DAY 7: OREGON

Throughout the night, the two space heaters battled the temperatures that were dropping outside the A Frame. It was ten degrees when I woke up at 6:15am, and though it had been a little chillier than I had expected inside, it was a luxury compared to the tent! While I’ve had a good experience with cool and cold weather camping throughout the week, I don’t think I’m quite ready to attempt camping in temps this cold.

I forced myself out of the warm blankets, gathered some clothes and walked over to the bathrooms in the hostel building to shower and get ready. It was only after I’d set everything out that I realized I had forgotten my towel, still in my car from the hot springs last night. I ran back to get my car keys, but halfway back to the shower I realized I’d forgotten to grab the towel. Back and forth in the cold, and brain not fully functioning. Walking on the dark path without a flashlight, I tripped on one of the pieces of low log fencing and skinned my shin. Was it the cold or the early hour? I was struggling.

Things picked up from there with a nice hot shower and time to get ready. On the way back to the room, a two minute walk, my wet hair froze in crunchy curls. I packed and loaded the car while heating water in the microwave for instant coffee and making oatmeal with brown sugar -- an amazing treat on a cold morning!

Once the car was loaded, Portland and I took a walk across highway 21 to a little path past a barbed wire fence that was suggested on our check in page. The short path led down through a field of thick crystal frosted, hay colored grasses and to Valley Creek, with great views of the snowy grey Sawtooths. Somehow, the walk down to the creek wasn’t too bad, but I think both Portland and I hit the same point down by the water where we realized how bitter cold of a morning it was and rushed back to the camp, running through the field and across the street.

I loaded Portland into the back seat, wrapping him in a fleece blanket and turned the car on to heat up while I grabbed the last of the things inside and we pulled around the main building in search of a stronger WIFI signal. I’ve never thought of WIFI or relied on it as much as I have this week.

I had originally hoped to be on the road by 8am to make the planned rendezvous with my best friend Liz in Bend, Oregon at 4pm. Then I remembered that I still had one more Time Warp bonus hour left. Hooray Pacific Time Zone! So that bought me time to finish and post the blog from my moving office in the front seat of the Subaru.

Just as I was finishing up the post and ready to publish, a flash of orange movement caught my eye in front of the car. I looked up to see a big red fox trotting into the campsite, fluffy signature tail trailing behind. The first (and only) other time I’ve seen a red fox in the wild was with Dad in Breckenridge, CO back in 2016. We were leaving a burger place after a late night dinner and getting into our car when Dad said he thought he’d just seen a kangaroo. I didn’t believe him, of course, but I pulled the car around the corner into a neighborhood where our headlights caught a red fox in the bushes by a house. Seeing the fox this morning made me know I was in the right place, and getting on the road a bit late had paid off.

From Stanley rv + camp, a left turn out of the parking lot onto highway 21 put us right where we needed to be. Driving through several National Forests, but spending the most time this morning in Boise National Forest, where the long drive took us on winding roads through the mountain tops and back down again. Drives like these can be tiring because of the constant maneuvering and attention required, but they never feel like a real part of the driving hours. I like to view it as taking a scenic tour that adds to my experience of the area.

The drive was beautiful, through the mountains and forests, passing Kirkham Hot Springs, where I’d originally planned to stop along my drive. Now, the idea of another hot spring seemed like too much trouble, but the hot spring looked beautiful from the overlook on the highway. The drive through the mountains showed off the different types of rock texture and color that make up the mountains, and levels of vegetation from low lying shrubs to thin or dense forests of pine, and burned pines left standing after past fires in the area.

Today was a great day for capturing selfies with Smokey the Bear, a fun little collection I started earlier in the trip. There is a Facebook bet to see who can guess how many selfies I’ll get by the end of the trip. As of today, we’re up to five!

After over two hours of driving, I made it through the mountains and was headed toward Boise, then on toward eastern Oregon. It hit me within the last day or so how odd it is actually driving to Oregon. I’ve visited countless times, always flying, but now I know how far the distance really is in between Pennsylvania and Oregon, and exactly what’s out there. Somehow, that seems important when your best friend is regularly a voice over the phone, thousands of miles away.

I had been shocked when I pulled up the drive time for today, almost eight hours! I thought it would be a bit shorter, but mountains cause trouble for getting anywhere fast. It was a very easy drive though, mostly on one road the whole way through eastern Oregon -- a part of the state that I have never been to, and I’m not sure how many of my Oregonian friends have been there either. Much more similar in landscape to Wyoming or Idaho, golden and tan colored grasses and groundcover with mountains and spotty trees.

Oregon seemed to get hit especially hard by the wildfires this year, and on one part of my drive through the mountains near a small town called Juntura, the air was filled with smoke and the haze was spread out for miles.

I listened to music all day today on Spotify. I had downloaded a few albums in addition to my playlist this morning, and listened to Israel Nash’s Rain Plans, recommended by my friend, Brendan, first thing on my mountain drive.

Getting to Oregon had felt like such a milestone in my cross country plan, and the hours of travel across the eastern part of the state didn’t seem to matter, because I was here!

I got a call from Liz around 3:30pm, she had just arrived at the Campfire Hotel in Bend and was wondering about my ETA. We had planned to talk during the drive, but both had spotty reception, but I talked to her for the last ten minutes of my drive, sharing excitement as I got closer and closer until I got to park next to her in the lot and jump out to run and give her a hug. So much excitement! It didn’t wear off for a while, either. I just kept repeating, I can’t believe I’m here in Oregon...I can’t believe I drove here!

