DaveandkaraUStour2011: Days fifty, fifty-one, and fifty-two.
Gone for fifty days! And we're only going to be gone for longer and longer! I wish Schenectady would expire without me after a certain amount of time like milk without a refrigerator. The lovely Heather Kennedy has been making sure to keep us occupied and physically active the last three days we've been in Bend and it's been so much fun. And almost entirely for free, too! I am almost too tired to even try writing this entry right now. It's been such an exciting, adventurous week. There's going to be a lot of pictures in this one.
Heather got off work early on Wednesday and drove us a couple miles away from town to Lava Butte. I kept pronouncing it "butt" because it sounds a lot better (and funnier) than the way it's actually pronounced, which is something like "beaut'". A butte is a lonely, usually steep, hill, and the word is used in names of things in northwestern United States more liberally than other places. Basically, there are a lot of butts here. Lava Butte was a cinder cone completely surrounded by molten rock aged about 7,000 years from its single volcanic eruption. The park itself was "closed" (the concept of a body of nature being "closed" is ridiculous to me), so we just parked on the side of a nearby road and walked to the thin concrete trail that slithers through it. We hiked around it for over a half hour until where we had parked wasn't visible anymore. The surrounding area made it look like another planet entirely. So much so that NASA once trained astronauts there in preparation for the moon landing in 1966. In the distance were huge hills looking like half-erased sketches of a horizon by the thick, ominous fog, vast, jagged space leading to them in every direction. There were some small trees sprouting from the ancient rubble, but not many. The rock covering almost every square inch of the land was like nothing I'd ever touched before. It sounded ceramic as it tapped against other rocks and looked like the remains of a building burned down. The only animal we saw out there was a single lizard. We walked and walked and got to a viewpoint with a bench. It was stunning. The nothingness wrapped around where we stood like a scarf. Nature is such a strong, unstoppable force that this very area was still reveling in the destruction of a single volcanic eruption, which had wiped out life several thousand years ago and was still doing very well at obstructing new life from forming. A building burned to the ground gets cleaned up in a matter of months; a volcano's wreckage permanently leaves acres of land deformed like a burn victim. The butte stood tall above the rest of it with one side of it remarkably able to grow numerous trees like a human head with alopecia.
Next, we headed a few more miles away to Lava River Cave, a long, 5,200-foot long cave with only two entrances who came about as a result of a stream of lava that hollowed it out over 80,000 years ago. Again, this place was technically "closed"; this one even was closed off by the sign saying it had closed at 5. So we parked the car right in front of it and walked on by. A short trail down lead right to one of its two entrances, a big mouth that light could only sneak in far enough to show its teeth. As soon as we stepped foot in, the temperature decreased by thirty degrees and we were devoured by the darkness. Each of us had a flashlight. Heather's was on her head. Mine went the farthest. With three shaky, wandering balls of light ahead and pitch black everywhere else, we were forced into literal tunnel vision. It was dizzying at times. A trail of steps down had a rail connected with Duct tape, which wasn't too reassuring. The rock walls looked like they were melting, but they were hard and smooth. We walked about a mile into its guts before stopping and simultaneously shutting all our lights off at once. It's a weird feeling to see nothing; to wave your hand in front of your face and not even know it. A map somewhere in there by a damp bench with so many names and words carved into it that you couldn't read a single one showed us just how far the exit was and it wasn't worth going all the way to. On our way out, we looked up and saw a young woman who appeared to work there, an older woman next to a video camera on a tripod, and a chubby young man with a microphone. The first words out of the young woman's mouth was, "It'd actually illegal to be in the cave after hours." Heather uncomfortable responded, "Are we on TV?" The older woman was shooting a report about a disease spreading amongst bats in caves in the northeast through a mold transported to different caves via humans for a local television station. Heather innocently told them that we were friends from out of state and she just wanted to show us the cave before we were gone. They asked where we were from and if we had ever checked out any caves. When I mentioned Howe Caverns, the lady told us that the bat problem had actually started there, oddly enough, and made sure to try and make us feel as though we were part of the problem as her sound guy inched his microphone up to us without permission. It was weird. We got outta there and headed back home. Heather made us Yumm Bowls for dinner, a meal that actually comes from a small chain of restaurants around these parts that she just makes on her own at home now. Using their special brand of sauce (Yumm Sauce), white rice, black beans, corn, seasoned tofu, and salsa, she conjured up this delicious meal that took my taste buds and slapped them upside their heads. It was so fucking good. We all sat in the living room and watched a graffiti documentary called Infamy (my favorite of all the graff documentaries I've seen) on Netflix.
