Road Trippin'

I may have mentioned this before, but one of my earliest indicators that Train (the boyfriend formerly known as "The Old Curmudgeon") and I would probably be okay in a relationship was that we spent four days in a car together fairly early in our association and still wanted to associate afterwards. Even after we were detained by the Canadian border patrol, which is a fun story in itself.

Since then, we've gone on a number of day trips together. Often we even take my kid. However, my birthday was this past Thursday (I'm 31 now! Le gasp!) and to mark the occasion we decided to take a little road trip to the middle of a hot desert... a place I really, really love. Train and the Chamaco, however, are both "meh" on the subject of hot deserts, and we elected to leave the Chamaco with my parents where we reasoned he would probably enjoy himself more. Especially considering that this was an overnight trip, and another person means more hotel expenses. We are ruthlessly practical like that.

So, we dropped the Chamaco off at my parents' house Friday night after my birthday party (anyone know any good crockpot recipes? I got a crockpot!) and early-ish Saturday morning we headed out in the direction of Bend, Oregon. For anyone not from Oregon who pictures Oregon as a lush, green place, I feel obliged to inform you that pretty much anything east of the Cascades is sand and sagebrush, and Bend is right in the middle of the High Desert. Our desert is not very creatively named.

Right after you come down out of the Cascades, the first thing you see looks a bit like this:

This is the first indicator that you are not in Kansas anymore, so to speak. The above picture was taken in the Warm Springs/Madras area alongside the highway. And I may as well mention now, I was experimenting with my iPhone's panorama picture feature a lot on this trip, with some pretty good results. 

We had lunch at a McDonalds in Redmond, and I'm so enamored of deserty places that I even took pictures in the McDonald's parking lot in Redmond. Yes, that's how sad I am. And I'm going to force that upon you now.

Yes, the lawn is green, but what's with the giant sand-hill in the background??

Anyway, somewhere around Terrebonne there exists a place called Smith Rock State Park, which is one of my new favorites. Also, apparently a few people die there every year because they do stupid stuff like free-climb the vertical rock faces and tightrope between outcroppings of rock with no harnesses. We witnessed the latter in action. I even got a picture, sort of:

 This is a view from below of the ropes these fools were walking across.

I actually did get a picture from across the canyon of one of these fools in the act, but he looks like a tiny white dot in the picture and it's not that impressive, so I'll spare you. Just trust me, these people have a deathwish. On the whole, though, I loved this place. Lots of interesting rocks (I have a weakness for interesting rocks), a park ranger with a snake, and some spiffy hiking trails. I plan to return when I'm in much better shape than I am now and attempt the trail that calls itself "Misery Road" and appears to go up to the top of the rock formation. And now, the obligatory panorama shot (and a couple of other cool ones):

After we were done there, Train decided wearing jeans hadn't been a good move and it was, in fact, entirely too hot for that. We made our way into Bend and found a Ross, where he found a pair of cheap basketball shorts, and I found some even cheaper man-shorts, which I'm wearing right now, actually. I've decided they're comfortable. I've been informed that they're "not sexy", but I don't care. 

We checked in at the hotel, which was horrible in the sense that it wasn't even slightly deserty. It was nice, though, in that it was air-conditioned and had this outside of it:

Yes, another panorama picture. This accounts for the curvature of the earth.

 There it is in normal view. Boring!

Once we were slightly cooled off and had off-loaded all unnecessary gear, we ventured out again, this time to Sparks Lake. We were inspired by the fact that the hotel room had pictures of Sparks Lake on the walls, quite obviously in a different season than the one in which we were visiting. Because here's what was on the wall:

And here's what it looks like in mid-September:

Still pretty, don't get me wrong, but not quite as postcard-perfect as advertised. However, I met a frog there:

 We also saw a lot of baby trout, and enjoyed several uninterrupted moments of quiet. 

