Our Trip to Bend, Oregon

This last weekend Ryan and I (without chidren!) went to Oregon! Highlights:

• being able to have an interruption free conversation whenever we wanted. We love our children, but the trailer makes for some real "closeness." A lot of time we didn't even talk, which was nice, too. I personally spent some quality time with the silence and beautiful scenery.
• seeing the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains. We took HWY 395 forever... saw Mt. Whitney and lots of very cool cowboy country.
• Klamath Lake: the highway between Klamath Falls, OR and Bend had two sides- the lake and the mountain. And the highway was mostly level with the lake. It was kind of a creepy feeling for me.
• Bend, Oregon: so clean. No graffiti, and everyone seemed nicely dressed. Not expensively dressed, just clean and happy.
• The Fairgrounds in Redmond: again with the cleaness. It was an awesome set-up. At our fairgrounds, especially at fair time, it smells like urine, body odor, and you need to pack heat.
• There were about 3,000 people at the clinic.
• No doing dishes, even if I got tired of fast food.
• Our hotel: we stayed at a place right next to the freeway: a Fairfield Inn and Suites by Marriot. The room was a little small compared to others I've been in, but it was clean and they had a great free breakfast every morning.
• Watching the clinic, and people watching. So many ladies throwing around some serious cash for horse stuff.
• Clinton Anderson and Diez, the most well trained horse, EVER.
• Greg's Grill in the Old Mill District in Bend. The food was awesome! Ryan had Prime Rib and a baked sweet potato he swore could have been dessert. I had salmon, lemon basmatti rice, and green beans. The prices were great, the atmosphere was awesome... we would go there again in a heartbeat.
• Watched a movie at the movie theater! We watched "Date Night." It was hysterical.
• We took I-5 and 99 home and again drove through some great places. Turns out that most of California looks similar... and I loved it all. It rained and snowed off and on, continually. So glad we were in Ryan's truck. The drive was around 12-13 hours... my Mazda would have killed us both.
• This sign, found in Dorris, California:

• "We Now Serve Good Food." Was the food bad before?
• I got to shower EVERY DAY with endless HOT WATER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• This weird sloth-like creature somewhere in Oregon (so many trees! All you can see is trees. A little claustrophobic for my taste, as the trees are thick and the land is fairly flat. It would be so easy to get lost!)
• 

Some of the weird stuff:

• Ended up sitting behind a girl on the second day that was reading "Real Girl, Real World." It was a book about growing up, and from some of the pages I saw, I can honestly say that I cannot recommend it. Without embarrassing my father-in-law or a potential nephew that might read this, let's just say I laughed so hard I cried when I noticed the page she was one, and then watched as Ryan's eyes noticed it too... the look on his face went from that "I'm a really reading that title?" (with diagrams!) to quickly glancing away looking so embarrassed.
• The hotel seemed to be full of quasi-intellectuals: people that thought they were really smart. They had a comment for everything, and were fairly condescending in the way they spoke to each other. It was almost as if they were competing to see who could be the wittiest or use the biggest word. Just concentrate on your granola, already!
• The first night in the hotel smelled very strongly of pot. Ryan told the front desk, and the smell went away in a few hours... and never came back. It made me a little nervous to stay there initially, even if the place was nice. It all worked out in the end,and ended up being a great place to stay.

All in all, it was a great (GREAT) trip, and I would do it again. I would recommend Bend, Oregon as a pretty, clean, and cool place to live. Go to Greg's Grill, if you are ever there. Take a scenic route, even if it takes a little longer than normal. Talk to your spouse without interruption. Don't wipe anyone's hiney for four days... it feels great! And, it makes you realize that a little break from the regular routine makes that regular routine more bearable. Especially when you live in a trailer.