deeann and i were planning a trip with our beloved friends, nicki and kevin, to go to their old stomping grounds of bellingham, washington. unfortunately, it ended up not working out so deeann and i were stuck with an open weekend and not much to do. as tempting as it was to lay low and enjoy a weekend home, we decided against it and threw our camping gear in the car and started towards central oregon. surprisingly enough, in our two years of living in portland we have never visited central oregon … well, kinda. i did have a failed cross country skiing/backpacking attempt on the south sister (that’s a mountain for those wondering), but we won’t go into that.

anyways, we ended up at smith rock state park which happens to be a climber’s mecca, however we did not bring our climbing gear. i’m excited to go back there and get my hands on that rock. while there we went for some hikes, visited a few breweries, enjoyed the breathtaking scenery, and simply rested outside. we visited bend and later, on our way back to portland, we took the scenic route(every route is extremely scenic) and headed to eugene, stayed one night outside of eugene, then back home.

overall the trip was beautiful. it was hard to believe we were in the same part of the country let alone in the same state. the high desert is breathtaking with multiple peaks and butte’s that opened our eyes to how volcanically active this area once was and still may be. the spontaneous nature of this trip was quite refreshing.