Days 19-21, Saturday-Monday, July 18-20. Bend, OR—-(Triple Zero)

We spent close to 10 days in Portland last year. I wanted to like it. It’s a great location. Great public transportation—easy to get around. But the homeless people! I’ve only seen more homeless people in Paris and that was because of the Syrian refugee crisis. Portland just has an “open arms” policy which is great but they need to do more than just welcome them. They need to provide some services and shelters. All the city does is allow them to stay anywhere they want, unharassed. They set up on street corners, in shop entrances, on green spaces, anywhere they want. That’s bad enough, but there’s also an associated trash and human waste problem. I was so disappointed. 

I wanted to not like Bend. I’ve constantly heard how nice it is, how the people are friendly, and how outdoor oriented the city is. Jenny drove us to the REI last week and then over to her favorite food truck by the hospital. We didn’t see a lot but the area looked very dry and desert like. I’m tired of deserts. We saw a few interesting sights while driving through town, but I didn’t get the hype. We decided we needed a few days of rest after pushing so hard to get to Sisters. We thought we would probably be able to get a ride into town from Elk Lake, so we took a chance and made hotel reservations. Worst case scenario, we’d get a couple days of rest and recovery from the trail and a break from the mosquitoes. 

The hotel we are staying at is not in the worst part of town, nor is it in the best. We got up Saturday morning and went to a diner around the corner that was open for breakfast with limited inside seating. We noticed right away that everyone was on board with wearing masks and practicing physical distancing. After breakfast, Bunny and I tried to do a little shopping close to the hotel but couldn’t find what we were looking for. We chilled for a bit in the room before venturing out again in the afternoon with Sassy while Bear napped. 

We decided to take a walk to a used equipment shop over in the old mill district. If we couldn’t find what we wanted there, we were real close to the REI. (First plus for Bend is it does have an REI). Enroute, we found what we were looking for, but we went into the equipment store to check it out. It’s in an old warehouse building which has several microbreweries and wine shops. (We like wine, second plus, actually, 3rd plus because we walked through a cute historic district to get there).  

After the three of us got done shopping, we decided to take Sassy’s advice and stop in the Bledsoe Winery for a taste. For the non football fan, Drew was the New England QB before Tom Brady. When Drew nearly died in a game from a ruptured kidney, Brady got his break. When Drew was healthy again, he couldn’t get his job back. He got traded to Buffalo and then Dallas. In the mean time, he had taken a liking to wine and bought into a winery. Today, he owns his own winery but doesn’t do anything other than occasionally press a few palms as he’s picking up his cash. He was a no show while we were there. 

The Bledsoe Winery is expensive, but the staff is very friendly. More importantly, the pours are generous. We each had a flight—only 4 wines; all dry and all red. Surprise! They were really good (4th plus) and we were a bit buzzed (now the plusses kept piling on faster than we could count). 

We called Bear and decided on a place to meet for supper. It was about a mile from us, so we walked from the Old Mill District through the Historic Old Town District to the Old Bend Downtown District. I’m sure the little buzz helped, but, damn, this is a cute town. We went to Pine Tavern for supper which was one of the places Tour Guide recommended to Bunny. It had outside seating on the Deschutes River. The building is built around two 300 year old Ponderosa Pines and has been a restaurant for over a century. Next door, on one side, was a brewery on the river with outside seating. On the other side was a coffee shop with outside seating…all on the river. We were all taken in, even Bear who hadn’t been drinking. We decided to come back in the morning to check out the coffee shop.

We started the day at the coffee shop then went for a walk in the riverside park next door. We all fell in love so we started checking out the town vitals. Bend has a population around 100,000 so it’s manageable in size. On a scale of 100 with 100 being the national average, Bend has an affordability of 132, but if you take out housing, it’s only 91 which means it’s an affordable place to live IF you can afford a house. The median price of houses is $450,000. 

We spent the next 4 hours walking from park to park and through neighborhoods along the river until we got back to the Old Mill District. We even decided to make an initial investment in the city towards buying a home. That’s right, we bought lottery tickets. If we hit, we’re moving to Bend…on the river. 

After yesterday’s walk and last night’s supper, we had already decided to stay an extra day. Mainly because we didn’t spend as much time working on the blog and videos as we should have, but also to give us more time to rest. It’s going to be hot for the next couple of days and we hope the little mosquito bastards die from heat exhaustion before we get back on trail. If we get all caught up on things, we might even do a float trip down the Deschutes. 

Walking to supper Sunday night, Bear told be to be careful of Sassy. “Someday, someone is going to mess with Sassy and she’s going to unleash on them. She’s been kickboxing and is wound up!” Little did he know that he would be the recipient of the “Wrath of Sassy.” 

While at breakfast, Bear started pushing Sassy a bit. Instinctively, without even thinking, while sitting at the table, her foot came up from under the table and made contact with Bear’s chin, tossing his head back. She then followed up with a right elbow to the nose. Sassy immediately faced forward and took a sip of coffee. I don’t even think she realized what she did. It was all very reminiscent of Jennifer Gray in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” when she kicked Rooney in the face 3 times before running upstairs. We had heard a huge “crack” and I thought we might need an ambulance for Bear. Fortunately, it was just his glasses. 

This all happened at 9:58a in a public restaurant. By the time we had performed triage on Bear and determined no facial bones were broken and it was just his glasses, we discovered a glasses repair place that opened at 10:00a right next door. As always, the trail provides. 

We decided to skip further activities for the day (other than walking to REI and getting ice cream) in the hopes that Sassy would relax, return to normal size and color (she had bulked up incredibly and turned green during the morning’s events). I know, I for one, will no longer push Sassy to speed up in the morning and will, henceforth, address her as ma’am when I do have to talk to her. In all fairness, we did discover Bear has woken her up early 2 consecutive days. It is well documented in the annals of this blog that Sassy is not a morning person and does not like to be disturbed early. Bear was playing with fire and got burnt.  

Bunny and I retired to our hotel room where we spent the afternoon working on defensive strategies and learning how to play dead. Sassy was like a grizzly mama and the best defense when dealing with grizzlies is absolute motionlessess. Pray for us. Forget about Bear, he’s done for. 

EFG