Sister's Quilt Show, Crater Lake and Some Caching

I woke up several times to the noises dad made while getting ready to go on his motorcycle ride with Ron.  He probably got up around 5 or so.  We slept in until about 7.  I heard mom getting ready in the bathroom so I got up and got my clothes on and grabbed the necessary stuff we would need that day. 

I haven't been to Crater Lake since 2003, when we headed down that summer after my first year at college.  Doug just got done with his junior year and Erika finished her freshman year in high school.  Erika couldn't go with us because she got a summer job working at a day camp in Lacey.  Mom, dad, Doug and I jumped into the Suburban with the jet boat attached and headed down to Lost Creek.  I was in awe when I first stepped out to the edge to see this magnificent geological creation.

But first we had to go into Sisters to see the outdoor quilt show.  The Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show is internationally recognized as the world's largest outdoor quilt show and quilt sale displaying more than 1300 quilts representing fiber artists from around the world.  More than 10,000 visitors from all 50 states and 27 foreign countries flock to Sisters on the second Saturday in July. Master quilt makers teach classes and workshops during Quilt Week and exhibit their quilts at our annual Quilt Show. In addition, hundreds of quilts are displayed in our "show-and-tell" exhibits - first time quilters, youth, quilts made by men - throughout the town of Sisters. Quilt exhibitors range in age from 10-92.

We headed out and Ben misinformed us to where the gas was so we went clear into Bend to fill up for the day.  We took Hwy 20 and everyone and their dog were going into Sisters from that road.  It was stop and go for at least three miles.  Those three miles took a long time and I am not a patient person when it comes to driving and trying to get somewhere at a certain time.  Once we got to a point where we could turn off I took it.  We drove through a camp ground onto the back side of town.  It took us a while to find a parking spot.  Once we did we memorized the street signs because there were buttloads of people everywhere. 

We used the restrooms and then walked down the street to see what the town offered plus admired the work that went into all of the quilts on display.  Ben met up with us soon after.  I went into a T-shirt/Sweatshirt shop and bought myself a Bend sweatshirt.  I wanted to get at least one cache in Sisters.  The closest one was You've Got Mail 3 (GCNYW2) and it was rather difficult to obtain with all the people walking around.  Somehow we grabbed it, signed it and put it back without being seen. 

We spent the next hour looking at shops and quilts.  Mom finally got her fix in and told us it was time to head to Crater Lake.  We drove back into Bend (this time it didn't take as long) got onto US 97 and drove the hour and a half down there.  It was fun to see towns, or signs of towns, that my dad talked about often such as La Pine, the Road to Wickiup and signs for eastern Oregon.

When we got to the turn off, I was amazed on how long that road seemed.  You could see probably close to 5 miles up the road with tons of cars coming and going to the national park.  When we finally got to the gate, we paid our fee and she handed us our receipt and map.  I had a list of virtuals and earthcaches I wanted to do while I was here.  I knew a lot about Crater Lake already but for some reason the geocaches enhance that knowledge plus they are fun to find.

Our first one was an earthcache, The Pumice Desert of Crater Lake (GC14YZM) and as luck would have it there was a legit parking lot to pull into.  I read the information we had to answer while we were here and found out there used to be a sign we had to read information off of it but it had been ripped off.  We wrong down our answers and took a group picture to prove we were there and that the sign was gone.

We moved on to the rim of the crater.  Ben had never been here before so he was in for a real treat.  Even though I've been here before the view was still awe inspiring.  Absolutely gorgeous!  There were still a few large snow drifts that were constantly melting into the lake.  It was a stunning blue color and there were a ton of tourists.  For some reason no one would honor the stay back behind the fence warning.  Earlier this week some guy from Florida died here from not listening to the warnings.  I guess they might have to learn the hard way.  We took a few pictures from this spot.

We got back in the Escape and moved onto the next spot with geocaches.  This one had a virtual and an earthcache.  We did both as the same time.  The virtual, Watching for Wizardy (GC6F85) was basically asking us to tell him why this island was here and to take a picture of our group.  The earthcache, Mt. Mazama (GC124H6) asked us to figure out the elevation of where we were and the top of Wizard Island along with how far we thought the other side of the rim was and of course taking a picture with your group.

