey was long and beautiful. Desolate would probably best describe it. As much as the beauty is wonderful, we think it would be too isolated for us to live in. There were some spots between ID and Bend, OR where we didn't even see cattle, horses or any sign of cowboys! Bend, however, was like an oasis in the desolation. It has about 75,000 people in it and it appears like a big town.

Apparently, it was a lumbering town of old and is now an up and coming place to retire and/or live. It's quite lovely with little shops and good restaurants that reminded us of a university town. However, there's only a community college here. What we're not quite sure of, is exactly what everyone does who lives here. But it's very nice and they seem to enjoy it. It would be good base to visit a number of sites such as, Mt.Washington, Crater Lake or a number of hiking trails or river activities since it's located on a river. The micro brewery is even named for a nearby river, The Deschutes pronounced De-chut-es. (By the way, photos are limited tonight because we were driving through lots of beautiful but isolated areas. Rich didn't have time to cavort with any local wildlife because when we got here, we went for dinner and drinks.)

The restaurant we had dinner in, The Pine Tavern, had a 275 year old Ponderosa Pine growing through the heart of the dining room. It was quite extraordinary! (Mare didn't even notice it at first even though we were sitting right next to it. However, Rich at first questioned whether it was real.) Our dinners were good and Mare had wild river salmon and we both had Oregon wine!

On our trip here, we saw a soaring bald eagle. It was thrilling (as it always is to see one). It was close up and unmistakeably a mature eagle. Our best sign for the day was one on a bridge over a creek named, "Stinking Water Creek." Rich says they must have stolen it from the Bronx River Parkway. Needless to say, we didn't drink from it.

We are listening to a new audio book, Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. It's journal of a 30something year old woman who takes a year from her life to find herself (she sounded like she needed it). We are finding her writing insight, well written and humorous (even though she's only 30something).

Since we drove further today than we anticipated, we are going to go to Crater Lake tomorrow. That should be really exciting and beautiful.

Good night and love & joy to all, Mare & Rich