It's time to move east! We left Sunriver/Bend and headed east on Hwy 20 to Ontario, Oregon. The terrain immediately turned to a very desert type of terrain from the mountain terrain of the western part of Oregon. After this picture we went through a number of canyons that were, as I commented to Janie, really neat in an ugly sort of way. This was based on the desert follage. We'll be in Idaho tomorrow. If you don't see a post for a couple of days, it's because we're just in transit east without much to report.
This morning we went to the Lava Lands National Monument just outside Sunriver. While the picture looks like they just had a forest fire, actually this was all caused by a volcano over 6,000 years ago. There are many volcanic mountains in this area.
This afternoon we drove into the National forest and then rode our bicycles down a trail to a waterfall. The ride and the waterfall were both wonderful. The mosquitoes could have been less but we lived.
Sunriver is a resort communtity that has over 20 miles of paved bicycle trails. Today we did our share of the trails along the Deschutes river and a beautiful golf course. This is one of the best locations we've seen because there is something to do for everyone and it's all great. Highly recommended if you're ever close!
After a relaxing morning, we decided to go on a kayaking trip down the Little Deschutes river in the afternoon. The trip was about 8 miles and was great fun. Thankfully, the whole trip was down stream!
We've settled into this beautiful campground full of trees for a four night stay to simply relax and pretty much do nothing. We will have campfires, read our books and anything else that might be relaxing before we head out of Oregon toward Colorado.
Karin says she takes all of her guests to visit these rock gardens and we would be no different. To say the least, the gardens are wierd and very strange.
It seems that an old farmer from Denmark started building the gardens in 1935 and continued to build until his death in 1952.
There is just about every kind of rock you can imagine in the gardens and they all came from within an 85 mile radius of the gardens.
It seems that some people have never heard of Bend, Oregon. It is a beautiful area of central Oregon set on a beautiful river. They even have their own mountain they have named "The Three Sisters", just like up in Canada.
We came here to spend a couple of days with another old video friend, Karin Cody. We've known Karin for many years but hadn't seen her for about 15 years. She looks great!
Karin lives on a couple of acres outside of Bend and has two horses, a dog, a couple of cats and eight chickens. She is living in a double-wide house while she is slowly building a new home on the property.
The first night we were here Karin through a party and had all of her friends over for a bar-be-que. It was a great evening and it was wonderful to meet all of her friends.
When we got into Hood River we had planned on spending the night at Wal-Mart because we knew we were moving on this morning but they don't allow overnight stays (most welcome us). We got a phone book and found an American Legion and were welcomed. We spent the night for free and had a great dinner there.
The trip from Hood River to Mt. Hood is filled with orchards of all types. We stopped and got some cherries, peach's, cantaloupe and corn. These places are not always the cheapest but the stuff is fress and it's a fun way to shop!
Mount Hood is not the tallest mountain we've seen but it is beautiful. It's only a little over 11,000 feet tall (Colorado is full of 14,000 foot mountains) but can easily be seen from Portland on a clear day (they actually have a few of those).
This is the Timberline Lodge located on Mount Hood at a little over 6,ooo feet in elevation. It's reported that the outside was used in the movie "The Shining". The lodge is really pretty and serves as a ski lodge in the winter.
The Bonneville dam was built on the Columbia river in 1933 and is a major producer of electricity for the area. It was built as a WPA project under Roosevelt and has been upgraded several times to produce larger amounts of electricity.
I was surprised to see that they still allow tourist into the turbine area of the dam (you know, the terrorist thing) but they did and it was interesting.
This dam was one of the first in the country to utilize fish ladders to allow the salmon to return to their spawning grounds above the dam. They are very much involved with making sure the fish are not effected by the dam. You can go into the visitor's center and actually see the fish swimming up the ladders.
This is an extremely large white sturgeon that is housed in the fish hatchery at the dam. Sturgeon can become 20 feet long and live for over 100 years. From a distance, they could easily be mistaken for a shark but, of course, they aren't dangerous.
Leaving Portland, we headed east on I84 through the Columbia River Gorge. The trip between Portland and Hood River is one fantastic view after another. It's simply gorgeous! The trip to Hood River from Portland is only about 60 miles but it took us about 5 hours. It was extremely enjoyable.
Today we decided to go see Mt. St. Helens, which is north of Portland. To start the day, we were given the wrong directions and ended up at the wrong location. By the time we finally got to the visitors center, we found out we were still 47 miles from the viewing area. We dedided that we'd seen a lot of mountains before and the only way this one was different was that half of it's top blew off back in 1980. We skipped it and drove back to Portland. About a 150 mile round trip without the payoff. Oh well, nice drive!
