The Next Chapter in the Book . . .: Chapter 312

It that time of year folks, and time to head back to school. Well, all of us except one lucky soul.

For the most part, we had a great trip to the Bend area. I did notice that they do seem to enjoy themselves some metal art sculptures. Here is a buffalo made from metal shavings at the Old Mill shopping area.

A random cuckoo bird,

a creepy scrap art lady,

a jack rabbit with shear ears,

and at the High Desert Museum, this horse and foal made completely out of barbed wire.

Despite the subject, this was my favorite scupture since the artist captured the muscles and hair growth so well as you can see in this close up of her shoulder.

At Bend Burgers, I had a fabulous mushroom, swiss, and grilled onion burger over grilled green beans. Although it didn't sound too awesome up front, it was fabulous. Twice. (Not in the same visit!)

While enjoying my burger, I noticed that there was something different about how the people were moving down the sidewalk compared to other sidewalk seating areas. After a close inspection, I realized we were seated under half umbrellas allowing the right-of-way to both the pedestrians and sidewalk diners. After seeing these and being forced into the street to get pat other umbrellas, I feel all sidewalk umbrellas must be these half umbrellas. I must make a note to decree this when I come into a position of power.

Being a region based on outdoor recreation and breweries, we opted to check out the breweries first then do some of the hardcore recreational opportunities afterwards if there were still time. We headed for the Dechutes Brewery to take their tours and partake of their generous samples.

This brewery is home of the famous Jubilale. Each year Dechutes Brewery has a contest for their annual Jubilale label. They have all the originals in a hallway in their brewery. Last years label originated from textiles. It was about a 24" square picture so there isn't much room to spread out. As you can see, a portion of this picture looks great for being quilted,

and a close up of the toe areas show how tiny some of the pieces are if the entire work was only 2' across.

Here we tested a couple of sampler of brew. We got four samples and were given a coaster with places for four stamps. You can see that the nitrogen beer has a nice creamy foam on top as opposed to regular beer.

Free post cards/free postage! This is much better than filling out postcards in a stuffy old motel room!

The next day we were off to Sisters. This is a cute little town that, like Leavenworth, has reinvented itself into a themed town. In this case, old town western style.

While we were in the shops looking around, I saw these little baby shoes. To think they had to cut to toes out so their baby could wear them longer while Reagan and Payton dance around in cute little shoes in their correct size.

After Sisters, we went up to Mt. Bachelor ski area. As we were enveloped in a cloud of smoke when we parked, we decided something wasn't quite right. Here you can see we have a bad kitty marking it's territory. So we watched mountain bikers and let the car cool while pondering what the next step was. That step was to fill 'er back up with oil and head to town.

After finding that Bend is not a Jaguar (or exotic car) friendly town, we finally got a recommendation of a garage to take it to. Fortunately it was an old gauge under the hood whose tubing had worn through and was pouring oil out. A half hour and $68 dollars later, we were on our way to seeing more sights. As potential vacation disasters go, this was a good one.

Next stop was Lava Land National Forest. Lava Land? Really? That's what you chose to name a majestic volcano park? In the center of the picture is the cinder cone that started it all. We hiked up to it for a couple of miles but chose not to take the bus tour to the top.

Look at the cool lava pattern made when the lava was very hot.

Here is where the lava flow stopped. You can see the cinder cone in the background.

After volcanoing, we walked along the Dechutes River in downtown Bend. This is Mirror Pond of Dechutes Brewery Mirror Pond pale ale fame.

This house across the pond under the arrow was up for sale at a mere $1.9 million! It's beautiful but...

After a stop at the Bend Walmart for groceries where it must be hard to get workers,

we motored off to somewhere less smokey. Since I have a crooked face, I never know what look to have on it for a selfie.

I had a great yellow beet and spinach salad at Elk Horn Brewery in Eugene. It was not only pretty food, it tasted as good as it looked!

We stayed in a motel with a western theme and this was one of the pictures in the cabin. I thought it was so creepy that there were people within people that I had to turn it around for the rest of our stay.

I preferred to look at the back of the picture instead.

We went home early and went to see Reagan since Bob hasn't seen her in quite a while. We all went to a Touch a Truck event in Poulsbo. Reagan wasn't too sure about driving this bus

but had it mastered in short order.

Govenor Enslee was there with his grand kids.

"What? You want me to drive this big rig? I can't even see out the windshield!"

Ok, guys. Gear up. We're rolling!

Since I get to see Reagan more than Grampa does, I left Reagan to him. She wanted him to wear her new sunglasses.

Then play with her in her mini-bus tent.

After Reagan bounded out, Grampa had to follow but not with her fluid grace.

Then while Mom and Dad went on a date, Grampa and Reagan enjoyed watching the Jimmy Buffett concert live on his phone. Dad watched and Reagan danced.

When we spent the night, Bear likes to sleep in the room with us. But he doesn't quite stay on his bed.

It seems to be a problem across the board with the granddogs. Sally's oozing off her bed too. Harry wasn't fitting very well, but he doesn't like all the ruffling of having people over so I left him alone.