After we made our way back into Bend, it was getting on toward 7 o'clock and we decided it was time for eating something. Fortunately there was an incredibly fancy restaurant in the hotel. Train knew about this in advance and had been going on for a couple of weeks about "2 pound prime-rib" or something like that. And I have to admit, it was one of the bigger hunks of dead meat I've ever seen served to a single person. I even tried a piece and it was pretty good for being cow. (I'm more of a chicken/fish/pork person myself, but certainly not a vegetarian by any means.) We actually got to eat outside, though, and the view was pretty nice:

I know it may not have been evident, but we actually hiked several miles in the scorching heat at Smith Rock, and a bit more at Sparks Lake, so by the time we were done eating way too much food it was decreed that early bedtimes were in order. We were asleep by 9:30. Man, we're old!

On Day 2 we set out early to beat the crowds to Lava Butte. We'd attempted to go the day before and gotten there around 4:30 only to discover that there were no more passes for that day. Passes to go up to the top of the butte are free, but in limited supply. We'd been told that the least busy time was in the morning, so we made sure to get there shortly after 10 and sure enough we got a pass on the first try. 

For those not in the know, volcanoes are another one of my Favorite Things (right up there on the list with hot deserts), and Central Oregon is absolutely riddled with them. Yes, they're all extinct now, but I came away convinced that most of Central Oregon is either desert or lava field. Here's why I think that:

Bam! Lava field. All that brown out there is dried up lava.

 Yep. It's a crater.

More on lava fields later. Our other goal for the day was to visit Lava River Cave, which once upon a time was a lava tube and pretty much ferried magma from point A to point B. Now it's a cave that looks like this from the outside: 

And once you've passed the point of no return, it looks like this: 

And then this:

Fortunately, they let you rent little propane lanterns for five bucks so you can find your way back through this thing. This is the first of 3 little "road signs" that you encounter as you head to the back of this cave that we estimated to be about a mile long:

See that little box over there on the right? That's how far in you are. Not very far, as the cave entrance is at the bottom right and the end of it is way up there toward the top left. I really wish I'd been able to get some better pictures of the interior of the cave because it was pretty neat (also only about 42 degrees and we had to wear hoodies), but the best I can give you is this: 

You can see legs! This was in one of the sections where you had to bend down to walk. In other places the ceiling was probably 80 feet high and 12 people could have walked comfortably side-by-side. This was my first real cave experience (first of probably many, since I like it so much), and I was impressed by the sheer size of this lava tube. The slight disappointment was what you got for getting to the end of the cave:

After that, we headed to an Arby's for refueling (neither of us had really eaten breakfast and we'd ended up hiking quite a ways, most of it underground). We had decided before embarking on this journey that we were going to take a "scenic route" home instead of just going back the way we'd come. The first part of this "scenic route" I was all for, because there were things like this:

 More lava fields!

 You remember what I said about Central Oregon being desert and lava fields, right?

When we reached the top of McKenzie Pass we found this little beauty:

 My car is the green one right next to the yellow one, by the way.

 They seriously just cobbled this thing together out of the lava rocks that were already there. I was impressed.

The outhouse at McKenzie Pass (I do not know why my font is suddenly blue and underlined, by the way) was also the site of the most optimistic restroom graffiti I have ever encountered:

Misspelling of "glimmer" aside, it was definitely moving. 

I was quite disappointed, however, that Train's idea of "scenic" is a lot different from mine. After this point, there was nothing to see but a bunch of leafy green trees, the likes of which you can see looking out just about any window on the west side of the Cascades. It also was suddenly cold and rainy once we'd crossed back over the Cascades, and by the time we made it back to my parents' house to pick up the Chamaco, it was quite soggy. 

Anyhow (back to black font, yay!), it was a very good trip overall. Our next family adventure, for anyone who hasn't heard yet, will be in mid-December when we go to Maui. Yes, the Chamaco gets to go. We'll be keeping travel and unnecessary expenses to a minimum until then, so this is probably the last time until December that you'll be subjected to my travelblogging and crappy photography. Rejoice or weep as you see fit. My comfy man-shorts and I bid you adieu until next time I think of something to maunder on about. :-)

My Life in a Photo Stream

Technology is amazing, kids. I'm not going to bother trying to deny it. What is also absolutely mind-boggling is my capacity to take pictures (accidentally) of the lock screen on my iPad.

