Smith Rock and the Bend Brew Fest, August 14

 Our  stay limit was up at Thousand Trails so we left Sun River Thousand Trails and headed over to the Bend Elks Club for a few days. We had the Elks parking lot all to ourselves when we arrived but by the evening is was dry camping only.  

Thursday evening Julie and her husband Dick, had us over for dinner. We gorged ourselves on old fashioned Bar-B-Q hamburgers with all of the trimmings, veggies, potato salad, and homemade apple pie.  Ymmm.  Julie and I were neighbors growing up.  She only lived a few doors up from me and we both graduated form the same high school and the same year.  What a treat to catch up with an old friend.  She and her husband have lived in the area for over 30 years and have a darling house on the river.  It was soooo good to see her and catch up.

The next morning got an early start and headed over to Smith Rock to work off some of the past evenings guilt.   Smith Rock is an impressive rock formation and a popular spot for rock climbers.  Since we got an early start the crowds were not too bad and there were still some climbers on the walls.  Generally, the climbers get a very early start because the walls get too hot to climb.

The first glimpse of the trail was a little intimidating.  The trail zig zags up the side of the mountain and continues up and over to make a loop.  Well...Joel really doesn't like hills and I decided I would like to get off the trail before dark, so we took the lower Canyon Trail as an out and back, which was just as beautiful.  Also, the sky was extremely hazy and I couldn't see any of the surrounding mountains or vistas on our drive over. The whole point of gaining all that elevation would be to be rewarded with the beautiful vistas,  right?  So without the promise of  vistas we decided to take the Canyon Trail. The  Canyon Trail  follows the Deschutes river and eventually connects with the original "Misery" trail near Monkey Face.

 You can see the switch back towards the bottom left of the photo.

We took the lower trail which follows the river, which was very peaceful and fairly flat.

These climbers were really pushing the time factor.  It was pretty warm on the trail, so I image the walls were getting pretty hot.

Can you see Monkey Face.? The Misery trail joins the river tail at this point, which was the turn around point for us.

The river is very low as evidenced by the water marks on the rocks.

Sure hope no one has to use these.

We did get to the Elks club in time to clean up and head over to the Bend Brew Fest.  Look at all those Port A Potties! The event was held in the amphitheater across from the Old Mill District.

 I think there were suppose to be over 77 craft brewers represented.

 Although there were lots of folks enjoying the craft beers, everyone was polite and the lines moved quickly.  The beer was good too.  Different varieties of hard cider were also available. Hard cider is becoming very popular and is found in most breweries in Bend as an alternative for those that can't drink beer.

Whew.  What a busy day!

Saturday we made our Costco and grocery runs as we will be heading out towards North East Oregon on Sunday.