Finding the Sun in Bend, OR

Last year we had a rather long, wet, and cool spring. By the time June rolled around we were dying for a peak of sunshine, as well as some warmth. We heard tale of a place in Oregon - just a few hours drive from Portland - where we could get out from underneath the towering Douglas firs, looming rain clouds, and finally get some sun on our abnormally pale faces. So on a rainy, cold Portland morning in June, we packed up our car and headed out to Bend, Oregon. Where we most certainly found sunshine!



















Here is a list of a few places we discovered while in Bend and highly recommend.

Sites:
Pilot Butte - This extinct cinder cone volcano offers an amazing view of Bend and the surrounding mountains such as Mt. Bachelor and Three Sisters. You can drive, bike or even hike to the top to catch a view like this:

















Downtown Bend - There are many unique stores, coffee shops, and restaurants in the downtown area.

Drake Park - A pretty park located in the downtown area. Drake also has a great trail for biking or strolling along the Deschutes River and Mirror pond

Food:
McKay Cottage Restaurant - The most amazing breakfast we have ever had! Definitely go on a sunny morning so you can sit outside.

Bend Burger Company - A great burger and super friendly staff...a win-win.

Baldy's BBQ - Ever since leaving OKC we have been on the lookout for some good Texas-style BBQ and this place does a good job of feeding our smoked meat craving.

Activities:
Deschutes Brewery tour and tasting - A more in depth post with pictures here.

Eagle Crest putting course - It's putt-putt but on real grass and a fun way to spend an hour.

For what's it worth we found most of these places plus many more things we want to do at the visit Bend website.

An added bonus was this amazing view of Mt. Hood on the way back to Portland.

















We enjoyed Bend so much that we went back again in August, and will head back as soon as the mountain passes reopen in late spring.

We've got Zwickelmania!

Picture this: you enter a brewpub, maybe to eat, maybe to sample what's on tap. What's this? You can get a free tour? AND they hand you a free pint of beer?! You might think this is fantasy, but during Zwickelmania, dreams do come true!

This event was new to us, but the Oregon Brewers Guild has sponsored Zwickelmania for the past few years. We weren't quite sure what zwickel meant, but it turned out meaning a day of free beer. Our tours and samples were confined to downtown Portland, but breweries all over the state were open on this day.














We started the day at Deschutes Brewery. Their main brewery is in Bend, OR, but they can brew a few small batches of beer at their Pearl District brew pub. They were nice enough to give us a full (and free!) pint of their new hefeweizen.











Fermentation tanks at Upright Brewing. Their operation was interesting - they have about 4 10-barrel fermentation tanks in their basement brewery.











We ended the day at Widmer Brothers Brewery. In fact, we shut the place down. Okay, not really, but we did get in the door just before Zwickelmania ended. Widmer is a large scale craft brewery. Where Upright had 1o barrel fermentation tanks, Widmer had 1,500 barrel tanks (1 barrel = 2 kegs = 31 gallons = 248 pints). We're talking a pint for over 300,000 people!

This was our third time touring their operation, but each time we see more and more of the brewery. The newest part for us (see above) was the bottling area. Nothing was being bottled at the time, but you could imagine the clanking of the bottles as they are filled with delicious beer. Speaking of beer, they had sampling stations spread out all around the brewery... very nice touch! We even got to meet the original Widmer Brothers!

We enjoyed the (statewide) event. The weather was nice and we got to try breweries we had yet to visit. We will definitely participate next year and may even head to a different part of the state. Cheers!

Into the Woods

Phase two of our epic trip was a journey to the Redwood National Park. This area of extreme northwest California has many state and national forests. The Redwood National Park is more a collection of these forests/parks as opposed to a discrete park.

There are many trails and dirt roads to hike/drive. Due to time constrains, we desided to stay on main routes. U.S. 101 winds through this area, so you can take in much of the views from the car. We did take a scenic route (Newton B. Drury Scenic Pkwy). Along this parkway, we happened upon the Big Tree Wayside.





















This picture shows the Big Tree. We were not disappointed. The paper sign, in front of the tree, states that this tree is 287 feet tall and has a circumference is 68 feet. This tree is approximately 1,500 years old!

The Crater Lake Adventure

Ever been to a caldera? Well, we have! The closest, and most scenic caldera to us is Crater Lake National Park. As our regular readers know we visited Crater Lake two weekends ago (remember this?). Here are some pictures of the Crater Lake area.