We went on and on about how cute and perfect the hotel is -- Liz had spent most of our phone call telling me that. But it was. This place is pretty much my dream hotel. A campground themed hotel, close to downtown, and pretty much brand new, it had just opened earlier this month, and we only found it after the trip was rescheduled. It was perfect, down to the last detail of the entranceway with pillars disguised as trees, metal birds flying above, a camp store, fireplace and free s’mores kits inside the beautiful woodland themed lobby. The large community fire ring, pool and hot tub form community areas in the courtyard that is filled with trees decorated in warm glowing orange string lights. Large outdoor chairs and furniture cut from logs. The rooms are cute, too, with mural sized historic photos set as feature walls, lawn chairs, plenty of space for gear, and camp blankets on the beds. Oh, yeah. Obviously they’re dog friendly, too!

We got into our room and kind of ran around settling in and taking pictures and just relaxing for a minute before deciding what to do next. I was in the glow of getting here, feeling the emotions of “finally!” and “already?” at the same time.

A walk up to the lobby let us explore the gift shop and I grabbed a cup of coffee. Then, we got Portland ready and loaded him into the back all weather-lined trunk of Liz’s CRV. Of course, she wanted me to drive, so I obliged, and we drove just five minutes or so to Pilot Butte, which I’d passed on the way in.

We did this hike together one morning in late summer of 2018, a “death march” as Liz insists on calling them. We split a slice of Starbucks’ pumpkin loaf that Liz had picked up for us as a snack, and then headed over to the trailhead and started up the inclined path that had a surface of slightly packed sand that I didn’t really remember. It was odd, and I noted how so many of the hikes we’ve done on this trip have been on a sandy trail surface.

As we climbed up around and around the Butte in a spiral of circles, there were great views of the Bend area, especially with the fall colors on trees and dramatic clouds, some of which seemed to threaten rain, but it held off.

At the top, we walked around the observation area and took some pictures, then headed back down the same path we had walked up. The total hike took us under an hour, but it felt so good to get some movement in after our long drive -- and for Portland, especially.

We were all dusty at the bottom and had to stamp dust out of our shoes. Portland seemed a little less freaked out by a ride in the trunk the second time around, and in no time we were back at the hotel. We let Portland get settled and sleepy as we freshened up and added a layer before our walk into downtown.

It seemed like a little less than a mile, and when we got there, we immediately came to Deschutes Brewery's Bend Public House. We’ve eaten there before, maybe a few times. It seemed like an obvious choice, but there was a line of people outside and we weren’t hungry just yet. We moseyed through town looking at the different restaurant options and remembering places we’d been the last time we were here in 2018. It’s so funny how it can seem like such a long time since you’ve been in a place, but when you return it’s like no time at all has passed and you can remember the small details like which street a certain shop or restaurant is on.

We passed cute boutique shops that were all closed even though it was just before 7pm. A lot of the restaurants had sidewalk or tent seating for COVID, and had set up sidewalk detours onto the edge of the street to help pedestrians with social distancing. We saw a few cute options for dinner tomorrow night, but ended back at Deschutes. The line was gone but it was still an hour wait, which was okay with us.

We wandered back down the street, and ended up at Bonta, a gelato shop on a side street that we had been to before. Dessert first, why not? It was in the mid 50’s outside, so we sat inside to eat our single scoops of fun flavors. Liz got a peanut butter and chocolate, with chocolate sprinkles that they put on the side. She remarked that when she lowered her gelato spoon into the sprinkles, it reminded her of one of those magnetized grabbers where the little magnet balls stick to the pin. I was curious about the golden milk flavor, but it was vegan so the scoop girl suggested two flavors and for my other half I chose lemon marionberry cream. Both were delicious, but I think I may have liked the vegan golden milk a bit better!

We took our time enjoying dessert and then slowly made our way back to Deschutes, where we sat on the wall outside and pretty soon our table was ready. Sitting upstairs was a nice shift from the busy feel on the first floor, and our server’s name was also Sarah. With an H. I was in the mood for a darker beer, but they didn’t have any pub exclusives in a stout or porter, so I tried the Squeezy Rider west coast IPA, and it was tasty.

We split loaded “gtp” (garlic, truffle oil, parmesan) fries as an appetizer and added bacon and jalapeno, and for dinner Liz got a meathead pizza and I couldn’t resist the elk burger. My mind is filling in the blanks about seeing a lot of wild game in my travels this week...but I won’t go there. It’s easy to ruin elk, but they did it well -- as in medium rare. Since we had already had our dessert, we definitely hit a wall at the end of our meal.

It seemed like we were back to the hotel in no time, and I went to the front desk to get s’more skewers and ask about hot water and a microwave since there isn’t one in the room. The fire pit area is just outside our door, which is nice because we can keep an eye on how busy it is. There were a few people and a dog, so we decided to wait a bit. I did yoga, feeling like I was in a food and garlic coma. Then I walked our metal drink tumblers up to the lobby for hot water for Liz’s favorite Aveda calming tea that she’d brought for us.

I’m writing, and Portland has abandoned my bed for Liz’s. Traitor. It was sad that they turned off the firepit at 10pm as they’d said they would, but we can make s’mores another night. It was a long day, and the weekend is ours. So great to be grounded for a few days, and this bed at the Campfire Hotel is so comfy and calling my name. 2,954 miles driven across the country in seven days. If there’s a perfect place for R & R, that place is Oregon for me.