Copper's Playground

This is where Copper enters the story. This goober, god bless’em. He loved that dang yard. He started every day like it was a job. As soon as we were up to let him out, he’d clock in and would work to drag his nose across every square inch of that yard. It was like 2 acres. He’d come in and crash from exhaustion or we’d force him to come in. It was still fairly hot in Bend at that point as well, so he’d be panting and beat. He’d then pop up later, and clock back in for another shift, as long as we’d let him. After a few days of this, we started to notice this addiction was not wearing off. Instead, like a crack fiend, he started to develop rashes! His nose was literally being rubbed off. We had not seen this before in his life, so we weren’t sure what to do and started trying different tactics. We tried limiting yard time, but and finally broke down and bought a muzzle. This actually worked to protect his snoot, but he looked ridiculous. I couldn’t help but compare him to Bane from the Dark Knight. “You merely adopted the sniffs. I was born in it.”

You’d think that’s where the Copper stories end, but no. We soon discovered the source of the pure passion he displayed at his job. As I worked my own job, sitting in the office overlooking the front entrance through the window, I’m sitting on a Zoom call - as I do - and trying to be professional, when I look up and see a huge rack, sitting atop a giant mule deer. This deer works his way along the fence and beside my Jeep, about 50 yards through the window. I continue to attempt to focus when he hops the fence and beds down under an apple tree, possibly 20-30 yards from me through the window. This became a common occurrence, sometimes just the one, but other times there were 3 or 4 of them. Over the course of our stay, the deer would pass through, drop some scents, and Copper would diligently analyze every inch of yard. As we closed out our time in Bend, there was an epic climax to this plot line. Picture Copper out in the yard, 20 yards away from a mule deer, barking his head off. The deer bowing his head and all 12 points of his antlers towards him. Annie is running towards him with pinecones, and I’m running towards the deer looking for a rock. We finally startled him off, but this deer was territorial. 

Ok, you’d think that would be all from Copper, right? Wrong. He also manages to split one of his toenails vertically, all the way up and down. We took him to a vet, we tried to put him in booties to contain it. We struggled to treat this guy and contain his energy in spite of it all. This particular thread we’ll pick back up on in the Seattle post, but Copper was and is… special. He’s always been high maintenance, but good grief, this was another level.

So what about Bend? Did we ever leave our deer sanctuary of a yard? Indeed.

The River

If it’s not already known and obvious, the Deschutes River is a major defining characteristic of the city. It stretches across the entirety of the city and is the perfect lazy river. It spans wide and rolls past parks, the concert venue, the shops and restaurants of the Old Mill District (including the Confluence fly shop where we occasionally popped in to enjoy their small bar with beer on draft), and flows all the way to the Columbia River, which then continues through Portland and out to the Pacific. The Deschutes is split into the Upper, Middle, and Lower sections, coming from the Cascade Lakes region, the Middle coming through the city, and the Lower being north of the city up to the Columbia.

We spent time enjoying multiple parts of this river, the first and primary activity being floating in the Middle Deschutes. We bought tubes and found it so easy to drop in from a park, float down right by the “Old Mill” which was converted into this amazing REI (which we visited and became formal members), and pass by the handful of murals decorating the greenway running across the river and through town. You could see the concert venue from the water (no tickets necessary), and then encounter the whitewater park. There are some small “rapids” to roll over, and to the right as you pass through a man-made wave zone where many surfers would practice surfing in a manufactured wave. With more time, I would definitely try this out. After the whitewater section, which was a mid-way point, you float calmly down to the put out zone where you can hop a shuttle back and do it again ($4 for unlimited rides!).

I also made several trips to view the water from a different vantage point, with a fly rod in hand. The Upper Deschutes has the Fall River tributary, which has a Trout hatchery. I tried my hand there with no real luck as a first attempt. This led us down some real backroads and Annie joined for the nature aspect, while I gave the fly fishing an attempt. In spite of my lack of success that day, it was the first day out all year for me and I was itching for more.

I then decided to set up a guided trip on the Crooked River. This river was about an hour away from Bend, further east. It had a different vibe as well. More western, not nearly as many trees. But I had a lot of success. I ended up with probably 10 mountain white fish. Not so much luck with the trout.