Some background... The caldera formed nearly 8,000 years ago when the volcano, Mount Mazama, erupted. The eruption emptied most of the magma chamber, which caused the great collapse forming the caldera. Centuries of rain and snow helped to fill in the caldera with water - forming Crater lake.
















To the north of Crater Lake is the Pumice Desert. Mount Mazama ejected hot ash over this area, probably killing all the indiganous life. Thousands of years later the area still as yet to fully recover. Most of the areas to the west and south of Crater Lake have fully restored pine forests, but not this area. Few trees and vegetation have returned.

The steep edges of the crater.




























In the background you can see Wizard Island. This cinder cone volcano formed after Mount Mazama blew and collapsed.





















Seven miles from the crater, these interesting formations were created. Volcanic vents formed in the ash deposits. The super-heated gas melted parts of the ash to form pillars. The rest of the ash was eroded away to leave these mostly hollow tubes.
















Native American tales tell of crayfish monsters grabbing gazers of the lake and pulling them in. We can see were the tale may have originated - one could get lost taking in the sites and inadvertently take one too many steps towards the lake. If you ever go, be careful of the edges.

Two Parks for the Price of None

Last weekend, the National Park Service offered free admission to over 100 National Parks. That offer gave us a great excuse to head down to Crater Lake and the Redwood Forest. It also gave us an excuse to go camping again. In future posts we will talk specifically about Crater Lake and the Redwood Forest. In this post we'll talk about everything in between.

In all, we logged over 900 miles in two days. Fortunately, we're no strangers to long distance driving (see here, here, and here). We went from the farms of the Willamette Valley, to the Cascade Range, the Redwood Forest to the scenic Oregon Coast. The map to the left shows our path, a la Indiana Jones (only it's not animated).





Originally, we were only going to head down to Crater Lake, spend the night nearby, and come back home. This would have gotten us back to home base by 4pm and really would have made for a short adventure. Fortunately, we called an audible and decided to head to California. We're glad we did.
















Our jumping-off point on the second day of exploration was the Joseph H. Stewart Recreational Area. Being just an hour southwest of Crater Lake, it made sense to use this state park for an overnight stay. This was a nice, full service park (running water, showers, etc.) located on the Lost Creek Reservoir. The beautiful Rogue River feeds the reservoir and offered scenic views during a portion of our trip.

From J.H. Stewart, we headed to Grants Pass, OR. This metropolis of 30,000 people, nestled in the Cascades, was the gateway to the path to the Redwood Forest. U.S. Route 199 was our official path. We have never been on a curvier or more scenic road. Unfortunately, the driver was too busy keeping his eyes on the road and having a death grip on the wheel to fully appreciate this section of the trip.
















The trip down U.S. 199 was harrowing, so we opted not to take that route back after the Redwood Forest. Instead, we took the 101! U.S. Highway 101 jumps in and out of pine trees yielding stretches of awe inspiring ocean beaches and rocky outcrops. Here are some pictures around Arch Rock in Oregon (near Brookings, OR).

















U.S. Highway 101 does not go directly to Portland, so we figured there would be some inter-coastal range hopping, eventually. Night had fallen by this time, so we couldn't get pictures of that stretch.

Check back soon for specific write-ups about Crater Lake and the Redwood Forest.

Camping A Go-Go

It's safe to say that Oregon has an over abundance of natural beauty that has a way of beckoning one to the outdoors, eventually. We've always been the type of people to prefer a hotel over spending the night in the wild, but a recent class at our local REI store got us motivated to give camping a whirl. After a trip to the aforementioned REI store as well as Fred Meyer we had all the supplies we needed for our first camping adventure. We will eventually post of a list of camping essentials for your reference, but we feel we should get a little more camping experience under our belts before we start doling out the advice. Until then you can go here for some helpful advice.

For our first time out we decided to not stray to far from home, so we choose a nearby state park. L.L. Stub Stewart State Park was just a scenic 30 minute drive from home base, and once there we could hardly believe we were so close to home. Stub Stewart is a really nice, newer state park with several tent and rv campsites and lots of trails for hiking. We arrived on a Saturday afternoon, set up our camp, and hit the trails for a pre-dinner hike. When we returned to camp we started building our fire, and after a few attempts we got a fire going. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows for s'mores - real gourmet camp food. Once the sun went down, we were treated to an amazing starry sky complete with shooting stars (or meteors). The one downside to our camping trip was the sleeping on the ground thing. The camp sites at this park are packed gravel and it's just as fluffy as it sounds. Also, a guy at the adjacent camp site sawed logs (as in snored) all night long. We theorized that his long suffering wife banishes him to the wilderness on the weekends so she can catch some zzzs and he can make some other poor saps suffer. Well, without much rest we were pretty much ready to get out of there come morning light and that's exactly what we did.

