Bend, Oregon

The view out my window on our drive south

This may have actually been an intentional burn,

Monday we left Plymouth for Bend. It was a nice drive but as we got closer we noticed a lot of smoke again. There is a large wildfire west of Sisters and you could see the smoke clinging to the hills. There also seemed to be some intentional burning going on in a few fields along the way. The smoke started getting to me a little even in the Plymouth area when I was running. I knew it was time to find a Walgreens and get a new inhaler so we did that in Redmond.

We are staying at a park right in Bend called Scandia RV Park. It is ok but seems very pricey for what you get. The park is fairly tight like most RV parks. They have a couple laundry areas . The one in our loop only had 2 washer/dryers and one of the dryers was out of order. The good thing is it is only $1.25 for both washer and dryer. The last place we did laundry at it was $2.50 each. There also is a Wendy’s at the end of our loop which came in handy for a late night frosty, and one night we even had burgers.

River in downtown Bend

We did enjoy Bend, it is an incredibly bike friendly town, with bike lanes on most roads and plenty of trails too, even though we didn’t get the bikes out. This town has at least 7 microbreweries, so we were off on a quest. Tuesday we visited 10 Barrels Brewing. Nice pub with great patio seating. Both the beer and food were excellent. Then we found an outlet mall just past our park that had an Eddie Bauer Store. I just happen to have a $5 off coupon in my inbox so we had to do some shopping. We love their T-shirts, men’s and woman’s, both short and long sleeved. Today the long sleeved ones were just $10, and knowing our work camping will be a slightly cooler area this year we each picked up a couple. I also found a couple short sleeved on clearance. Yahoo!!.

John enjoying the patio at Bend Brewing

John and Rockin' Tom

Thursday we headed to the downtown area to check out a couple more breweries. We started with Bend Brewing, and as we were parking we found out the farmer’s market was setting up, how lucky could we get. I am really getting spoiled by all this fresh produce. Bend brewing also has an excellent selection of beer and John particularly enjoyed their stout (nitro) that had a coffee kick. We shared an appetizer and then checked out the market. 

Janie & Donna

We had gotten a message that Excel friends of ours Rockin’ Tom and his wife Donna were going to take a little vacation from their work camping spot in Portland and come to a B & B just outside Bend. They called and we met up for a drink at the Alehouse, this is not a microbrewery but has many of the area craft brews on tap so we got to try something different yet again. After a nice visit we bid farewell and John and I went to another microbrewery right across the street: Deschutes Brewing. Now it was also time for dinner. We really do try to time this all out so we don’t overindulge, making sure we eat and take our time, so I hope you don’t picture us staggering down the street. Today may have sounded like a lot but we made it last almost all day.  

We finished up by returning to the farmer’s market and getting our produce. I was surprised how much was gone since we first browsed the booths. I still got most of what I was looking for. The downtown area of Bend is beautiful, nice shops, lots of restaurants as well as the brewpubs. We could definitely spend some time here.

We did check one other RV park out, Crown Villa resort. It got great reviews online but looked a little pricer than where we are (but not much). It is a gorgeous park, reminded us a little of the one we just stayed at in Deer Park WA. Incredibly long sites, good spacing and lots of trees. If we were to stay longer here like a month or so I think this is where we would stay. It is definitely an RV resort not a campground but I think it is a well done one.

Diamond Lake

Today we headed to Diamond Lake, just north of Crater Lake. We are at the park with hook-ups. There is one right across the street without hook-ups. Many of those sites  are right on the lake, they would be great if we were set up to boondock........someday maybe. Friends will be arriving today too, we hope. They are having some maintenance work done in Eugene and it didn’t get completed yesterday so it depends on whether or not they get out of there at a decent time today. We are looking forward to seeing them again. We met Lu and Terry about a year ago in Bayfield WI and they stopped and visited us in Coffeyville. Should be a great time. Diamond lake is beautiful and I can’t wait to see Crater Lake. There is a lot to do here and my guess is we won’t get it all done but that’s ok, we’ll just have to come back.

Happy trails..........................