Advertisement
Published: August 11th 2014
Edit Blog Post
We say goodbye to cool Portland and head roughly south east into central Oregon towards Bend. Miles of highway through endless forest over undulating terrain. We pass by Mount Hood, another active/inactive volcano looming large to the north of us. We take a comfort stop at what purports to be a ski station with a few sad two person chairs hanging inert in the now chilly air, and seemingly half of Mexico on a road trip also taking their comfort break here. Unlike us, they have broken open the jumbo size cooler boxes and appear to be starting a party.
The endless forest gives way to high plains, low scrub and endless horizons, the Cascades away to the east in the haze. We look in vain for cowboys, but none are to be found as there are no cattle here. Just scrub. We stop at a bridge over a gorge for lunch, it turns out to be the longest and one of the oldest steel arch bridges in Oregon. We are distressed by the signs imploring visitors not to let their dogs out of the car, to avoid the risk of the dog falling into the gorge to its
death. Eventually we reach Bend. The only reason for going there is that it is too far to drive to Redding comfortably in one day. Our hotel is a "resort", full of families taking their recreation for the weekend. There is nothing wrong with it, and nothing right either.
We decide not to dine with all the guests in the hotel but to venture to the fish restaurant across the road. It looks full, and we have to wait 20 minutes for a table. Eventually we are seated and admire the menu. We order and our wine comes. A second waitress appears to show our waitress how to serve wine. She struggles with the corkscrew then invites each of us in turn to taste the wine, which is served in small tumblers. Maybe not a good start. The starters come. And then....time passes. The waiting staff appear to disappear. Time continues to pass and David flips, with family approval. He finds the manager. "Where is our food?" He looks apologetic. Some food arrives. Unfortunately it is all inedible. David loses it but with ice cold politeness, summons the manager and informs him it is all inedible. He shrugs and
says "I can only apologise, you will not be charged for anything". No explanation. Clearly there has been a kitchen disaster. Slightly well refreshed from the wine and James' drink, we head back to the hotel. We take dessert. Delicious but a most unbalanced evening's dining which leaves us all feeling slightly unwell
Next day we depart Bend for Redding. The Deschutes National Forest, an endless road, dead straight, through.....trees. The day is enlivened only by forest fires, and lots of firetrucks and tenders driving around and putting out fires. We later discover there are 5 separate forest fires, covering over 100,000 acres in total, with almost 1900 firefighters drafted in to tackle them. Some of them turn out to be staying in our hotel, with their trucks lined up in a neat row.
Redding is HOT. The car tells us it is 100 degrees as we enter town, and it remains that hot well into the evening.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.286s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 22; qc: 100; dbt: 0.1167s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb