La Pine State Park, near Bend, OR
The winds picked up again on the Columbian River Gorge this morning, which was much appreciated. It was so strange and unusual yesterday to see the Columbian River so still. I'm sure all the windsurfers in the campground were relieved too! Knowing that it was going to be another scorcher we headed for Mt. Hood, with a side trip through the Hood River Valley fruit loop. We stopped at the different farms and sampled every kind of cherry available! My favorite stop was the lavender farm. The brilliant display of flowers next to the lavender field with Mt. Hood in the background was spectacular. Loaded down with Rainer, Bing and Santa Rosa cherries we headed for the mountain.
The biggest surprise when we entered the parking area of Timberline Lodge was how jammed packed it was, including about 50 buses. There was even someone directing traffic. Turns out that Mt. Hood is open for summer skiing - who knew?! It didn't look like great skiing, but every middle school, high school, and summer camp ski team was there. According to the staff at the lodge this ski resort is open through August and September, only shutting down a few weeks for maintenance. It was funny seeing people in tank tops, shorts & flip flops walking next to snowboarders and skiers with jackets, powder pants and helmets on.
To continue with our tradition of eating at all the great lodges of the Northwest, after taking a tour of Timberline we stayed for awhile and enjoyed a nice lunch. Surprisingly, it was pretty low key given how many skiers and summer vacationers were wandering around and the plethora of buses in the parking lot. (I'd definitely recommend the apple and hazelnut salad and Ned said his Cubano Panini was delish).
As we drove off the mountain and into Eastern Oregon the temperature was edging towards 103. Our goal for the night was to find a campground where we could swim, soak or just cool off. We drove by Cove Palisades campground, but it looked too darn hot in the desert-like terrain with the heat baking everything in sight. Next stop Tumalo State Park that had campsites right on the river. Unfortunately, the campground was full. We continued south and finally found an awesome campground a bit south of Bend. It's called LaPine and true to its name is located in a nice pine forest. In fact, Oregon's biggest tree, a 500 year old Ponderosa Pine, resides here. We found a great camp spot in a wooded area and couldn't wait to jump on our bikes to explore this rather expansive state park. We found a dirt trail in the woods and decided to follow it. As luck would have it the trail took us along the Deschutes River. The river looked picture perfect and so inviting!! We rode along the trail for awhile then decided to head back to camp, pull on our bathing suits, grab our floaties and go for a swim. We located a perfect spot along the river, were delighted that we had it all to ourselves, blew up our floaties and ventured into the water. HOLY SMOKE - DANG - $%^&@# - this was the coldest water ever!!! We were on tippy toes, holding onto our floaties for dear life and could barely tolerate getting wet up to our knees. I'm talking brain freeze. This water makes Lake Tahoe seem like a warm bath. So, here we are so darn hot and we can't even get cooled off in the water. We tried sprinkling it over us, but even that was just too darn cold. Time for Plan B. When we were riding on the bike trail we noticed the day use area across the river. Little kids were swimming in there. We thought perhaps the water was warmer there and came up with all kinds of scientific theories - there's a wide spot in the bend, it's shallower, etc. We convinced ourselves that the day use area was nirvana and we were just going to have to join the public. We had a bit of a bike ride to get there and our floaties were now blown up. We looked like complete idiots in our bathing suits with floaties around our neck riding through the park. We laughed so hard that I almost fell off my bike. (That and I couldn't turn my head to see anything). After a bit of a bike ride, and even hotter yet, we eventually made our way there. Again, floaties in hand we entered the water. AGH. Too cold for me! We watched little kids run in and out of the water and a few brave souls float down the river in big inner tubes, but no one was really swimming in the water. It sure made me miss the South Fork of the Yuba River back home. Nothing, I mean nothing beats swimming in that!
Since we failed miserably at getting wet in the river, we decided to take a spin through the park and check out all the attractions. We saw the biggest tree and made our way to MacGregor's Viewpoint. Both pretty impressive. We finally got cooled off back at the campground with some nice cold beers.
