Weekend in Bend

Last weekend Dave and I headed down to Central Oregon to a little spot called Bend. Population 75,000. It's very well know to Oregonians, and we found it to be a wonderful place to visit! Our weekend get away was kinda a last moment thing although we have been wanting to do it for quite a while now... so we are really glad we were spontaneously spontaneous because we had a blast! So, Friday afternoon Dave met me at work..(I got a new job, which is a whole other post in itself..I LOVE IT) we drove 3 1/2 hours south eastish to Bend. We stopped in a po-dunk town and had dinner at a little ma and pa restaurant that ended up being really great! When we arrived in Bend at the Eco lodge (high rollers)that we originally booked for $64 a night we were informed that our online reservation was booked as a "smoking" room and they were all sold out of their non-smoking rooms...lucky for us on the drive in we saw that the Sugarloaf Mountain Motel was $54 a night, had free wifi, and had vacancy! So with little hesitation, we checked in, got settled and headed the next store Sonic Drive Inn for shakes...mmm mmm good!

The next morning I got up and went on a run and explored the beautiful town. There was a mountain with a gorgeous golf course and huge homes across from our hotel. So I around an explored the area and ended up running to what seemed like the tippy top of the mountian and found an amazing view that looked out over the entire city/town. It was so fun to run around and explore the area and see the beautiful homes and landscaping...I found cool trails and golf courses and even met some nice people that were running as well.. it was really fun! I came back and we got ready for the days adventure. We headed up to Sun River which is a huge resort about 30 minutes outside of Bend. We planned a bike riding tour called the Paulina Plunge. We got on a bus with a group of about 20 and headed up the mountain where we would start our adventure!






This bike tour had us ride over six miles down a winding forest trail on mountain bikes, we would then stop and hike for a bit into huge waterfall where we would swim around and play in the falls. There were even natural slides that these falls created that we slid down...it was so fun!




We swam in the natural pools, and jumped off rocks into the deep cold water. Some of the water was a lot colder than others, but lucky for us it was warm out side so we warmed up pretty fast. There were a total of six falls.




We would ride for a mile or so, set our bikes down, hike in, find the fall, play around, hike back out, ride again 1-2 miles....hike again, swim around....etc. It was a riot! Sometimes we were going really fast down hill, and other times it was slow and steady.



The views were amazing! Mt. Bachelor was huge and seemed so close, the weather was really warm too... 80-85, it was just lovely!



In the middle of the day we hiked to a beautiful fall and had a picnic lunch.


We ended at the bottom of the mountain where the bus took us back to our car. What a fun day! It was amazing! We loved it! If you ever go to Bend we highly recommend this tour (Paulina Plunge)!
They used the ash from a burnt tree to paint tribal symbols on our faces


That night we went downtown and ate at the Deschutes Brewery...YUM oh it was good! We also went to a old fashion candy shop got waffle cones with cookies and cream ice cream...k I must stop thinking about it or I'll want one right now and its 7:30 in the morning! The next day we woke up really early and went on to a trail called the "Upper Deschutes River Trail". It was beautiful. The trail ran right along the bed of the river.



We walked about 2 or 3 miles right along the river bed. The river was running pretty fast but it was so quite and still. You could not hear it moving at all, it was really neat. After we walked for a while we got to a part of the trail where you could see fields and fields of lava formations in the distance that stretched for miles, it was really neat. The surroundings were just beautiful.



Our camera started to die...so I did not take too many pictures! After the river trail we did one last hike before heading home...it was called Tumalo Mt. The trail started us out at 5800 ft elevation and ended an hour later at 8200 ft so its a pretty big increase, and being that we're used to exercising at 300 ft...we were out of breath to say the least! It was a tough hike..and all up hill, our legs and butts were burning the entire hour.



(Bend is high desert, a lot like Utah, so these mountains were very similar to the Utah mountains, much different than the mountains we have started to get used to in Portland.)After about 20 minutes, the view was amazing. By the time we reached the top, we were speechless. You could see for as far as you can imagine in all directions...we were at the top of the top. Mt. Bachelor was so close you felt like you could touch it. Go figure my camera was dead. But we did get it all on video camera and took some pics with that camera, so hopefully I can figure out how to put those ones on here. To say the least the view was incredible and the burning of the butt and intense work to make it to the top was SO worth it! There were huge mountains and volcanoes surrounding us on all sides and it was incredible. The wind was blowing really hard and it was really cold so we stayed as long as we could to take it all in, and then we booked it down the mountain. We ended up making to it down in 28 minutes! It was an AMAZING HIKE! On our way home we stopped in Sisters, OR and ate at a yummy brewery (what is it about breweries that make their food so incredibly good?)We looked around at the cute shops, got a treat at the bakery and then headed on home. The scenery on the way home just blew my mind. Detroit lake....wow! Talk about amazing. Its picture perfect! How is it that there are so many beautiful places here in Oregon? I am sure there are places upon places that I don't even know about that are just unbelievable! I am now adding Bend to my list of favorites! Needless to say, we had an incredible time. What a fun place to visit. It was beautiful. There is so much to do, so much to see, we really did not have enough time! We hope to go back very very soon!