The next day, I woke up, ate some nuggets, and then watched Harold and Maude with Kara, who had been pressing me to watch it for months and months. I had put it off, admittedly, for some stupid reasons, like it being made in 1971, being rated PG, and having a really boring DVD cover at the library. As it turns out, it's probably one of the greatest films of all time and very well could have been responsible for most of the indie film tropes I love today. When Heather got home from work, she almost immediately told us we were going to go and check out Petersen Rock Garden, an old, donation-based tourist spot where an old man, the founder, had started collecting various rocks within eighty-five miles of his residence in the '30s and started creating elaborate statues and miniature buildings with. It expanded greatly since then to what it is now, which is several acres of structures made entirely out of rocks and mortar, small ponds covered in lily pads and filled with tadpoles, an indoor mini-museum of rocks, seashells, crystals, and fossils, and a handful of male and female peacocks nonchalantly walking around the premises with the direct inheritances of their father's property. We pulled in and we immediately saw several peacocks. Neither me or Kara had ever seen peacocks in real life, so this was a big deal to us. When we got out of the car, we got as close to them as they'd let us as they curiously but cautiously checked us out. The males are extremely vibrant, almost holographic, with long feather veils hanging behind them. Their legs are thick and sharp and they are one of those kinds of birds that look like they haven't strayed too far from their dinosaur origins. In the distance, we heard a rooster. Across the way, family brushed horses. In the middle of the sandy parking area were the first three structures you see when you get there, made entirely out of various forms of rock and materials. It's a huge mansion that is too big to describe as a miniature version of one. The next piece was surrounded by several different types and colors or rocks, as well as petrified wood and even some of the molten rock we became familiar with the day before at Lava Butte.
We walked through some trees and Heather found the donation box. They don't ask for much; only about $4.50. Kara and I didn't pay anything, but Heather slid a ton of spare change into it for a good five straight minutes. Apparently, being donation-based, out in the middle of nowhere in a town called Redmond, and open 365 days a year, run completely by the founder's remaining family. Next was a small fountain with little miniature homes on it and a tiny trail up it. Then over from there was a big lagoon. In the middle of it was another huge but miniaturized mansions and houses that you could walk to over tiny but stable bridges. Everywhere we went, Heather picked up shed feathers. Inside was a small museum of sorts with shelves and cases of rocks from all over the world and of varying ages, colors, shapes, types, and origins. There were crystals, rocks that were shiny, smooth like glass, and neon colors like blue. There were fossils, shark teeth, rocks that had prehistoric plant outlines engraved in them, eggs, and even petrified poop. Looking at most of these things, you have to stand in awe and force yourself to accept that nature, this powerful, chaotic, but magnificent force, made these things by accident. Within the strokes of a millenia of destruction and coincidence, perfect rectangular blocks of transparent crystal poking out of black, jagged rock were created and somehow preserved. Being members of an anti-natural, industrialized society, it's hard to take a step back and look at some things without automatically assuming they were made in a factory. These things were perfect and beautiful and nature didn't have to commit suicide or even try to produce them. It's amazing.
We went to a tiny alternate room where only fluorescent lights shone from above, down on an encased village set-up of rocks and creations, all of which glowed different colors like felt Grateful Dead posters. We browsed through the baskets and baskets of pretty rocks for sale and bought four. I felt like a kid on a really cool field trip. When we got back outside, we still had plenty to see and made sure to get it all in before they closed at 5. When we got to the last thing we hadn't seen yet, which had a tiny table and chairs by it that looked almost perfect for a British tea party, by this huge miniature castle with a waterfall, we were welcomed by two hungry, social white ducks who were very verbal with their uttered quacks. After that, we drove back and Heather decided to drive up Pilot Butte, this huge hill that pokes upward 500 feet above the town and can be seen from just about anywhere you're standing in Bend. A narrow, winding road with enough room for cars coming and going but without any sort of guardrail leads right to the top. Riding up, it was like being on a rollercoaster rising for the inevitable plunge back down. We passed lots of people walking their dogs, riding bikes, and walking or jogging up it. We parked on top and gazed down at the city, which surrounded us from all angles and looked fake in its tininess. A kid sat in his pick-up by himself nearby and listened to death metal. It was a rare moment where you could carry an entire town inside your eye without the use of Google Maps satellite perspectives. We stopped at Whole Foods and did some small grocery shopping. Kara and I bought the ingredients for vegan mac'n'cheese. On our way back home, Heather pulled over so we could climb up onto the train tracks and check out this one tanker that was being filled up with petroleum. On it, a train writer called the Whistle Blower had covered it in his moniker. It was awesome. When we got home, I made Heather and Kara dinner. I spent some time with myself online afterward and put together some mail to send out; something for Grace, something for Christa and Cole back in Salt Lake City, zines for Joey in Australia. I used pages from an illustrated book about Africa that Heather said I could use. Kara and I watched The Beaver, the eccentric drama starring Mel Gibson (appropriately enough) where he goes crazy from depression and starts communicating exclusively through an alter ego that exists in a beaver hand puppet. I stayed up all night online, writing and reading and Tumbling. Around 6 when I finally decided to try and fall asleep, I almost couldn't because I was too afraid of having more nightmares about my parents. The one I had the night before was one of the worst yet.
Heather had the day off, so she made sure to have us awake by noon to go rafting down the Deschutes River. Apparently, she had texted me and even opened the bedroom door to wake me and Kara up, but I don't remember either things happening. Suddenly, Kara, was shaking me and saying, "Dave, Heather wants to get going soon!" So I got up and ate chocolate Rice Crispies with my eyes open but not yet working entirely. And then we headed right out the door to get our rafts good and inflated. She was letting Kara and I use one that was basically two large inner tubes connected with a space in the middle to hold things like cans of soda and, in our case, our shoes and camera and bread. She had her own little boat with paddles. We dragged them to Drake Park and loaded them into the hitch on the back of the short bus that takes you to the other park to set off on your raft two miles down the river. Waiting to go, two kids standing by a tree were handing out free soda. We got to the other park and dragged our rafts to the shore where children were playing and drunken tourists already floating in the water were yelling and being annoying. Kara and I took turns plopping our asses into our respective floating seats and then started pushing outward. At first, we just let the gentle current take us where it wanted as Heather confidently rowed ahead but stayed close by. Paddling this huge raft with hands would have worked had it been two of me. Obviously, Kara and I have very differing strengths and abilities and us trying to work as a team to get this thing going in specific directions was like having one paddle and one half of a paddle. There were a few times I got really frustrated with Kara, whose short and nimble doggy paddle pushes in the water only opposed mine, and she got frustrated with me being frustrated. But it was so much fun. Again, this was a first-time experience for us both. We hadn't even imagined riding down a river in a raft until we sat by and watched hundreds do it in Boise.
