Bend

After saying our goodbyes to the Mintons, we headed east to the city of Bend. We stayed in a beautiful campground named Crown Villa RV Resort, which is part of Sun RV Resorts. Huge sites! Check it out:

For dinner we headed downtown to the Bend Brewing Company. I had one, ok – two, of their blonds and I got the jerk chicken bowl. Both were good!

Katrina spent the following day rebooking some of our travels due to the California wild fires. While she was booking new places, I gave the Busse Bus a much needed bath:

Did the truck as well. Look at that shine!

Later we decided to run to 5 Fusion & Sushi Bar. It had been a long time since we ate sushi. What a wonderful little place with fun drinks! We got the tempura avocado with spicy shrimp and scallops and spicy edamame for our appetizers.

Then for the main course we split the Steve McQueen Roll and the Bi Bam Bap with Korean short ribs. We never had a Bi Bam Bap before. It is a rice-based dish with vegetables, the short ribs, and an egg served in a hot bowl. The bowl continues to cook the rice, so if you want it crispy you just keep it cooking longer. Everything was excellent!

We were told that our front passenger headlight was burnt out, so the next day I set out to replace it. After consulting with my 2017 Dutch Star expert, David Wood, he suggested a brand online. With us not knowing exactly where we were traveling due to the wildfires, I went over to AutoZone and purchased a set of LED ones. Upon returning back to the coach I was able to install them. What a difference! Can’t wait to see what they look like while driving and in the dark.

One of the best aspects of our site was that we had a green area behind us where we could play with Bear:

We were excited because Crown Villa had a pickleball court where Katrina and I could get in some games. On our first day there, the resort decided that it would be a good time to resurface the court.

Oh well, the best laid plans of mice and men…

We headed downtown to the Bend Farmer’s Market.

What a great Farmer’s market! Fresh organic local vegetables and all types of meat. A real Farmer’s market, not like some that we have attended that were more like craft fairs. For lunch we stopped at the taco truck next to the market called El Sancho Tacos.

Outstanding tacos! We love street tacos; Katrina got a chorizo and a chicken while I got the Hatch green pepper with cheese and the pulled pork. What a great find!

Back at the Busse Bus Katrina made some bacon wrapped jalapeño poppers for a dinner snack. Our neighbors back in Hoodsport gave us the jalapeños out of their garden.

So good with fresh vegetables!

Watching the wildfires on the app and seeing where the smoke was ahead of us on our planned route and Katrina continued to revise our plans. She had added another day to Crown Villa as she was massaging our route. This was great as we felt like we really hadn’t seen a whole lot of the Bend area. Although we did determine that we do need to schedule down time every once in a while in order to take care of business.

We went to Lava Lands to see the Lava Butte Cinder Cone located about 10 miles away in the Newberry Caldera. We didn’t know that this area was formed through volcanic activity thousands of years ago.

We learned that a cinder cone forms when lava spews from a large caldera and the cooling lava forms the cone. Once the cinder cone is harden the lava will find the weakest point and create a flow which in turn creates the lava fields.

When it spews large balls of molten matter can hurl through the air and land:

Here’s what lava looks like up close:

You can make out which direction the lava flowed. Very cool!

Here are some other volcanic peaks in the distance (sorry, it was a bit smoky from the wildfires):

We could make out a couple of glaciers off in the distance.

The vegetation is trying to make a comeback even on the lava fields:

The story about the twisted tree is a very interesting read if you have the time and can zoom in.

From there we hiked to Bentham Falls:

On this plaque you can see how the lava flows rerouted the river:

On the hike back we got to see this beautiful bird:

I think it was a blue jay (don’t really know our birds – except the cardinal, of course).

We got back in time to meet Craig and Lisa Lilienthal, whom we met up in Kennewick, at the Monkless Belgium Ales brew house for an early dinner. I was excited to have German food! We ordered the Brussels sprouts for an appetizer and I had a beer sampler:

Both were excellent!

Their restrooms had a interesting sign in them:

Oregon is really into recycling!

Afterwards we walked the Old Mill District with the Lilienthal’s and took this picture from the river looking back at the brewery:

They told us about some hikes so Katrina called the Crown Villa and she was able to add a few more days.

We decided to hit the hot tub that night:

We struck up a conversation with another couple; Mitch and Terra from Oregon City. Nice couple and their son, Dylan joined us until we got kicked out (not because we were rowdy, but because it was 9:30 – closing time).

With our first extra day we headed out to hike to Paulina Falls located in the Newberry Caldera.

We completed the short hike to view the falls:

We walked up to see Paulina Lake, which is the headwaters for Paulina Creek, but due to the smoke we really couldn’t get a feel for the size nor beauty. We did stumble into the Paulina Lake Lodge (kinda reminded us of Dirty Dancing) where we decided to have lunch.

Since they were known for their famous prime rib beef, I ordered the French dip and it was delicious! I also tried the Raspberry Cosmo Hard Seltzer as well and I didn’t like it too much. While we were sitting there Bear was infatuated with the small ground squirrels running around until his beef patty came. Then he was all food business.

On the hike back down to the truck we let Bear play in the creek:

He wanted to take that stick home with us!

Ok, I need y’all to settle a disagreement between Katrina and me. Are these tree nuts or tree boobs?

I guess you would need to look under the bark!

We headed home and watched some TV before retiring for the evening.

With the second extra day we went for a bike ride on a path along the Deschutes River which runs through Bend. Very nice path until you get to the southern end which is stated that it wasn’t for bikes.

We ended up walking them over some rocks and roots. Once we got to downtown Bend we stopped for lunch at Wild Rose Northern Thai Eats. We had tried to book the place to no avail, but the walk-in worked. Great food!

Apparently the thing to do in Bend is float down the Deschutes River. We got to watch some people doing that from the bridge:

Check out the surfer dudes!

We rode back to the truck and decided that we needed to take Bear down to the river too, so we went back to coach to get him!

He loved playing with his water toy:

When we got back to the Busse Bus we started to pack up getting ready for our next stop farther south. I hope we don’t run into the wild fires and dense smoke!