From there, we headed towards the lodge and visitor's center.  There were so many people here today which made looking for a parking place kinda rough.  Some how we managed to find one quickly, park and secured the stuff we weren't going to bring with us.  There were several buildings to go into and learn about everything we chose the visitor's center first.  There, I found some postcards, stickers and a sweatshirt because I've always wanted a sweatshirt from there.  Last time I was here I didn't have the money for it.  We had no idea where to look for the next virtual, Ode to a Lake (GCJTMG) so we investigated it and turns out it was in the lodge after asking a few of the people who worked there.  We walked into the lodge and there it was.  It was a sheet of music and we had to fill in the blank with the correct lyrics.

We walked back to the Escape and got back on the road and went to our last two virtuals, Love for the Virgin Wilderness (GCGBTR) and Pumice Castle and the Old Man of the Lake (GCH6Z5).  Both we had to answer questions.  One was a small trail that took us to a sculpture of a naked lady and the other one took us to a look out and we had to answer the questions off of a sign.  Both were pretty easy.

We turned around and started back around the crater.  When we got to the entrance I decided to stop and get a picture of the sign since I didn't do it on the way in.  There were some bikers parked on the side of the road taking a break.  They asked me if I wanted a picture with it and I kindly declined their invite.  I just wanted a picture of the sign.  I was in and out in less than a minute.

We got onto the main road and had to find a few more on our way back to Bend/Redmond.  We stopped at a camping/hiking area just off the road.  Because it was an offline map list I could not see the hints but could see how close I was.  The coords kept on bouncing everywhere but it eventually zeroed in on an area I could search.  The mosquitos got so bad Ben went back to the Escape while I found North Crater (GC2CPKX), signed our names and put it back.

We stopped for one more off of the highway just because we could.  Myles and Myles (GC1X87X) was more than a short distance from the road.  We parked and looked for it but found out it was further down the dirt road towards the forest.  I told everyone to stay in the Escape while I went and got it.  I jogged down, found the ammo box, signed our names, took a picture of Mount Thielsen from this spot and jogged back.  They started backing the Escape down the road so I basically met them   half way.

We got back on the road and turned onto Hwy 97 and went north towards Bend.  When we got into LaPine, I really wanted a cache here since my family has roots here and mom wanted a cold drink at the Wickiup Junction Grocery Store, Deli & Gas Station.  I was really happy a cache was within walking distance of the store.  I ran and grabbed Welcome to LaPine (GC1P8C9) and then ran back to join them inside the store.  We all grabbed a drink and headed outside to go see the Wickiup lunch bus.

We got back in the Escape and headed into Bend.  I saw the Goodwill from the highway and had to stop.  Some woman tried to hit me as I was merging off the highway but luckily we didn't get hit.  I always like to see what kinds of treasures each town has.  Bend should have some good stuff.  We went inside and I started browsing my usual areas...sports stuff, decorations, books, etc.  I found an Oregon Duck jersey for $10 of course I had to buy it.  I found a Deschutes Brewing Company wall mirror and bought it for less than $10 and a Gonzaga shirt for $3.  I thought I made out of there pretty good.  We got back on the highway and drove to Redmond.

When we got back to the hotel, Ron wanted to go out to dinner with mom and dad.  Ben and I were on our own for dinner.  We called in an order to Abby's pizza and went and picked it up as mom and dad were leaving.  We took it back to our room and the pizza hit the spot as we watched the Mariners play on TV.  We got cleaned up, mom and dad got back about an hour later, they got cleaned up, we relaxed a bit and then went to bed.  We had a really long day and tomorrow was going to be just as long heading home.

Next Adventure:  Pilot Butte, Caching in Bend, Prineville Spires and Traveling Home

Sawyer Park, Smith Rock State Park, Madras, Crooked Bridge and Downtown Bend

I totally forgot my alarm was still set for 5:45 a.m. and it went off and I was so disappointed with myself.  I woke up everyone and we didn't need to get up that early.  I got up and shut it off as quickly as I could and everyone went back to bed for another two or so hours.  We got up at 8 and got ready for the day.  We went out to breakfast at Madeline's Grill and Steak House just across the street.  We probably could have walked there.