The sun was bright, but we were protected by the very last of our two-year old bottle of sun tan spray and our temperature neutralized by our wet asses. Slowly floating down the river, we got to see a park of dogs jumping in and out; a large group of ducks and geese who we threw bread to until they were following us as closely as they could in hopes of getting more; bridges that extended over us as we floated under and enjoyed the momentary shade of; tons of luxury apartments, condominiums, and yuppie homes, most of which didn't even have access to the river since yuppies want nothing to do with the outside world. Eventually, we got to the half-mile before the spillway, where giant, jagged boulders and a tiny waterfall converge underneath a bridge. So we had to struggle to get to the left side so we could dock our raft. We kept running into the brush. We walked along hot concrete to the other side and got right back in. I had to dodge a morbidly obese woman as I tried to push us back outward. It was so relaxing just gliding along that I wanted to fall right asleep. This current moved a little quicker since it was coming right from the spillway. We finished our ride back at Drake Park and walked back to the car after deflating our rafts. We returned to the house and changed and then got to meet Laura Walker, who had been a purchaser and supporter of our zines and had sent us free issues of her cute little series Welcome to Bend, which had aided in our anticipation of eventually visiting here. She was older than us like Heather and really nice. She had also, for some reason, been anticipating our visit, but due to work and family issues hadn't gotten to meet us in person until right then and there. We talked for twenty minutes and she hooked us up with all of her personal zines. I gave her a copy of my This Could Be You, But It's Not zine and then she left. It was nice to finally meet her in real life. The three of us headed back out and had a much-needed dinner at the local Red Robin. We were forgotten about for the first ten minutes of being there, so we got free drinks!
We drove about fifteen miles away to a dirt road that was shaky and sent rocks at the car like bullets. We were headed for a waterfall, Heather told us, called Tumalo Falls. After a mile or two of riding through rising clouds of dirt, we pulled in by where old tourists were parking and hobbling from one historical sign to the other with their big cameras. We walked a steep dirt path up to the top viewpoint of Tumalo Falls and looked down from twenty or so feet above it. Moments like those just remind you how small you are, literally and in the grand scheme of things. The thought of how many gallons of water per second were being shattered into millions of shimmering droplets was mind-boggling. I talked the girls into climbing over the arm rail and rock wall with me down some rocks and to a small piece of land that sat right next to the violent current that lead to the fall. Being a jerk to the girls, I walked as far out as I could and sat on a rock right by the ledge. After the two concerned momma bears I was with looked at me with hands on hips, I got up and we climbed back up to the top. Then Heather suggested we go to the bottom of the falls. We took a really narrow, winding path that cut through plants, trees, tiny streams for fairies, and patches of gooey mud all the way down to the bottom of the falls and the cliffs. We stood by this huge rock wall that was a deep Mars-esque red and let the force of the water crashing by blow wind and water at our bodies. It felt amazing and was one of the most powerful experiences of my life. We decided to leave when three more people were headed towards us, one of whom was a woman with a baby attached to her chest. The climb back up was exhausting. When we got back home, Brandon was sitting at the picnic table out front with a beer in hand, during one of his rare appearances. We hadn't seen much of him while here. He was always out skating and drinking. I did enjoy the brief moments I was able to talk to him, though.
I spent the night with a sinus-induced headaches and the Internet. I ate some cookie dough and relaxed. I was sleepy, but I forced my way through it because it was just too early to sleep. We had one more day left in Bend and had solidified a ride with a guy we found on Craigslist rideshares going from Bend to Portland Saturday evening. Spending the last couple of days around so much forms and forces of nature was incredible, especially after spending so much of this trip around equally as intimidating, but far less astonishing, city creations. Heather, too, was a strong and beautiful force over the last week. I'm so glad we met her. She's such a cute person, inside and out, and is still just as young as we are in her heart. Brought together by the tiny subculture of zines and self-published thoughts and nothing more, she let us into her home and treated us like long-time friends. I'm at this point in the trip where I'm already asking myself, "How in the hell can I not visit these wonderful places and people every single year?!"
More pictures from Lava Butte.
Two more pictures from the Lava Caves. That chipmunk was munching on a mushroom.
