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July 19, 2004

Weekend Out of Hippyville

I have been frustrated by Eugene and its high number of hippy types so Anthony put together a last minute (as in 6pm Friday night last minute) weekend in Central Oregon. Being that I had no idea what there was to see or do, I left it to him.

Things got off to a solid start with our check in at a sweet ass little bed and breakfast, the Cricketwood, that had a cancellation. When we walked in, Jim, one of the owners, showed us around and how much good stuff was included. Anthony doesn't have a TV so when I heard the words "satellite TV" I was ecstatic. I could rot my brain again- and I did so by watching Ocean's Eleven and Chicken Run.

Jim and Tracy recommended heading over to the Deschutes Brewery for their Saturday tastings. According to Anthony, this is one of the area's best microbrew beers so we HAD to go. I must say, I was impressed. The way the guys run the tastings is really no different than how wineries do, basically from light to dark. We had half pints of four of their different beers, Twilight, Cinder Cone, Mirror Pond, and Black Butte. Normally, I'm not a dark beer kind of girl, but the Black Butte was pretty damn yummy. Next time I'm out, I may just have to order that up.

Later in the evening, we cruised around downtown Bend. I figured it'd be this shitty little hick town, but to my surprise, it has some nifty little shops. Nothing was so compelling as to cause my credit card to twitch, but still good stuff. The most memorable part of the evening was while we were sitting at a Thai restaurant, watching a cycle rickshaw go by. I thought I was hallucinating because rickshaws are an Asian phenomenon and we had just been talking about my hatred of their drivers. To top it off, the passengers were several of the prissy cheeseball girls who were on the brewery tour with us and they waved.

When we got back to Cricketwood, we grabbed a local guidebook to skim through and I found a blurb on this place called the Great Obsidian Flow. The whole area is filled with active and "inactive" volcanos so there's lots of random debris and/or volcanic rock lying about. It sounded like a vaguely hostile place, so we decided to stop by.

The Great Obsidian Flow would make a great Hell or an even better Mordor. The whole place consists of chunks of razor sharp obsidian glass with hunks of pumice mixed in for diversity. You can either cut your feet open, or exfoliate them- a good mix of choices I thought, especially when you're wearing platform flip flops like I was.

It started to rain so we moved on to our next destination, Crater Lake. On the way, there were large patches of snow, so I felt I just HAD to make a snowball, you know being JULY and in hot weather and all. It seemed like a novelty. I was desperate for snow in Jan/Feb, but now here it is in July.

Anyway, Crater Lake was created 7700 years ago when a volcano blew up and generously donated shitloads of ash to the local environment. At the top, water has now accumlated so as to form a pristine lake. I didn't think it'd be that big but when we walked over the ridge, here is what I saw (please excuse the poor Photoshopping- it's a challenge without a mouse). Pretty impressive methinks. That little island in the middle is from when the volcano started to get restless again. It's called Wizard's Island. After a few more photos we drove around the crater, and finally out of the park.

We met up with Heather, Ant's friend from college in Roseburg, on the way back from Crater Lake. She works with animals and I learned the interesting fact that female snakes have penises. Who would have thought?

One final thing... as we passed by a church we saw this sign. I knew what they meant, but I think they need to rethink their wording in the future.


Posted by Claudia on July 19, 2004 03:10 PM
Category: Oregon
Comments

A snowball in the summer, that is cool! and snakes.... (shudder)

Posted by: dusty on July 20, 2004 04:48 AM

too many people with deep clothes eh...

Posted by: Madhu on July 20, 2004 11:19 AM



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