Day 18 & 19 (5/21 & 5/22): Bend, Oregon

Boise was great, but Bend was GREEEAAATTT!  In retrospect, I wish we planned at least one more day here, but we packed it in, and I feel like we may come back here someday!  We drove in yesterday (Tuesday) after a long and pretty desolate drive from Boise, and headed downtown.  Here is the view along the river downtown.

We hit 2 breweries on this first night, Bend Brewery and Deschutes!

On Wednesday morning we hit the road and tried to go to Tumalo Falls...here is our approach:

What we did not realize, was that the road was technically closed...the wind had blown open the gate, so we innocently drove in.  By the time we got to the falls, a nice gentleman from the forest service approached us telling us that we were not supposed to drive a vehicle up there, because they were going to be doing road repairs that day.  He was nice enough to let us take some very quick photos before "escorting" us out...

So then we tried to go to Newberry National Volcanic Monument.  The visitor center was closed, as was the road to the lava butte, and it was sooooo cold, we just did a short walk to take this photo:

...so we headed to the High Dessert Museum.  It is one of the top things that show up for a visit to Bend, but was not originally on our agenda.  We were pleasantly surprised at how great this museum is!  They have both animal exhibits and historical exhibits on life in the high desert areas.

They even had an exhibit on Sasquatch, which is believed by the Native American peoples as a protector of nature.

 

Luckily for us, on Wednesdays in Bend's Downtown, there is a Farmer's Market!  We grabbed lunch there, and had fun walking around town.

Our final destination for the day was a brewery tour at Deschutes brewery.  I had never been on a brewery tour before - very interesting!  We learned all about the history of the brewery as well as the entire process, from ingredients, to "the science", mashing, bottling, etc.

Last stop of the day was to watch these young "surfers" ride the waves of the Deschutes River - it was 47 degrees out - I can't imagine how cold that water is!

GOOD NIGHT!

Miles driven: Day 18 (331), Day 19 (64)