More pictures from the Petersen Rock Garden. Imagine for a second just how long it took to probably collect these rocks. Then think about how long it took to organize them by color and size and shape. Then think about how long it took to build things with them. Holy shit.
Things have funny names around here.
More pictures from riding down the Deschutes River.
More pictures from exploring the Tumalo Falls.
Heather got off work early on Wednesday and drove us a couple miles away from town to Lava Butte. I kept pronouncing it "butt" because it sounds a lot better (and funnier) than the way it's actually pronounced, which is something like "beaut'". A butte is a lonely, usually steep, hill, and the word is used in names of things in northwestern United States more liberally than other places. Basically, there are a lot of butts here. Lava Butte was a cinder cone completely surrounded by molten rock aged about 7,000 years from its single volcanic eruption. The park itself was "closed" (the concept of a body of nature being "closed" is ridiculous to me), so we just parked on the side of a nearby road and walked to the thin concrete trail that slithers through it. We hiked around it for over a half hour until where we had parked wasn't visible anymore. The surrounding area made it look like another planet entirely. So much so that NASA once trained astronauts there in preparation for the moon landing in 1966. In the distance were huge hills looking like half-erased sketches of a horizon by the thick, ominous fog, vast, jagged space leading to them in every direction. There were some small trees sprouting from the ancient rubble, but not many. The rock covering almost every square inch of the land was like nothing I'd ever touched before. It sounded ceramic as it tapped against other rocks and looked like the remains of a building burned down. The only animal we saw out there was a single lizard. We walked and walked and got to a viewpoint with a bench. It was stunning. The nothingness wrapped around where we stood like a scarf. Nature is such a strong, unstoppable force that this very area was still reveling in the destruction of a single volcanic eruption, which had wiped out life several thousand years ago and was still doing very well at obstructing new life from forming. A building burned to the ground gets cleaned up in a matter of months; a volcano's wreckage permanently leaves acres of land deformed like a burn victim. The butte stood tall above the rest of it with one side of it remarkably able to grow numerous trees like a human head with alopecia.
Next, we headed a few more miles away to Lava River Cave, a long, 5,200-foot long cave with only two entrances who came about as a result of a stream of lava that hollowed it out over 80,000 years ago. Again, this place was technically "closed"; this one even was closed off by the sign saying it had closed at 5. So we parked the car right in front of it and walked on by. A short trail down lead right to one of its two entrances, a big mouth that light could only sneak in far enough to show its teeth. As soon as we stepped foot in, the temperature decreased by thirty degrees and we were devoured by the darkness. Each of us had a flashlight. Heather's was on her head. Mine went the farthest. With three shaky, wandering balls of light ahead and pitch black everywhere else, we were forced into literal tunnel vision. It was dizzying at times. A trail of steps down had a rail connected with Duct tape, which wasn't too reassuring. The rock walls looked like they were melting, but they were hard and smooth. We walked about a mile into its guts before stopping and simultaneously shutting all our lights off at once. It's a weird feeling to see nothing; to wave your hand in front of your face and not even know it. A map somewhere in there by a damp bench with so many names and words carved into it that you couldn't read a single one showed us just how far the exit was and it wasn't worth going all the way to. On our way out, we looked up and saw a young woman who appeared to work there, an older woman next to a video camera on a tripod, and a chubby young man with a microphone. The first words out of the young woman's mouth was, "It'd actually illegal to be in the cave after hours." Heather uncomfortable responded, "Are we on TV?" The older woman was shooting a report about a disease spreading amongst bats in caves in the northeast through a mold transported to different caves via humans for a local television station. Heather innocently told them that we were friends from out of state and she just wanted to show us the cave before we were gone. They asked where we were from and if we had ever checked out any caves. When I mentioned Howe Caverns, the lady told us that the bat problem had actually started there, oddly enough, and made sure to try and make us feel as though we were part of the problem as her sound guy inched his microphone up to us without permission. It was weird. We got outta there and headed back home. Heather made us Yumm Bowls for dinner, a meal that actually comes from a small chain of restaurants around these parts that she just makes on her own at home now. Using their special brand of sauce (Yumm Sauce), white rice, black beans, corn, seasoned tofu, and salsa, she conjured up this delicious meal that took my taste buds and slapped them upside their heads. It was so fucking good. We all sat in the living room and watched a graffiti documentary called Infamy (my favorite of all the graff documentaries I've seen) on Netflix.
