Traveling Dorothy: Central Oregon

We are in the Sisters/Bend/Redmond triangle. Mooch-docking at our RV’s godparents. [You mean your RV does not have godparents?] Their neighborhood is like a well groomed forest. It has to be otherwise it would burn up if a fire moved through. Some places have tornados, others hurricanes, it’s fires for the NW.

Carolyn and Bill – KoKo’s god parents

More on Wilderness areas. Not only are vehicles not allowed in them, neither are mechanized tools, like chainsaws. A tool commonly used in fire-fighting. So fires that start in wilderness areas can spread to adjacent National Forests, National Parks or private property. But who cares about the latter.

Today we did a road trip. First to Deschutes Brewery where predictably I did not like the IPA and several others brews, but we both liked two high-end brews. Yes, we. Dorothy who has always detested beer, liked them as well as I did. They are priced like single malt whisky – almost a buck an ounce. So that’s two firsts, Dorothy liked a beer and I liked something brewed on a small scale.

That’s Bill and Carolyn in the background

Lunch was delightful at McMenamins. Then we went for the hard stuff - tasting at Crater Lake. The vodka and gin were better than fine, but we really liked the Hazelnut infused vodka. {Infused has so much more class to it than flavored, don’t ya think] We will go back to the brewery for a tour and also to the distillery for a re-sample and purchases.

We look forward to enjoying the better quality of fruit and vegetables normally available in the western states. Better produce and lower costs are the norm. Not this year. We have not seen corn for less than 50 cents, cantaloupe for under $3.25, avocadoes less than $1.25, etc. A far cry from corn or cantaloupe five for a dollar and avocadoes for 50 cents or less. It could be the drought. I talked with a fellow who distributed avocadoes world-wide and he said the California crop was damaged by a disease.

All the “food” you see in the steak dinner is actually rocks. Lots of different kinds of minerals in Oregon. We have collected a few specimens for our collection.

We went back to Bend Distillery for more tasting yesterday with some chums. We had to be sure before we bought ya know. We came away with a bottle of Hazelnut Vodka and another bottle of Sweet Ginger Vodka. Our wine, liquor, beer locker is full. But, a large bottle of Not The Stoic (*) beer is cooling right now. One could spend several weeks here sampling all the brews.

We drove to Camp Sherman to jog our memories of the place. We camped there in 2010. I even managed a short Kayak ride on the Metolius River. It has got to be one of the best looking rivers in the world. It emerges crystal clear from a spring. Call it a river from a hole.

This picture was taken a few yards from where the Metolius pops up. I took this in 2010. I thought I might improve on it today. Nope. Lots of clouds around Mt. Adams, the pine tree in the center of the picture almost blocks the peak and the leafless trees in the foreground are larger and in full leaf so the water is barely visible.

Here is the gorgeous river a few miles downstream. This is where I put in the kayak in 2010. What a ride and quick too.

Besides going to Camp Sherman for memories, I wanted to get on top of Green Ridge for a vista of the Sisters and adjacent mountains. But alas… No Green Ridge.

There are other more distant ways in, but holy moly was the dust thick. Rubi, just does not need to breath it.

Took a wrong turn on the way out and discovered several Forest Service CG’s on the Metolius that we did not know about. Two manned by hosts in Lazy Daze. We stopped and talked with one of them. On the way back, I recalled that Jim and Gayle had been hiking with them this spring.

Dorothy advises that we have spent 1320 nights in KoKo.

(*) Not The Stoic beer label advises that is a Belgian-Styled Quad of stirring depth and complexity. It is brewed with pomegranate molasses and aged in both oak wine barrels and oak rye whiskey barrels. It’s 12% by volume.