The city of Bend, OR is lovely. So lovely in fact that herds of people have been moving there over the past decade, causing housing prices to go a little nutty. But I can't blame them. It's sunny 270 days of the year and there's ample hiking, skiing, biking, kayaking, etc. We might move there ourselves someday...
Mt Bachelor and the snow-covered trail leading up it. We had hoped to ride the chairlift to the top (this is ski country), but since we were there during the off-season, it was closed. Instead we put on 5 layers of clothes and started our ascent to the top. Well, not the top - that would be ridiculous since we were just wearing sneakers, but we did make it to the tree line before scurrying back down.
Next stop was the lava field at Newberry Volcanic National Monument...
...and the nearby Cast Forest. Be warned: the road to the Cast Forest, should you ever decide to go, is 9 miles and unpaved. Darn those budget cuts!
My prize chipmunk photo. These guys were everywhere!
Mark's favorite picture:
Tracy, wearing her headlamp, in a lava tube. The tube extends for over a mile and we walked the whole thing with headlamp and lantern in tow. Dark and creepy.
Award for Strangest Moment in Bend: Being asked to be an 'extra' in some wedding photos. Mark and I were gross and dirty from our day outside, but we kindly obliged.
The next day we woke up and the weather looked like this:
So naturally we decided to hit the snow covered roads in our rented Ford Focus (not exactly an all-weather vehicle) and drive into the Cascades to visit Crater Lake. Not our finest hour (mentally), but we made it. Pictures of a very blue lake to come...Fun Fact: The Cascade Mountain range got its name from the cascades on the Columbia River. Oregon Trail settlers, who would raft down these cascades, called the surrounding mountains the "mountains by the cascades." Today the cascades no longer exist due to the Bonneville Dam.
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