Overdue Entry On Bend, Sunriver, and Crater Lake
So we took a little road trip recently to Central Oregon. We started with a 6 1/2 hour drive to Bend and stayed at McMenamins Old St. Francis School right in the heart of the downtown. This place was clean, had a nice soaking pool at about 90 degrees, and of course had the brewpubs attached with great beer. We highly recommend staying here when going to Bend as most of the other hotels seem to be much farther from the core of downtown.
We had some wonderful food & wine and we hiked a couple of times in addition to a round of golf. The most interesting experience was at Deep, which just opened not long before we rolled into town. They have a trough of water above the restaurant that supposedly has a waterfall attached although that wasn't running. The food was excellent - kind of a Japanese-Northwest Tapas exprience. Jill had Angry Lobster on a bed of nails.
Our dining neighbors (Barry, Shannon, and Tod) became our friends by the end of the evening. It all got interesting once Tod and I learned we were both Gauchos that graduated in 1991 (weird meeting in Bend in 2007). Eventually we moved over to their table and bought them drinks because Barry was celebrating his birthday. They invited us to his party the following night at a house only 3 blocks from McMenamins - but we were so worn out we just couldn't attend.
I'm sure Jill can tell of other restaurants or experiences. We certainly enjoyed the outdoors while we were there.
We moved on down to Sunriver (15 miles south), which is master planned and just has soooo much to do. We biked around on some of the 37 miles of bike trails and worked out at the . The main reason for going there was to play the Crosswater golf course, home to the Jeld-Wen Tradition (Champions Tour event) for the next 4 years. The course is VERY nice. And strangely, we got paired with another twosome in which one of the guys is also a Gaucho!
And for the Grand Finale, we drove to Crater Lake. Words do not describe the natural beauty so if you contact us by email or webform, we can send you a link to about 100 photos we took while at the lake. These are 1.5mb to 5mb per photo so we will email anyone interested a link to a page of thumbnails. Wikipedia has a decent intro, but YOU MUST GO THERE before you die.
In the summer, the surface temperature of the water is normally between 50°F (10°C) and 60°F (16°C) and it felt close to 50. They told us on the boat if you fall in, you become useless within 15 minutes at these temperatures.
The only downside to the natural wonder of this lake is that a company called Xanterra runs the place (along with several other National Parks). They could not do any worse with service (if you could call it that) if they tried. I can't even type how many things they screwed up, but if you ask, I'm sure one of us will tell you the horrors. Don't stay at the lodge, find a campground (or other lodging) outside the park if you can.
We had some wonderful food & wine and we hiked a couple of times in addition to a round of golf. The most interesting experience was at Deep, which just opened not long before we rolled into town. They have a trough of water above the restaurant that supposedly has a waterfall attached although that wasn't running. The food was excellent - kind of a Japanese-Northwest Tapas exprience. Jill had Angry Lobster on a bed of nails.
Our dining neighbors (Barry, Shannon, and Tod) became our friends by the end of the evening. It all got interesting once Tod and I learned we were both Gauchos that graduated in 1991 (weird meeting in Bend in 2007). Eventually we moved over to their table and bought them drinks because Barry was celebrating his birthday. They invited us to his party the following night at a house only 3 blocks from McMenamins - but we were so worn out we just couldn't attend.
I'm sure Jill can tell of other restaurants or experiences. We certainly enjoyed the outdoors while we were there.
We moved on down to Sunriver (15 miles south), which is master planned and just has soooo much to do. We biked around on some of the 37 miles of bike trails and worked out at the . The main reason for going there was to play the Crosswater golf course, home to the Jeld-Wen Tradition (Champions Tour event) for the next 4 years. The course is VERY nice. And strangely, we got paired with another twosome in which one of the guys is also a Gaucho!
And for the Grand Finale, we drove to Crater Lake. Words do not describe the natural beauty so if you contact us by email or webform, we can send you a link to about 100 photos we took while at the lake. These are 1.5mb to 5mb per photo so we will email anyone interested a link to a page of thumbnails. Wikipedia has a decent intro, but YOU MUST GO THERE before you die.
In the summer, the surface temperature of the water is normally between 50°F (10°C) and 60°F (16°C) and it felt close to 50. They told us on the boat if you fall in, you become useless within 15 minutes at these temperatures.
The only downside to the natural wonder of this lake is that a company called Xanterra runs the place (along with several other National Parks). They could not do any worse with service (if you could call it that) if they tried. I can't even type how many things they screwed up, but if you ask, I'm sure one of us will tell you the horrors. Don't stay at the lodge, find a campground (or other lodging) outside the park if you can.