At least the day finished well! We had dinner with some old friends, Ellen and Marty Graham, in Portland. Marty is in a video related business and has been a friend for over 20 years. He works for a company called Rentrak. If you have ever read or heard on the news that a particular movie opened with a huge box office over the weekend, determining those figures is one of the things Marty's company does. The rest is complicated. We had a wonderful time visiting with old friends we don't see enough.
We started the day at the Evergreen Aviation Museum. This museum has all sorts of aircraft from the beginning of flight to today and they feature the Spruce Goose.
As you can see, Howard Hughe's Spruce Goose is the central point of the museum. We had seen it before when it was in Long Beach, Calif. This is the largest wooden aircraft ever built.
They even have a free wine tasting right in the museum. The wine was quite good. The museum is totally surrounded by grape vines. They have the grapes processed and labled for them by another company.
After the museum, we visited a number of wineries for wine tastings. Most of the wineries in the Willamette valley are small boutique types, rather than large national brands. The valley specializes in Pinot Noir, which is our favorite. 
We had a wonderful lunch of fresh bread, cheese, salami and, of course, wine. It was so enjoyable to just sit and sip! 
Seaside is probably the most touristy town we found on the coast but it's a lot of fun. They have an aquarium where you can feed some seals and they have arcades that would remind you of the '60s. Lots of tourist shops to spend time in. We had a very casual but fun day.
The Oregon coast is one beautiful thing after another. Today we drove an area of about 75 miles of the coast and saw many things. This is haystack rock in Cannon Beach. Very unique!
Tillamook Cheese is made along the coast in Tillamook (go figure that). They make all kinds of cheese and ice cream. It was fun to see how they made the cheese and eat some fresh ice cream.
They call this the Octopus pine. It is a sika pine that has grown a number of arms, each the size of a full tree. This was caused by the wind and the fact that this tree is open to the ocean and yet protected by the other trees. Very unique!
This is a view from Ecola State Park and is probably one of the most photographed in Oregon. It's beautiful. The beach on the left is where Keaneau Reeves handcuffed Patrick Swayze in the final scene of Point Break.
The day ended with a great dinner and a bottle (maybe a couple) of wine by the fire at the campground. We were staying at Ft. Stevens State Park and it was one of the best campgrounds we've stayed in yet.
We left Washington and crossed into Oregon. Astoria is on the northern border of Oregon and is a really neat place to visit. It's amazing how many movies (The Goonies, Kindergarden Cop and many more) have been made here.
Astoria is connected to Washington by a bridge, about 4 miles long, where the Columbia river meets the Pacific ocean. It's really pretty.
The area used to be famous for it's canneries but all have closed now due to a lack of fish. This is one of the old ones
They have a nice trolley that runs from one end of town to the other and costs $1.00 roundtrip. They also have a very good Maritime museum that we enjoyed very much.
Today we drove north into the Olympic National Park. This is Quinault lake and is extremely beautiful. We drove along the lake and had a nice picnic.
This is Ruby Beach. It's very rugged and the beach is totally made of rocks the size of baseballs. It's absolutely beautiful with the large rocks just off shore.
This beach is south of Ruby and is totally different. Instead of rocks, the beach is fine sand but is full of more driftwood than I've ever seen anywhere and it's all large (tree size). I have no idea where it all came from.
We've left the big city for the Washington coast. We're in a place called Copalis Beach, which is no more than a wide spot in the road. The beach is beautiful and stretches as far as you can see in both directions. It is virtually empty of people, of course it's only about 65 degrees.
Our campground is about 300 yards from the beach and has an easy walkway access. We'll be here for a few days and then we will head south to the Oregon coast before we head into Portland next week. 
Today we took the ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge island. Bainbridge is about a 30 minute ferry ride from the mainland. The ferry is a commuter "cattle car" that runs very frequently. The island is a residential community of about 25,000, including our friends from the video business, Cher and Mark Vrieling.
We had a wonderful visit in Cher and Mark's lovely home and then we all went out for a very nice dinner before we had to head for the ferry back to Seattle. Mark is still working (sorry Mark) and owns his own video production company. If you've ever been to a Blockbuster and seen the movie previews they play in the store, that's one of many products Mark's company produces.
A trip to Seattle wouldn't be complete without a trip to the Space Needle and we made ours. Not much to say. The base of the SN and the entire downtown area is very touristy. We walked around for a while and left.