The next day, I woke up, ate some nuggets, and then watched Harold and Maude with Kara, who had been pressing me to watch it for months and months. I had put it off, admittedly, for some stupid reasons, like it being made in 1971, being rated PG, and having a really boring DVD cover at the library. As it turns out, it's probably one of the greatest films of all time and very well could have been responsible for most of the indie film tropes I love today. When Heather got home from work, she almost immediately told us we were going to go and check out Petersen Rock Garden, an old, donation-based tourist spot where an old man, the founder, had started collecting various rocks within eighty-five miles of his residence in the '30s and started creating elaborate statues and miniature buildings with. It expanded greatly since then to what it is now, which is several acres of structures made entirely out of rocks and mortar, small ponds covered in lily pads and filled with tadpoles, an indoor mini-museum of rocks, seashells, crystals, and fossils, and a handful of male and female peacocks nonchalantly walking around the premises with the direct inheritances of their father's property. We pulled in and we immediately saw several peacocks. Neither me or Kara had ever seen peacocks in real life, so this was a big deal to us. When we got out of the car, we got as close to them as they'd let us as they curiously but cautiously checked us out. The males are extremely vibrant, almost holographic, with long feather veils hanging behind them. Their legs are thick and sharp and they are one of those kinds of birds that look like they haven't strayed too far from their dinosaur origins. In the distance, we heard a rooster. Across the way, family brushed horses. In the middle of the sandy parking area were the first three structures you see when you get there, made entirely out of various forms of rock and materials. It's a huge mansion that is too big to describe as a miniature version of one. The next piece was surrounded by several different types and colors or rocks, as well as petrified wood and even some of the molten rock we became familiar with the day before at Lava Butte.
We walked through some trees and Heather found the donation box. They don't ask for much; only about $4.50. Kara and I didn't pay anything, but Heather slid a ton of spare change into it for a good five straight minutes. Apparently, being donation-based, out in the middle of nowhere in a town called Redmond, and open 365 days a year, run completely by the founder's remaining family. Next was a small fountain with little miniature homes on it and a tiny trail up it. Then over from there was a big lagoon. In the middle of it was another huge but miniaturized mansions and houses that you could walk to over tiny but stable bridges. Everywhere we went, Heather picked up shed feathers. Inside was a small museum of sorts with shelves and cases of rocks from all over the world and of varying ages, colors, shapes, types, and origins. There were crystals, rocks that were shiny, smooth like glass, and neon colors like blue. There were fossils, shark teeth, rocks that had prehistoric plant outlines engraved in them, eggs, and even petrified poop. Looking at most of these things, you have to stand in awe and force yourself to accept that nature, this powerful, chaotic, but magnificent force, made these things by accident. Within the strokes of a millenia of destruction and coincidence, perfect rectangular blocks of transparent crystal poking out of black, jagged rock were created and somehow preserved. Being members of an anti-natural, industrialized society, it's hard to take a step back and look at some things without automatically assuming they were made in a factory. These things were perfect and beautiful and nature didn't have to commit suicide or even try to produce them. It's amazing.