And then towards the end of our stay, Annie’s Mom, Susan, and her partner Luis came to Bend to visit and they were interested in a guided trip as well. On this occasion we got to experience more of the Upper Deschutes, visiting Sheep Bridge right below the Wickiup Reservoir. This was an awesome fishery, as the flows depend on time of year and with more flow from the spring melt, it is generally filled up. It’s essentially a lake. At the end of the summer, however, it had drained and was a meandering river with giant fish. We hit it at a really interesting time of year, we soon found out. 

We were starting out and Susan pretty quickly had a hit and pulled in the first rainbow trout. Luis then snagged a fish and it jumped in the air as it came off the hook, and the colors we saw had the guide and I confused - it didn’t seem like the typical or expected rainbow trout, brown trout, or mountain white fish expected there at the time of year. There was this flash of deep red, some green, and some yellow.

As we looked closer through at the water, especially from the right vantage points above the water, we could see there were tons of Kokanee salmon, which are “landlocked Sockeye salmon”. They fight their way upstream to spawn and lay eggs but they were early this year . Their entire body changes colors to bright red, yellow, and greens, and you could see them easily the more we paid attention. They’d span 20 inches or more and really stand out. While they typically don’t eat during the spawn, they were early and we were excited to get lines in the water and see if they’d hit it. After a few trout and whitefish, I finally got a hit, fought and let the Kokanee take the line, worried it would slip off the line as they apparently are known to rub the hooks off against the actual “sheep bridge” along the water - this wooden structure that was no longer in use. After some time, I finally pulled in my first Kokanee. All of us managed to have a good day with maybe 20 or so that we brought into our net (all catch and release).

Another tributary was Tumalo Creek. It was practically in our backyard from our AirBnB, with a great park just down the road. We noticed many people using this river to float and we visited a few times to hike and explore it.

There are many other times we spent admiring the amazing Deschutes river and its tributaries, from overlooking the river from Deschutes brewery with live music, or from our bikes, or crossing over it to do one thing or another. It has to be said, I love this river!

Mountain Biking

Another great highlight in Bend is the access to mountain biking. To be honest, we didn’t take as much advantage as we hoped to, but we definitely got out a good number of times. There’s “Phil’s Trail”, a popular system of mountain bike trails of varying difficulties. We got out to the Deschutes river trail and explored a few routes there. The first time there and the section we chose was so perfect - not too difficult, great workout, and it gave us great views of the river all along the way. Several fast and flowy descents, and some challenging but manageable uphill climbs. We also visited Shevlin Park a few times which has some nice trails for both biking and hiking.

The pinnacle of our biking experience in Bend, however, would have to be our visit to Mt. Bachelor. Ski resort by winter, bike park by summer, we could send our bikes up the lifts and enjoy the amazing downhill terrain. Our experience with downhill has not been extensive - we’ve done downhill at Breckenridge and Trestle bike park (Winter park ski area). That said, Mt. Bachelor had some interesting characteristics. It’s essentially a dormant volcano and is covered in lava rock. Not quite like Hawaii with dark black crust from recent flows, but a grayish-black rock that was just piled up in random areas, not only at Mt. Bachelor but all around Bend. There’s also Newberry National Volcanic Monument right outside of Bend (did not visit this time around), but the entire area is very “volcanic” once you dig down below the pines.

Mt. Bachelor bike park had some amazing flowy trails. And I thought it was interesting to see this cement latticework that was used in parts of the trails, which seemed to help contain some of the loose dusty dirt around some of the corners. Riding over it at first was unusual but it built up some confidence in the control it afforded. If you’ve ridden some loosely packed dirt around a corner, you’ll know what I mean.

The Food and Drink Scene

When I think about our experience at Bend, another thing that stands out is how they approached restaurants, bars, and breweries. I’ve seen plenty of food trucks and I’ve seen cities that have a handful of breweries – Colorado of course is known for breweries as well. But Bend has a vibe. They have food truck parks galore. Some stable, some floating. They have festivals and pop-ups and food trucks just flock everywhere you go. The food truck parks, like Midtown Yacht Club, were especially interesting, with a stable address, picnic tables set up, a stable bar, but then multiple food truck options where you can just relax outside and choose from the many options (including vegan!).

