This morning we had coffee and juice at the hotel while we waited for rush hour to end. After packing up the car, we headed downtown to have breakfast and grab something to take with us for lunch. We ended up going to Bacon Boise, which was featured on Bacon Paradise. Mum had a biscuit with honey butter and I had three slices of bacon (spicy hot, maple rosemary and chocolate). We also picked up a BLT sandwich for our picnic lunch. One thing that I thought was cute about Bacon is that they make deliveries downtown on their “bacon bike”.
After our late breakfast, we headed west towards Bend on I-84 and then US-20. We drove along US-20 last year and enjoyed the slower pace – this year was no different. Although it started out as a sunny day, it wasn’t long before it started spitting. We stopped for a quick stretch in the Malheur Valley, in between showers, and I took a picture of the open farmland in the area.
We then entered the dry area called the Great Sandy Desert. Last year, we experienced temperatures in the mid-20’s – this year, however, it was much cooler and we were under cloudy skies. We stopped in Burns and had our BLT at a small city park, then went for a walk to explore downtown. We stopped in several of the small stores on the main street and Mum lucked out and found a pattern in the quilt shop.
After grabbing gas, we continued westward towards Bend. Not far outside of Burns, it really clouded over and we could see the fingers of rain in the distance. Before long, it was pouring rain and even hailing for a short time. Although we got stuck behind some slower vehicles, we were able to pass most of them quite easily. One diesel-pusher motorhome, however, was holding up quite a few of us in an area that was difficult to pass in – we were the second car in line behind him. When he signalled that he was pulling over, we were overjoyed and followed the car in front of us as he went to pass the motorhome. The motorhome, seeing the car behind him pass, pulled back out onto the highway, totally oblivious to our presence. Maybe it’s just me, but if you are a slow-moving vehicle and you pull over to let someone by, you let EVERY car by that you are holding up. We were able to squeeze by him without incident, but it definitely gave us both an adrenaline rush. I had originally rolled my window down slightly to wave thanks to the motorhome when I saw he was pulling over…needless to say, it wasn’t a wave that I gave him after he tried cutting us off.
We arrived in Bend around five and decided to chill at the hotel until just before seven. We then headed downtown to Deschutes Brewery Pub for dinner. I guess we should have expected that it would be busy on a Friday night of a long weekend, but we were still surprised that there was a 35-45 minute wait. Since we had no backup plan, we decided to wait. While waiting, I had a pint of Deschutes River Ale which I quite enjoyed. We were finally seated and immediately ordered a pretzel, and I grabbed a Black Butte Porter…I must say, their beers are quite good and I’m not a big beer drinker. For dinner, both Mum and I ordered wings. Mum had the Honey Sriracha and I had the Buffalo – both of us making sure that we had leftovers for tomorrow’s lunch.
After dinner, we headed back to the motel and did our Googling and Wiki’ing before getting ready for bed. Tomorrow we are heading to Ashland, via Klamath Falls. I am not sure if I will be able to post our day’s events before bed as we are going to a performance of Much Ado About Nothing at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, but I will do my best. Thanks for reading and I will talk to you soon.
L