All in all we did enjoy our night of camping, and with a few minor adjustments we could really get into to this whole being outdoors thing. Next time we plan to have better padding to sleep on and maybe pack some earplugs, you know just in case. Speaking of next time we just made arrangements for a camping trip to Crater Lake, and you better believe we will be blogging about that complete with lots of pictures. So if anyone is still reading this blog and has any tips for camping or specifically camping at Crater Lake, let us know.

Our adventure in beermaking

As we mentioned back in March, we have entered the world of home brewing. In honor of the recent "National Homebrew Day", we've decided to (finally) post our beer making process. Instead of cramming all the information into one giant post, we decided to break up the process over a series of entries.

First of all, you need to locate a homebrew supply store. We were fortunate enough to find one that not only has good supplies, but also has a very informative website. There are some initial hardware costs, but the equipment should last you a good while. The ingredients aren't that expensive, so you can get your beer down to under a dollar a bottle. Basic equipment include a stock pot, food-grade bucket with lid, and beer bottles. As for ingredients, its simple:

Malted grain + water + heat + hops + yeast = BEER!

Stay tuned this week for a breakdown of the steps.

Update: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part4

Touring OPB

A few weeks ago, we had the privilege of touring our local PBS/NPR studios. Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) distributes all things PBS to TVs and NPR to radios all over the state of Oregon. For comparison, OETA (Oklahoma Educational Television Authority) provides the PBS while individual partners (e.g. KGOU) provide NPR in Oklahoma. Since OPB covers the entire state, their "station identification" takes a while. For TV we see a screen with:

• Baker City: 13.1
• Bend: 11.1
• Corvallis: 7.1
• Eugene: 29.1
• La Grande: 13.1
• Portland: 10.1

But when listening to the radio we hear: "In Albany - KOAC FM 91.5, in Astoria - KOPB FM 96.3, in Baker City - KOBK FM 88.9, in Bend - KOAB FM 91.3..." Well you get the picture, this goes on for nearly 30 cities.

But back to our tour...

A nice retired couple took us around the radio and tv studios of OPB. They have been volunteers for OPB for a while and know all the ins and outs of the station. We got to see master control, behind the scenes of one of the jazz stations, the volunteer phone banks (a fund drive was on while we visited), and some of the editing rooms. Since there were no video recordings going on that weekend, we were able to walk around in the main tv studio. The room was very quite, despite being right next to a busy road. We learned that the walls are filled with sand... interesting. Local advertising companies and even CNN occasionally use the studio space for commercials or news reports. We even found out the original California Rasins commercial was filmed in this very studio.

The station receives multiple PBS feeds and records many of the shows via satellite for later broadcast. They now have a multi-terabyte supercomputer for storing shows and other videos. I believe they nick-named the computer "Barney"... 'cause it's purple. OPB has more listeners during morning and afternoon rush hour than any commercial station in Portland. Pretty crazy huh?

Our Survey Says...

I like maps and I like standards. Maybe I should have been a land surveyor. Well, it is a little late for a career change, so I will just bask in the glory of other surveyors and imagine what it would be like to be the first surveyors of the Pacific Northwest. In the 19th century a stone marker, the Willamette Stone was placed in the West Hills of Portland. Now it wasn't just placed anywhere (uh this looks like a good spot). No, it was placed at the intersection of a pre-determined meridian (the Willamette Meridian) and a baseline (not to cross the Columbia River).

In 1851 the location was marked with a cedar stake, but now an official metal marker and state park denote the location.

The Willamette Stone is an significant surveying marker for the Pacific Northwest. In fact, all sections and townships in Washington and Oregon are based off of this one point. And since we are a) nerds, b) have a car, c) live in Portland, and d) had time to kill waiting for a restaurant to open, we decided to check out this historic marker.



It may not have as grandiose a monument to its existence as four corners, but at least the Willamette Stone is in the correct location.

Goonies Never Say Die!

One of our favorite movies of all time is "The Goonies". You can't go wrong with friendship, treasure hunting, pirates, and the Fratellis! And who can forget that kick ass Cyndi Lauper song! Even better, the kids are not annoying in this movie.

