After 2 days of long hours in the car, we made it to our primary destination: Bend, Oregon...woohoo!
The good news is the weather has been amazing...the bad is that it is going to get hot, which does not bode well for the Cascade Cream Puff...as of right now they are calling for mid to upper 80's on race day and that will seem like a heat wave compared to our cold wet spring in Montana. I will have to be extra careful to make sure to stay hydrated and full of endurolytes....just another variable to throw into the wrinkle mix on race day.
We had a nice trip out. We left on Saturday at about mid-day via Missoula, Spokane and then due south into SE Washington and NE Oregon. There was fresh snow on the top of the East Ridge in Butte when we left on Saturday - in July!!! The terrain through SE Washington was really cool - lots of rolling hills made up crops of wheat, dry peas, and lentils. In some points, it almost felt like Kentucky...sans the white wooden fences and horses.
We spent Saturday night at a State Park that had a few camp-sites open. After we settled in, we figured out why all the open camp sites were bunched together. The group closest to us had about 8 cars and soon enough started to crank their mariachi music - it was fun for a while but then it started to get old as the hootin' and hollerin' continued and the mariachi tunes were accompanied by bad out of tune voices. Fortunately the camp host went over and quietened them down and it was somewhat uneventful for the remainder of the night.
It was Otis' first camping trip (and extended road trip stuck in the car). All in all he is doing OK.
After our mariachi night, we decided we wanted a more serene camping experience for Sunday night so we went out of our way to find a camp site what was off the beaten path in the hope that it would thin out the herds. We ended up camping in the Mahleur Wilderness and although we did have neighbors it was nothing of the sort like on Saturday.
We got up early and hit the road with Bend on our minds. We carved our way through Eastern Oregon and the John Day Fossil Beds through multiple National Forests until we got to Prineville, then Redmond, and finally Bend. We got here mid-morning and spent the day putzing around town and taking in the sights. We currently have a 'short list' of places to eventually live, Bend is right up there - plenty of climbing, riding, snow sports, etc etc. It has everything we enjoy doing and the economy has hit it with a sledge hammer so the housing prices have been hit especially hard. The problem is that we are still 2 years away from that day but we are just continuing to do our homework so that we are prepped for when that time comes. In the interim there is plenty to think about with tapering, stressing about the weather on race day, and exploring the area....onwards
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