It's also amazing how fast my hair grows. No, seriously. Check this out, people.

By the way, there are a LOT of pictures in this post. Sorry!

Anyway, a few months ago I installed the iCloud thing which allowed all the pictures I take on my iPhone (which, lets face it, is my primary camera anymore) to be automatically uploaded to a file on my computer. They also bounce to my iPad, which is how my iPad (which I left at home all weekend) has all the pictures from this weekend's trips to Arcadia Beach, Manzanita, and Short Sand Beach.

I was fiddling with the Streaming Photos on my computer earlier trying to get it to unlock them so I could use them in posts and things (I'm still fairly new to this, mind you) and I discovered on accident that I have pictures on there going all the way back to March of this year. That's like 6 months of my random photo taking. I realized that, by analyzing my own streaming photos, I could probably learn a lot about myself. Here's what I learned, in no particular order:

#1 - As I said, I manage to take a LOT of pictures of the lock screen on my iPad. I think this happens when I close it without turning off my bluetooth keyboard, but I'm not completely sure.

#2 - There are WAY more pictures of my cat than I'd like to admit. WAY more.

#3 - There are also a fair amount of pictures of the Chamaco and the Old Curmudgeon. (Who I think I shall start referring to in the blog by his Air Force nickname - Train. It's shorter to type.)

#4 - LOTS of pictures of beaches. You'd think we do nothing but go to the beach.

#5 - Also lots of pictures of flowers. I was aware I'd suddenly developed a weird obsession with flower photography (as anyone who follows me on Instagram is probably aware already), but I didn't realize the full extent of my own illness. I have acute floweritis.

#6 - Several pictures of sunsets. It seems I have more appreciation for nature than I was aware of... I'm not what you'd call "outdoorsy".

#7 - Some pictures of my recent culinary experiments. This has been a pretty good year for me and cooking. I'm baking an eggplant as we speak. This time last year I had never actually eaten an eggplant, and now I'm cooking one. I've also learned to make homemade egg foo yung and a decent stir fry. I plan to master hummus before year's end.

#8 - Random pictures from the internet that I thought were funny. (Esmarfon... chortle!)

#9 - Loads of Grumpy Cat. For a while there, Train (See, I started already!) was in a Grumpy Cat phase and I would find new ones he hadn't seen and send them to him at work periodically because it made him happy.

#10 - More work-related pictures than I care to think about. Seriously, I went through (and deleted) a ton of pictures of yards full of dog poop, apartments full of abandoned property I was inventorying, fire damage, and other random damage/violations that I was documenting for work purposes. (For anyone who hasn't caught on yet, I managed apartments for a year and then just recently moved up to what I guess you'd call "middle management". Not administrative staff yet, but getting there!)

#11 - Enough selfies to make you think I think a lot more highly of my looks than I actually do.

Now you might ask, what is MISSING from my Photo Stream? Well, if it's going to be an accurate representation of my life and times, there are a few things that aren't included but should be. Things like:

#1 - My parents. Notice I have no picture here to insert.

#2 - My siblings. Again, I got nothing.

#3 - Work friends. I spend most of my life with these people. Almost everyone I work with, I would socialize with voluntarily outside of work. Where are the pictures? Nowhere, mon frere. 

#4 - Church friends/other friends. Again, no pictures. Either I have a lot of camera-shy friends, or I'm missing some photo ops. 

Here's where we're going to get philosophical, so hang on... If I were to look at your Photo Stream (which is an option, by the way... they are shareable!) what would I see? What would I learn about you? Are there things in your Photo Stream you wouldn't want me to see? Are there things that are missing from your Photo Stream that you feel should be there?

Feel free to express your thoughts on my maunderings in the comments... it lets me know someone's actually reading this stuff I post!