We went to a tiny alternate room where only fluorescent lights shone from above, down on an encased village set-up of rocks and creations, all of which glowed different colors like felt Grateful Dead posters. We browsed through the baskets and baskets of pretty rocks for sale and bought four. I felt like a kid on a really cool field trip. When we got back outside, we still had plenty to see and made sure to get it all in before they closed at 5. When we got to the last thing we hadn't seen yet, which had a tiny table and chairs by it that looked almost perfect for a British tea party, by this huge miniature castle with a waterfall, we were welcomed by two hungry, social white ducks who were very verbal with their uttered quacks. After that, we drove back and Heather decided to drive up Pilot Butte, this huge hill that pokes upward 500 feet above the town and can be seen from just about anywhere you're standing in Bend. A narrow, winding road with enough room for cars coming and going but without any sort of guardrail leads right to the top. Riding up, it was like being on a rollercoaster rising for the inevitable plunge back down. We passed lots of people walking their dogs, riding bikes, and walking or jogging up it. We parked on top and gazed down at the city, which surrounded us from all angles and looked fake in its tininess. A kid sat in his pick-up by himself nearby and listened to death metal. It was a rare moment where you could carry an entire town inside your eye without the use of Google Maps satellite perspectives. We stopped at Whole Foods and did some small grocery shopping. Kara and I bought the ingredients for vegan mac'n'cheese. On our way back home, Heather pulled over so we could climb up onto the train tracks and check out this one tanker that was being filled up with petroleum. On it, a train writer called the Whistle Blower had covered it in his moniker. It was awesome. When we got home, I made Heather and Kara dinner. I spent some time with myself online afterward and put together some mail to send out; something for Grace, something for Christa and Cole back in Salt Lake City, zines for Joey in Australia. I used pages from an illustrated book about Africa that Heather said I could use. Kara and I watched The Beaver, the eccentric drama starring Mel Gibson (appropriately enough) where he goes crazy from depression and starts communicating exclusively through an alter ego that exists in a beaver hand puppet. I stayed up all night online, writing and reading and Tumbling. Around 6 when I finally decided to try and fall asleep, I almost couldn't because I was too afraid of having more nightmares about my parents. The one I had the night before was one of the worst yet.
Heather had the day off, so she made sure to have us awake by noon to go rafting down the Deschutes River. Apparently, she had texted me and even opened the bedroom door to wake me and Kara up, but I don't remember either things happening. Suddenly, Kara, was shaking me and saying, "Dave, Heather wants to get going soon!" So I got up and ate chocolate Rice Crispies with my eyes open but not yet working entirely. And then we headed right out the door to get our rafts good and inflated. She was letting Kara and I use one that was basically two large inner tubes connected with a space in the middle to hold things like cans of soda and, in our case, our shoes and camera and bread. She had her own little boat with paddles. We dragged them to Drake Park and loaded them into the hitch on the back of the short bus that takes you to the other park to set off on your raft two miles down the river. Waiting to go, two kids standing by a tree were handing out free soda. We got to the other park and dragged our rafts to the shore where children were playing and drunken tourists already floating in the water were yelling and being annoying. Kara and I took turns plopping our asses into our respective floating seats and then started pushing outward. At first, we just let the gentle current take us where it wanted as Heather confidently rowed ahead but stayed close by. Paddling this huge raft with hands would have worked had it been two of me. Obviously, Kara and I have very differing strengths and abilities and us trying to work as a team to get this thing going in specific directions was like having one paddle and one half of a paddle. There were a few times I got really frustrated with Kara, whose short and nimble doggy paddle pushes in the water only opposed mine, and she got frustrated with me being frustrated. But it was so much fun. Again, this was a first-time experience for us both. We hadn't even imagined riding down a river in a raft until we sat by and watched hundreds do it in Boise.