The breweries were also great. We visited Deschutes Brewing on our first day, and Worthy Brewing was a standout option (I finally found another golden stout there, which is a favorite). And if you recall our 2021 experience, we got to revisit the now-years-open Immersion Brewing, which was having their grand opening when we passed through. It was crazy experiencing the city years later and remembering those fun times.

While we’re on the brewery topic, there was another theme or trend we noticed at breweries……. birds. There were multiple times we experienced people coming to breweries with their pet birds. Multiple times. At Worthy, there was a majestic white Cockatoo that was dancing with the music. At Sunriver Brewery, this dark black bird managed to exist feet away from us while we tried to distract Copper and Bennett.

And, lastly, if we are talking about food and drink, we have to make note of McMeniman’s. It’s apparently a whole thing in the PNW. There are more than 50 McMeniman locations and many of them are converted historic buildings or locations. The one in Bend we visited was previously a historic schoolhouse, the Old St. Francis School. Now, it’s converted into a mix of hotel, bar, cigar bar, and restaurant. Oh, and there’s a unique indoor pool. We visited a few times there but what stands out most was the speakeasy. You go into the hotel, up the elevator, and find the “broom closet”. You go into a room that literally looks like somewhere you shouldn’t be, with brooms on the wall, then you enter into a hidden bar. We enjoyed some memorable cocktails there and our first introduction to the McMeniman’s concept, which we’d continue on to find again in Portland (on the way to Seattle).

We did fit in a few other notable stops in this category as well:

• Ponch’s Place
• The Bite at Tumalo-another brewery/food truck spot
• Stoller Vineyard tasting room
• Fix & Repeat – Great little breakfast/lunch spot that we enjoyed on a Saturday workday

More Nature & Outdoors

There was truly a plethora of outdoor activities right outside our door, and we had many memorable experiences, while getting out a little bit every day. Some for hiking, some for exploring, and some literally in our own backyard:

• Riley Ranch hike (Annie hopped out after work one day on her own, and hit a local, decent spot for some steps)
• Cascade Lakes Scenic Byway (a 66-mile long stretch connecting many small lakes in the region. We made a couple of stops on this before Copper’s pain due to his nail issue had us turning back home :/). 
• Smith Rock State Park (stunning WestWorld-style landscape, right off the parking lot. Hiking down into a canyon with incredible views)
• Annie Blue Lake hike (Grant went fly fishing one day, so Annie went hiking! A moderate hike through a classic PNW fairy-forest vibe, out to a heart-shaped small blue lake. Was treated to a cliff-jumper plunging into the 37 degree water)
• Exploring the town of Sisters (this is a fun one because every building, sign, gas station, etc. is in a Western-style. Even the Les Schwab tires was on theme!)
• Meteor shower (we were lucky enough to experience a meteor shower one night while in Bend-we drug our lawn chairs out into the middle of the 2+ acre yard and craned our necks upward to take in the show)
• GoodDog! (a huge-but dry this time of year-dog park with lots of hiking trails and off leash space, dedicated for the dogs. We didn’t spend too much time here because there wasn’t much to see and it was pretty dusty)
• Discovery Park (a lovely housing area with a dog park and a small community of businesses close by)
• Annie also made a couple of stops at local spas–nothing particularly notable, but solid experiences (Earth Body Spa and Spa W)

It was here that we turned the TV back on, having been fully cut off since we left on our trip (with the exception of F1, of course). We piggybacked on a Peacock account to watch the Olympics and of course, had to watch the UK Love is Blind season. We have since sparingly used TV, and are challenging ourselves to very sparingly tune in. 

Finally, Annie had a house nemesis from early on in our stay. There was a light in the kitchen that mysteriously would be on and off, seemingly on a timer. It had no switch that we could find, and there was no clear reason as to why it would be on or off at any given time. Come to learn, longer into the stay than we’d like to admit–it was a shaded skylight.

That’s a wrap on Bend! In our next post, we'll share our journey to Nehalem on the Oregon Coast, our brief stopover in Portland, and our stint in Seattle. We have fallen woefully behind in our blog duties, as we've moved on from Seattle to Columbia Falls, MT, and we'll soon be in Sedona, AZ. We hope to get caught up soon!