Bend 2: Surf and Turf

Friday 9/15

Overlooking

Another good night of sleeping. Our original plan was to go kayaking at 10, when the rental place opens, but we both realized it would still be too cold then – the nights are in the upper 40s/low 50s even though it’s 80-90 during the day. So instead we decided to drive the 5 minutes to the other end of Riley Ranch and explore a little. It’s a great place for hiking; there are 3 main loops (Juniper, Sage Flat, Canyon) that are stacked on top of each other kind of like a snowman, with each successive loop getting a little larger. We walked around all three loops (ok, not quite – Juniper and Sage Flat are more like one elongated circle with a line through it, and unlike Johnny Cash we didn’t walk the line). It’s a great “intro to high desert” hike, with the river and the meadow and the juniper trees. They have a lot of overlooks/viewpoints, and we learned a lot. 

Sage Flats with Rabbitbrush

At the Ben Newkirk Overlook we learned which mountains we could see, and at the Sage flats overlook we learned the names of many of the common plants (Dave was especially excited to learn Rabbitbrush, and pointed it out A LOT for the next two days). Most interesting at Sage Flats were three arrows, pointing to the position of sunrise at the winter solstice, the equinoxes, and the summer solstice. The solstices are 22 degrees on either side of the equinox, and we spent the rest of the walk with me trying to understand how the sun can appear to travel different distances over the same length of time at the equator. This involved drawing quite a few circles with lines on the path, and we wonder if anyone who saw them figured out what they were. A final feature on the sagebrush loop was some overlooks out over the river. We admired the huge houses across the way.

We got done around 11, and decided to go do kayaks before lunch, because lunch was probably going to include beer and that’s not a great combo with kayaking. So we zipped into town and the rental people zipped through the rental process and we were on the river at 11:23. We’d noticed that the river seemed higher than we remember, and once we pushed off we realized the current was stronger than we remembered too. We worked our way upstream, and as usual I spent the first 20 minutes really not enjoying myself. As always, it got better, but it was still a slog to get all the way past the four bridges to the turnaround at the rapids. I did an obligatory turn into the rapids, and Dave did two of them. Then it was time for the payoff, the float downstream, which makes it all worthwhile. We ended up doing a little more paddling than we might have since it was lunchtime.

We got out of the kayaks with no issues (always a concern!) and went across the street and up the stairs to Monkless, a brewery specializing in Belgian beers. We had a sampler and they were fine but pretty hard to tell apart, especially since we’d stuck to the lower alcohol ones. My pulled pork sliders were good, but Dave’s bratwurst and poutine sandwich was much more interesting. We enjoyed ourselves, especially since we were starving, but we don’t need to go back for the beer or the food. The bathrooms, however, were excellent – how often do you hear plainchant in a restroom?

The kayak rental place and Monkless are just a short walk from the Old Mill District, so we walked over to the REI and did a little shopping. Our big purchase was a very cool “stargazer” camp chair for Dave that reclines for looking at the sky – I am too short to fit in it comfortably but it’s perfect for him. I got some good socks and a towel and some eyeglass strings too.

Then we headed over to a Big 5 and almost bought a chair for me there, until I realized how huge and heavy it was. Next stop was Fred Meyer and in the sporting goods section was a close-to-perfect chair for me, just sitting there. We looked all over to find its box or even a space where it might have been on a shelf but were unsuccessful. Dave took it to customer service and they scanned the barcode and it was in their system, so we bought it. On the way back to the campsite we could see a plume of smoke to the west, blowing to the North. The Pete’s lake fire had gotten bigger, but the smoke was not supposed to come towards us.

We got back to the campsite with our new chairs and tried them out. They were very good, but it was hot outside so eventually we moved inside and turned on the air conditioning. We had a short relaxing and shower time (don’t run the hair dryer and the air conditioning at the same time) and went to Zydeco for dinner. My dinner was perfect – an elderflower, bubbly and grapefruit cocktail; a warm chicory salad with grapes, and clams and mussels in a delicious broth. Dave’s food and wine were good but not as good as mine. And fortunately we’d paid before we saw the carrot cake, so we weren’t stuffed when we left. Downtown was hopping as we walked back to the car, but we’d had excellent parking karma for dinner both nights we were in town.

We tried out our chairs with a fire in the firepit, tea, and reading, and they worked perfectly. Here is a bonus shot of Dave on the path to the canyon overlook at Riley Ranch.