We sat down and ordered coffee's and juice and contemplated what to eat for food.  I wanted a combo with eggs, hash browns and meat.  Mom and dad shared another type of combo with pancakes and Ben ordered a skillet with pancakes.  There was a lot of food on those plates.  I sure hope I can eat it all because I'm sure we wouldn't be eating lunch today since everyone had plans.  Dad was going to hang out with Ron and we were going to adventure around the area looking for cool spots and some geocaches.  The food was delicious and I recommend it to everyone!

Dad drove us into Bend so we could see some of the places he used to hang out at.  He took us down the road he used to live on and showed us the Bend house.  I took a picture of it even though I know it's changed a lot since they've lived there. 

It was fun to see as an adult since the last time I believe I was here was around the mid 1990's.  Then he took us to Sawyer Park.

 

That little park was amazing!  I loved the volcanic rocks and the formations in the Deschutes River.  We spent probably an hour there sitting on the rocks with our feet in the water.  Then we drove back to Redmond.

We went back to the hotel and got ready for the rest of the day and dad met up with Ron.  Mom looked up a few things on the computer before we left.  We made sure we had enough water with us since it was going to be 90+ the entire day.  We found out how far Smith Rock State Park was away from Redmond.  It was literally like a 20 minute drive from the hotel.  We followed the Nuvi's directions and sadly we had to pay a small fee to be here which I forgot because in Washington, we have to buy $30 Discovery Passes to go to state owned land.

Ben forgot socks so he went sockless in his hiking shoes.  We got all of our stuff together so we could walk around the trails, that included enough water (because it was pretty hot at that point), the hiking pole and the appropriate shoes and clothes.  We took a bunch of pictures as we walked to a couple of geocaches along the short looped trail.  When we got to the first one, Laws of Eight (GC3FYC9) we thought it was going to be next to the cliff.  Once the phone settled down we saw it was a bird house in the tree.  I signed our names, took a few pictures and put it back as I found it.

Mom hung out along the edge of the cliff and noticed people wandering by the river down below.  We looked closer...are they naked?  OMG they are naked!  Mom took some pictures on her phone and sent them to dad to be creepy.  That's something you just don't see everyday.  Haha!

We walked the short distance to the next one in the area, Johnny Bench (GC55YA7).  We thought it was going to actually be at the bench that overlooks the cliff but we found it in a pile of rocks instead.  I was totally thrown off.  I unburied the cache and took it over towards the bench.  To my surprise the cacher before us left two unactivated geocoins inside.  I have never been that lucky finding a cache ever!  The cacher was from the east coast.  After signing it and getting a picture we hid it back better than we found it under the rocks.

We walked back towards the Escape after chatting with a guy getting ready for a class of climbers.  We drove closer to Smith Rock Earthcache (GC1WHHW).  We parked and walked the less than 300 feet to the informational sign.  I took pictures of the sign just so we had the info instead of writing down all the answers.  We discussed all the answers to make sure we took care of them all, took pictures of us at the site and headed back to the Escape.

We drove to the most western side of the parking lot just to see what was on that side.  More of the river and you could see a bunch of people getting ready to climb.  Ben kept saying, "I wanna play."  I told him that we couldn't because we didn't have the time nor the equipment.  I also added that we could come back here again someday and do some climbing.  He was okay with that answer.  I sure hope we can come to Bend again in the future.  I really like it here.

We left the state park and headed towards Madras.  We really had no plans as to where we were going (I just kinda made it up as we drove north) we just wanted to see some cool stuff.  We took a side road to go see what The Cove Palisades had to offer. The park is situated among towering cliffs that surround Lake Billy Chinook, which was a reservoir.  When we got down by the water I was not too impressed with the lake.  It was green and it smelled.  Probably from all the sun this area gets in the summer time and too much plant growth. 

I tried finding a cache in the park but ended up aborting because it was getting hotter and I really didn't want to walk through the brush in my flip flops.  We got back into the Escape and headed back up the hill.  There was one, Welcome to the Cove (GC2JPHD) we could get that didn't require hard core searching.  It was by the state park sign and I found it quickly.