The sun was bright, but we were protected by the very last of our two-year old bottle of sun tan spray and our temperature neutralized by our wet asses. Slowly floating down the river, we got to see a park of dogs jumping in and out; a large group of ducks and geese who we threw bread to until they were following us as closely as they could in hopes of getting more; bridges that extended over us as we floated under and enjoyed the momentary shade of; tons of luxury apartments, condominiums, and yuppie homes, most of which didn't even have access to the river since yuppies want nothing to do with the outside world. Eventually, we got to the half-mile before the spillway, where giant, jagged boulders and a tiny waterfall converge underneath a bridge. So we had to struggle to get to the left side so we could dock our raft. We kept running into the brush. We walked along hot concrete to the other side and got right back in. I had to dodge a morbidly obese woman as I tried to push us back outward. It was so relaxing just gliding along that I wanted to fall right asleep. This current moved a little quicker since it was coming right from the spillway. We finished our ride back at Drake Park and walked back to the car after deflating our rafts. We returned to the house and changed and then got to meet Laura Walker, who had been a purchaser and supporter of our zines and had sent us free issues of her cute little series Welcome to Bend, which had aided in our anticipation of eventually visiting here. She was older than us like Heather and really nice. She had also, for some reason, been anticipating our visit, but due to work and family issues hadn't gotten to meet us in person until right then and there. We talked for twenty minutes and she hooked us up with all of her personal zines. I gave her a copy of my This Could Be You, But It's Not zine and then she left. It was nice to finally meet her in real life. The three of us headed back out and had a much-needed dinner at the local Red Robin. We were forgotten about for the first ten minutes of being there, so we got free drinks!
We drove about fifteen miles away to a dirt road that was shaky and sent rocks at the car like bullets. We were headed for a waterfall, Heather told us, called Tumalo Falls. After a mile or two of riding through rising clouds of dirt, we pulled in by where old tourists were parking and hobbling from one historical sign to the other with their big cameras. We walked a steep dirt path up to the top viewpoint of Tumalo Falls and looked down from twenty or so feet above it. Moments like those just remind you how small you are, literally and in the grand scheme of things. The thought of how many gallons of water per second were being shattered into millions of shimmering droplets was mind-boggling. I talked the girls into climbing over the arm rail and rock wall with me down some rocks and to a small piece of land that sat right next to the violent current that lead to the fall. Being a jerk to the girls, I walked as far out as I could and sat on a rock right by the ledge. After the two concerned momma bears I was with looked at me with hands on hips, I got up and we climbed back up to the top. Then Heather suggested we go to the bottom of the falls. We took a really narrow, winding path that cut through plants, trees, tiny streams for fairies, and patches of gooey mud all the way down to the bottom of the falls and the cliffs. We stood by this huge rock wall that was a deep Mars-esque red and let the force of the water crashing by blow wind and water at our bodies. It felt amazing and was one of the most powerful experiences of my life. We decided to leave when three more people were headed towards us, one of whom was a woman with a baby attached to her chest. The climb back up was exhausting. When we got back home, Brandon was sitting at the picnic table out front with a beer in hand, during one of his rare appearances. We hadn't seen much of him while here. He was always out skating and drinking. I did enjoy the brief moments I was able to talk to him, though.
I spent the night with a sinus-induced headaches and the Internet. I ate some cookie dough and relaxed. I was sleepy, but I forced my way through it because it was just too early to sleep. We had one more day left in Bend and had solidified a ride with a guy we found on Craigslist rideshares going from Bend to Portland Saturday evening. Spending the last couple of days around so much forms and forces of nature was incredible, especially after spending so much of this trip around equally as intimidating, but far less astonishing, city creations. Heather, too, was a strong and beautiful force over the last week. I'm so glad we met her. She's such a cute person, inside and out, and is still just as young as we are in her heart. Brought together by the tiny subculture of zines and self-published thoughts and nothing more, she let us into her home and treated us like long-time friends. I'm at this point in the trip where I'm already asking myself, "How in the hell can I not visit these wonderful places and people every single year?!"
More pictures from Lava Butte.
Two more pictures from the Lava Caves. That chipmunk was munching on a mushroom.
More pictures from the Petersen Rock Garden. Imagine for a second just how long it took to probably collect these rocks. Then think about how long it took to organize them by color and size and shape. Then think about how long it took to build things with them. Holy shit.
Things have funny names around here.
More pictures from riding down the Deschutes River.
More pictures from exploring the Tumalo Falls.