Saturday Evening Post

Central Oregon is amazing. We started the day on Mt. Bachelor. We wanted to get the boys up there one more time before the ski season is over. There's still plenty of snow up there. 12 to 14 feet of it actually. But the owners of the resort ( Powdr Corp.) are being major butt-heads and are closing down much earlier than conditions warrant, much to the chagrin of us season pass holders. I definitely won't be buying passes again next year for the boys.

Anyhoo...so today at about 1:00 we're taking in the view from Mt Bachelor but ready to head for home because the lifts are shutting down. Alicia and I dropped the boys off and were back on the road by 2:00. Probably less than 45 minutes from Bend we reach the Prineville Reservoir. We were only there long enough to drive across its dam and begin our drive along the Crooked River. It was a beautiful drive! It's supposed to be an awesome river for fly fishing, and at several of the stops we made along its banks we did indeed see folks wetting their lines. The canyon that the river flows along is very dramatic. Its full name is the Lower Crooked Wild and Scenic River Chimney Rock Segment. The river has cut its way into this amazing basalt gorge with walls up to 600 feet high! I had that feeling again, like when we went to Lake Billy Chinook several weeks ago. A feeling like we had driven much farther from home. It was reminiscent of dramatic landscapes I've seen in Utah and parts of Yellowstone, and the sense of awe I normally associate with destinations I've reached while on vacation.

After leaving the canyon we drove through some very pastoral farmland and finally made our way into the city of Prineville. Heading maybe 15 minutes east of town we finally reached the far point of our trip at Ochoco Reservoir. We met up with some of Alicia's friends from work who were camping there. The campground was very green and nicely treed, and their campsites overlooked the lake. It was a very nice setting to enjoy the Subway sandwiches we had picked up earlier. So after a short visit we were back on the road again, taking a more direct route to make our way back to Bend. But even with all of our sightseeing we manged to get home with dinner for the kids by 7:00!

Sprung!

I know it's supposed to be the middle of spring, but today is one of the first days that really felt like it. Alicia and I took Shasta for a walk along the Mill A Loop which is a 1.1 mile loop along both sides of the Deschutes River in the Old Mill District. I was in shorts and a t-shirt, and when we started out into the wind my windbreaker seemed like a good idea, but coming back with the wind I got too warm and had to carry it the rest of the way. When we crossed the Les Schwab Amphitheater we let Shasta off leash so she could reach top speed for a minute. She always has a great time zooming across the grass there.

When we got home we sat on our front porch to soak up a bit of the afternoon sun. In this warm moment it was hard to remember or even imagine the snow and ice of January and February. As we sat on the porch I also inspected our newly discovered neighbors though binoculars. Although technically these neighbors were a type of squirrel they are much larger than the grey squirrels we have around the 'hood. Since we moved into the house in October we had never seen a Rock Chuck (Yellow-bellied Marmot) around Bend. Then last week we saw them in several locations around the city the same day , including the empty lots across from our house. In fact, today seemed like some sort of wildlife safari. We saw:

• A dozen or more deer across several locations in SW Bend.


• A woodpecker knocking on our neighbor's house under their eaves.


• A Steller's Jay and an American Robin (I think) at our feeder.


• Beautiful Violet-green Swallows flitting under the eaves of our house.


• Canadian geese eh, coots, black birds, and an assortment of ducks in the Old Mill District.

Seems like the only thing we didn't see were fish. Hmm....I think we've been here long enough to get our resident fishing licenses....