I saw the Madras had a virtual cache, Jackie (GCA645) and needed to go get it.  Since virtuals are so rare and we can never create more of them so you must go get them when you have a chance to.  We followed Nuvi to the coords and it took us to the front of someone's house with an odd looking wooden statue of a lady's head.  I got our necessary photo and we headed into the downtown part looking for a store to get ice. 

We found a small grocery store in the middle of town and went inside.  We got a few waters, some ice and I wanted some mango Snapple.

Then mom saw the Dairy Queen and wanted a Blizzard.  I found a way to get across the street in the middle of the traffic to get mom a Blizzard.  I said since we were there why not get one too.  We all got Blizzards and ate them as we headed back towards Redmond.

We stopped at Peter Skene Ogden State Park to see the view of the river and the bridges and of course to pick up two geocaches.  The earthcache, Crooked River Gorge High Bridge (GC2AM14) and a traditional travel bug hotel, Bubblegummers 97 TB Hotel (GC60EVR) which were both pretty easy to do and find.  We spent a good half hour to 45 minutes enjoying the view and grabbing the caches.

We drove back into Redmond to find a Walmart to grab a few things for tomorrow's excursion.  We bought some, doughnuts, milk, PBJ, bread and some laundry detergent and dryer sheets so we could wash our clothes at least once while we were here.  We already had a bunch of snacks and drinks in the cooler already.  I ended up getting a couple of $4 tank tops just because they were hard to find at our Walmart.

We grabbed one more cache, Where's Wally (GC4EB8A) in the parking lot before heading back to our hotel to relax a bit. 

Ben and I really wanted to go eat at one of the breweries in downtown Bend so we did some research on them before we said yes.  Mom and dad went to Abby's pizza with Ron.  We didn't realize they were having a block party downtown so we had to be creative.  We originally wanted to go to Deschutes Brewery but ended up at Bend Brewing Company because the line was shorter.  We actually found a parking spot when we got there.

We walked right in and there was an available table right away.  Our waitress gave us our menus and we each ordered drinks.  We both got the burger and fries and I ordered one of their multi award winning beers, the Outback Olde Ale and Ben had the Pinnacle Porter.  We were there for about an hour while we ate our food and watched the current baseball game on ESPN.

Then we strolled along the river walk (which was called Mirror Pond, a section of the Deschutes River), watched the ducks swim against the current and we crossed the bridge onto the other side where a cache, Pageant Park (GC6ENKY) awaited us. 

It looked more like someone's side yard than it did a park.  We found the pop top cache on the metal picnic table.  We didn't bring a pen with us so we took a picture of it for proof. 

We headed back across the bridge and through the river park back into downtown.  We were trying to figure out where this virtual cache, Mark, Get Set, Go? (GCG4KV) was.  It didn't give us much except puzzle like coords in the middle of the river with a picture we had to go by.  Some local overheard us and tried helping us.  She thought it was one of the old buildings by the library, which was a couple blocks to the west of us, or the police station.  We thanked her and continued on our way.  We looked at every building and eventually I found it on the Boy's and Girl's Club on the corner.  We noted our coords and took a picture.

We walked back to the street fair and wandered around for a while.  There were several bands playing different genres of music.  Some of it was catchy, some of it was familiar and some of it we just couldn't stand. 

Ben ended up finding the EMT tent and talked to a guy for a while about the program.  Basically they travel all around Oregon and are large event EMT's.  Ben wanted to go into the Deschutes Brewery to try their beer from the tap.  I was getting tired so I didn't have one.  He ordered an IPA and we just hung out until he was done.  It wasn't quite midnight when we walked back to the Escape and headed back to Redmond.

We got back to the hotel about 20 minutes later and got ready for bed.  Before I went to bed, we got on the laptop to check out some information on Crater Lake since that's where we were going tomorrow.  Today was an adventure filled, hot, long day but totally worth it!

