Sight seeing in Bend Oregon

Location, Bend, OR

Our day began with a trip to Fred Meyer for groceries. This is one bigggg store. They have a lot of doors to enter, one for every department I think.

There is a big lava flow south east of Bend called Newberry National Monument. We drove out to see it in late morning. Our “old farts card”, excuse me, Golden Access Card, got us in for free. There are several campgrounds, a very nice waterfall, two resorts, an RV park, and the lava flow. We stopped at the waterfall for a quick view and unfortunately, forgot to take the camera with us so no pictures. Bummer!

The lava flow has a 3/4 mile round trip hike up several flights of metal stairs and through the lava to a very nice overlook. It was overcast which made for nice hiking. This could be a very uncomfortable hike on a hot day. The obsidian is very sharp as one tourist found out after handling a piece of it and receiving a cut finger for his troubles. The flow is estimated to be 1300 years old.

We checked out the RV Park which has about 15 pull through sites for big rigs plus back in sites. They raised the rates this year to $25 plus $2 for taxes. All sites are gravel and have water and electric with a dump station nearby. Across the road is the East Lake Resort which has cabins, a store, small café, and a coffee trailer. Fishing appeared to be good.

We stopped at a fishing access area with picnic tables for a quick lunch.

We decided to drive to Mt Batchelor before returning to camp but took the wrong road and ended up in a housing area called Sunriver. It looked like vacation homes all set in a wooded area with bike paths going everywhere. It reminded us of Hot Springs Village in Arkansas. It had the worst road system I have ever seen. No stop signs but all roundabouts. Confusing is an under statement. We eventually found the “Village Mall” and a way out. By then we decided we had enough for the day so went back to Fred Meyer for fuel. At $2.73 per gallon, it is the cheapest so far on the trip.

I made reservations for Fall City RV Park in Fall City, Washington for Saturday and Sunday night. It being close to the 4th of July weekend and a big camping holiday; it seemed like the best thing to do. Tomorrow we are off to the Columbia River and Peach Beach Campground at Maryhill. I doubt if there will be WI-fi there. It has been great having free and solid Wi-fi here at Scandia in Bend.