Bend - Day 6 - Portland to Crater Lake

After dropping Kerry and Jill off at a godawful hour in the morning, 6am, Marisa and I slept in, repacked the cooler and finally got on the road to Crater Lake around 11. We met my new friend Dean (who I met at an online dating site) at the visitor's center, he was coming back from Montana and met up with us to take us rafting. It was almost too good to be true. I love rafting!





All of the campsites at Crater Lake were full so we drove out of the park and down the mountain to Diamond Lake. This campground was really awesome! Because we didn't have reservations we had to stay in the sites farther away from the lake but we still had a view of it. Because it was mid week, we had our pick of Loop H. The sites on the lake were out of control, they were literally right on the lake shore with a view of Diamond Peak and the surrounding mountains. We got there just as the sun was going down, had a yummy stir fry dinner and a great fire show that Dean put on from all the fallen dried up trees around us. The next morning it was off to find a place to raft. We knew we wanted to raft the rogue, but we hadn't figured out where to go yet.

Bend - Day 4 - Heading to Bend

Marisa wanted to take us to a great breakfast place in downtown Portland called Mothers, but unfortunately when we got there, it was a 30min wait so we walked down the street to Morning Star Cafe. We loved our food and the prices were right but we had to wait almost and hour for the food because the head chef had walked out that morning. We could of just gone to Mothers. Oh well.



The 3 hour drive to Bend was gorgeous, we stopped along the way to pee and enjoy the trees and bridges.



There was a cool bridge we stopped at. I'm not sure what the girls are doing with their arms but it's cute.





We registered for the race at the Foot Zone in Bend and had a bite to eat at The Tavern. The chicken sandwiches were amazing.



Our campsite at Tumalo just outside of Bend was a sweet little family campground. Our site ended up being right next to the playground, so it wasn't exactly private but we were only there for one night. After setting up our tents, we took a short jaunt to see the lovely Deschutes and went to bed early for the big race the next day.

Bend - Day 1 - Gettin the Heck outta Dodge

We left LA early to avoid traffic. The drive up the 5 was smooth. We stopped at a rest stop for a delicious breakfast of hummus, olive tapanade, tomatoes, sugar snap peas and bagel chips.


While we were eating, I got in touch with Dean the Rafting Machine, a cutie who I had just met on my online dating site. He was on vacation too, traveling up to Montana for some rafting with his brother and friends. We talked about meeting up for a rafting trip on the way back from Oregon, he said could meet us up near Crater Lake and try to raft down the Rogue. I got very excited about that possibility.

We pulled into camp around 5 after first checking out Castle Crags State Park which was nice but you could hear the freeway from the campground. I had read about McLoud waterfalls in my "Day Trips with a Splash" book and we asked the ranger about camping there. She said it was very nice and you could hear the river from the campsites. That's exactly what I was looking for. McLoud was only 20 minutes up the road, we camped at Fowler Campground. It was perfect. We set up camp and went exploring.


There are 3 waterfalls at this spot on the McLoud, appropriately named Lower, Middle and Upper Falls.





The 8 hour drive was definitely worth it. The green of the trees, flow of the river, and serenity of nature was invigorating. After exploring, we ate a delicious and healthy dinner of sprouted grain tortilla veggie wraps, drank some wine and read our books.

Approx Cost of Day 1
$25 gas
$15 picnic food
$15 campsite

Bend Had no Bumps

This was one of those trips. The kind that just seems too good to be true. Everything fell right into place, there wasn't one crisis, argument, or bump in the road. A lot of it had to do with my wonderful travel buddies who usually do all the planning and are so relaxed about traveling. The other part was our guardian angels watching over us to make sure we got the most relaxation and adventure possible. We're so blessed.

Marisa planned to run the half marathon in Bend a month ago. She's a teacher so she has the summer off. After returning from 2 weeks in Kauai, poor thing, she was going to drive up to Portland, stopping to camp and enjoy the long journey, then pick up Jill and head to Bend for the race. It didn't take much convincing for Kerry to join the trip a couple weeks later, she's always down for a LOLA adventure. So the 3 of them were Bound for Bend.

I of course had that tinge of envy and didn't want to miss a LOLA trip but felt that with my unemployment wage and lack of work for 6 months, I wasn't justified to take a vacation like that and certainly couldn't afford the plane ticket ($400 to Porland). I decided instead to do a solo trip to a Meditation Retreat I'd been wanting to do, at Deer Park Monastery. Well, it turned out the monastery was not allowing guests and I didn't find that out until a few days before, I'm not exactly the best planner. However, I was getting to the point where I had to get out of LA and be in nature or I'd crack. So the decision was a no brainier, I called Marisa and told her I'd join her on the road as long as we kept it at a minimal spending level.

I jammed some clothes and a bathing suit in a suitcase, grabbed my camera, a book and my journal. The next morning at 5 am, Marisa drove up from Orange County and we loaded up the Prius (Gwenevere) with the camping gear, cooler, and bags and left LA for a what was to be the best trip ever! (well, one of them at least)