Next Adventure:  Sister's Quilt Show, Crater Lake and Some Caching

Driving to Bend/Redmond, Oregon

A few months ago, mom talked to me about her and dad going to Bend to go to the quilt show in Sisters and to see dad's friend Ron.  I thought it would be cool to go to Bend again, its been a really long time since I was there and there were some really cool things to go and see.  I asked mom if Ben and I could go with them she said sure.  I took the Friday off so I could make the trip worthwhile.

The night before I got most of everything together so we could leave right after I get off of work.  Ben was home so he could get the rest of it done and packed in the Escape before I got home.  All I would have to do is change my clothes, pack a couple more things, grab a snack and head out.  When I got home the Escape was empty.  I was so mad.  Why wasn't the stuff packed?  He had all day!  I went in the house and he was in the bathroom getting ready to take a shower.  Why wouldn't you pack the Escape and then take a shower?  It makes more sense to get the work done and then get cleaned up not the other way around.  I ended up packing everything in about 10 minutes while he took a shower.  He threw his stuff in there when he was done.

We ended up leaving around 5:00.  I still want to know what he did all day.  I was so confused.  Anyway, it was a quiet ride down I-5, he played his games on his phone, slept for a little while and then almost to Woodburn we started talking about the situation.  I told him my side, he added his side and then we got off topic and talked about some other stuff.  Almost similar to a talk we had during the last night in the TriCities a few weeks back.

I decided to drive all the way down to Salem and cut over on Hwy 22 towards Sisters.  I probably should have taken Hwy 26 east instead.  Oh well.  We stopped and got gas and found a Fred Meyer to grab some food.  We ended up with some Lunchables, soda, vitamin waters, licorice nubs and some chips since they didn't have any popcorn.  We got back on the road.  I knew we were going to get to Redmond after 10 p.m.

We headed east towards Detroit Lake.  I really wanted to stop and get a few caches along the way.  I got on the phone and checked the map.  There were some up ahead in a town called Mill City.  It was definitely a small town.  The North Santiam River flowed through the middle of town.  The first cache, Your Four Pennies Worth (GC6TAWN), had a bunch of favorite points so we stopped.  It was located in front of Poppa Al's, one of the popular eating joints, in the area.  We weren't hungry yet so we just grabbed the cache.  This one required you to have pennies with you because you had to put them into a altered gum ball machine.  Once you put them in you turned the handle and the cache turned and a hole revealed the cache.  It was pretty cool.  We signed our names and took a few pictures.

The next one, Fish On!! Troll's Fish Too! (GC3QCAM) was down by the river near the pedestrian bridge.  There were several people fishing but they could care less about what we were doing.  It was getting a little dark, especially in the shadowy areas, and I was hoping we could find it right away before it got darker and the mosquitos came out to eat Ben.  After searching in two different places we found the medicine bottle.

That was the last time we got out of the Escape until we got to Redmond.  We drove past Detroit Lake shortly after our visit to Mill City.  I'm sure my family and I have been here in the past but it was so long ago I can't remember.  Hwy 22 seemed like it went on forever and more so when it got really dark.  It lightened up as we were going over the Santiam Pass.  We drove between Mount Washington to the south and Three Fingered Jack to the north.  You could see the lights of the cities off in the distance.

When we got to Sisters, you could smell the Pine trees, through the Escape's ventilation system.  We got to the junction where you could go to Bend, to the south, or Redmond, to the north and we wanted to go north but there was construction in the middle of the night.  It was kind of awkward on how we had to go about it.  There wasn't a lane to turn down to get to Redmond.  I pulled over and asked the construction sign holder and she pointed me through the vacant dirt lot/side of the road to the lane going to Redmond.  It was a little weird.

I could tell it was getting late because I was getting tired.  We still had at least a half hour until we got there.  I was so ready to go to bed because today was really long.  We finally arrived in Redmond about 11:00.  We made our way to the Motel 6 and called mom.  She told us the room number and Ben and I brought in the stuff we would need that night and left the rest in the Escape.

We spend the next half hour getting our beds ready on the floor with our camping gear and actually getting ready for bed.  I didn't care that we were on the floor I just wanted to go to sleep.  Around midnight is when I finally passed out.  It was glorious.

Next Adventure:  Sawyer Park, Smith Rock State Park, Madras, Crooked Bridge and Downtown Bend