Friday - Joe and I set off on our own today, so we made a full day of it. Our plan was to drive the Cascade Lakes Loop Drive, which was said to be 87 miles starting from Bend. We are approximately 40 miles from Bend, so we knew we were looking at close to 200 miles. I think it end up at about 275.
We had breakfast in town, then stopped off at the Visitor Center in Prineville. I had seen a drive south out of Prineville along the Crooked River, so we got information on that. Then Joe decided we should just start out with that drive, and get to Bend that way. Just after we left the Visitor Center, we saw Collins with the rest of the group at the gas station, so we stopped there and told them about this Crooked River Drive. They were also going to Bend, so we all went this way. I think the official name is the Lower Crooked River Back Country Byway.
We really expected to see some wildlife through here, but all we saw was a blue heron.
We loved this drive. The crooked river was beautiful, and the cliffs on the other side of the road were also beautiful. The river ended in the Bowman Dam and the Prineville Reservoir, another beautiful lake. We caught up with the Brundiges and Johnsons here, and caught Collins doing a few exercises.
As we headed on down the road to Bend, we came upon a "shoe tree." And lots of shoes on the ground that apparently have fallen off the branches.
As we got through the hills, we caught sight of the beautiful Mount Batchelor again. That is our next destination.
We worked our way through Bend and found the right road to begin our Cascade Lakes Scenic Drive. There are several round-abouts in Bend, and they could do with a few more signs. We were right at the base of Mount Batchelor (9,065 tall), and considered riding the chairlift to the top but decided again that. We did see a deer along here.
There are lots of Sno-Parks in this area, and we checked one of them out. Then we got to the first of many lakes on this drive. There was road construction along here and we didn't get a good look at the first one (Devil's Lake, which has an optical illusion which makes objects floating on it look as if they were floating in the air -- we didn't see any of that). But we did get a look at the next one, Elk Lake.
People were enjoying the water all around this drive today.
Here is Joe with Mount Batchelor behind him.
We saw lots of chipmunks today, but here was one posing for me.
We next went back on the Osprey Point Trail and hiked back to the marsh but the trail quit on us.
We did see a pelican here but couldn't get very close to it.
Joe lost the trail, but he's trying to find it.
We finally gave up on this and got back on the road, and then we came upon another road to take us back to this lake. We saw two more pelicans here, and spotted an eagle overhead. And we saw two geese waddling along in the woods, which is a bit unusual.
Our next lake had a nice beach, and families were out in force here.
We got done with this part of the drive, got back to Hwy 97, then went to the Newberry National Volcanic Monument, where there is a partially collapsed volcano with two lakes in it. We didn't know about this, but decided to check it out. It was quite an uphill drive on a very crooked, gravel/dirt road, but as it turned out, it was worth it. The two lakes we could see from the top were awesome, the panoramic view was magnificent, and we enjoyed our time up here -- I even got a nice picture of a butterfly here.
Joe got some panoramic shots here where you can see both lakes in the same photo.
This was the understatement of the day.
And there were some pretty colorful rocks up here too. (I did pick up a small one.)
And a couple of shots of us.
On our way back to the highway, we stopped at another waterfall -- Pringle Falls.
Our last adventure on this drive was a stop at the LaPine State Park, home to Oregon's tallest ponderosa pine, at 191 feet. And the scenic Deschutes River, which we have followed and crossed all day, flows through this park. On this road, a coyote crossed in front of us. As we got to the state park, Joe said there should just be a sign, "big tree," so we would know where to go. And would you believe, there was!!!
But when we parked and found the next "big tree" sign, it was not nearly as easy to see.
But we did locate it. The sign there says it is no longer the tallest ponderosa pine in Oregon, but it is still the largest in circumference.
We walked down to the river again, and there was a tiny, little chipmunk there -- maybe 2 inches tall. It took a lot of zoom, but I did get a photo.
One more drive to the river, through the campground here, and we finally got back on the road and headed to Bend, and to some pizza! As we entered town, I took a picture of their artistic center of the round-about, but they would be better off to put up more signage on their round-abouts, in our opinion.
We had decided earlier to drive back to Prineville along the Crooked River Road that we had driven this morning, hoping maybe some deer or other wildlife would be about. It was worth driving it both ways because it really is a beautiful drive. The sun was hitting the cliffs and bringing out the color in the rocks.
And we were rewarded, Joe spotted a deer on one of the grass islands so he pulled off and we watched it for a while. It crossed the river but stayed on the far bank, still eating.
We also had some quail cross the road in front of us, so it was a good wildlife day: blue heron, 3 pelicans, eagle, coyote, 2 geese plus ducks and geese in the water, pretty butterfly, 2 deer, quail, and lots of chipmunks. We got back to the RV about 8:30, about a 12 1/2 hour day.
I got lazy last night and didn't write up yesterday's blog, so I had to do both of them tonight, and it is now almost midnight. That was a mistake. But we are going to the Sister's Quilt Show tomorrow and I didn't want to have three blogs to write -- I can't remember stuff that well. So now I'm going to bed and hope I can sleep fast.