The movie took place in Astoria, Oregon, which by the way is less than 2 hours away from Portland. We thought, "...wonder where they filmed some of the exterior shots of The Goonies?" So, we started doing some research and found this awesome website dedicated to the movie (link). These guys did a great job finding the locations and organizing the info nicely on their site. Props to them! So we decided to grab a camera, hop in the car, and have a Goonies adventure! Don't worry, we didn't stumble upon any "booty traps".

Remember our friend Haystack Rock, from our coast post? Well, it was an intergral part to the guys' triangulation of the starting point for the adventure.


The jail from which Jake Fratelli escapes:


Astoria football field:


A welcome to fellow goonies at Mikey's house:


Mikey's house (in the "Goondocks"):


And last of all, no trip to Mikey's house would be complete without the truffle shuffle (NSFW):


So the next time you watch The Goonies (we will probably watch it after we publish this post), keep an eye out for these landmarks. You'll see all of them in the first 15 minutes (or so) of the movies. Perhaps you could even enjoy the movie with a nice Baby Ruth or some rocky road.

Thunder in Portland

For those of you expecting to read a weather-related post, please stop now (although it did hail yesterday). No my friends, this post is about basketball.

The OKC Thunder were in town, taking on the Portland Trail Blazers. This gave us a chance to catch an NBA game, and of course do another OKC-Portland comparison. And let's be honest, how else can you really tell which city is better than in the form of a professional sporting event. I'll let the professionals take care of the sports write-up (here). Let's just say... it wasn't close. The Blazers hung 113 points on the Thunder, which could only manage 83. But enough about scores, let's talk about the event!

We had decent seats - first row of the upper section. So we got to have a great view of the court and all the other goings-on in the sporting "event". The game was exciting if you were a Blazers fan. Here is a summary of other activities that occurred before and during the game. In an announcer's voice:


Yes ladies and gentlemen, we have everything you need at the Rose Garden. Snack bars on every level...beers on tap, both domestic AND microbrews... In this corner, the Blazerdancers and in the other corner the Blazers stunt squad...you may even see the occasional hip-hop or break-dancer...watch out for Blaze, the lovable mascot...Oh! There is the inflatable Ford Edge dropping coupons to lucky winners...boy do we have giveaways: free egg mcmuffins, chalupas, pizzas, hats, cds, trips to Mexico... oh, don't forget, we do have a basketball game going on...


Here are some quick stats about the Rose Garden arena (I gave you a link to wikipedia, because the official Rose Garden site is littered with adds for "Celtic Women Theater of the Clouds" and Taylor Swift). The arena opened in 1995 and has a basketball capacity of 20,630. The arena also is powered entirely with renewable energy (SOURCE??). In comparison, the Ford Center in OKC opened in 2002 (when we first moved to Oklahoma) with a capacity of 19,599.

Are we still in Portland?

Last night, we went out for some fun on the town. Okay, we really just went to Target, Best Buy, and Barnes and Nobles. Don't judge! While at Best Buy and Barnes & Nobles, we got the strangest feeling... like we were not in Oregon anymore....














Ad for iphone covers... in a Beaverton, OR Best Buy














Saw this in the bargain bin at Barnes and Nobles

Now I don't want to alarm anyone, but there is either a tear in the space-time continuum, or some store in OK is missing some merchandise.

Whose Market? Farmers' Market!

We were first introduced to the joys of the local Farmers Market while we were on vacation in Madison, Wisconsin. The market wrapped around the capital building and we spent a couple hours walking around gathering items for a delicious lunch. We went the Moore, Oklahoma Farmers Market a couple times but unfortunately it was very, very small and lacked a great variety. However, it was a good place to pick up some locally grown tomatoes.

A couple weeks ago on a cool, rainy Sunday morning we ventured to the Hillsboro Farmers Market. It was held in a parking lot in the Orenco Station area of Hillsboro. At first we were a little disappointed by the size, but has we walked past the various booths we found lots of produce we wanted to buy. We ended up leaving with a bag full of potatoes, tomatoes, onions, apples, apple cider, flowers, and a mini cheesecake. All the produce was fantastic and we ate great for the week that followed. Unfortunately the weekend we went was the last weekend for the Hillsboro Farmers Market, but the Portland Farmers Market continues into to November so we have added that to our list of things to do. Needless to say we will make visiting the Farmers Market a regular weekly activity next spring and summer.