Friday November 17th 2023 - Thanksgiving road trip to Oregon - Days 2 and 3 - Family time in Redmond

After being up for about 20 hours on Wednesday, I slept like the dead but also woke up very early since my body clock was very out of sorts.  I headed out from my John Day hotel towards Redmond while it was still dark out and towards the end of my 2+ hour drive I got to enjoy the sunrise over the Ochoco mountains.  The Eastern side of the pass was badly burned a year or two ago but it made for wide sweeping views.  It was interesting that as soon I as I crested the pass (and entered Crook county) it was as if there had never been a fire. They look to have used the summit as a fire line and it worked. It’s great seeing the snow capped mountains, part of the enormity of the Western landscape that I miss living in New York.

When I arrived in Redmond it was great to see my mother and step-father.  It was very foggy all day on Thursday which is truly a rare condition in the high desert where sun and dry tend to rule.  We went into Bend to eat at Cafe Yumm, a chain that started in Eugene and makes unique healthy rice bowls.  These aren’t even vaguely Asian or Mexican, they stand alone.  Cafe Yumm’s menu is centered on a special ‘Yumm’ sauce they make with brewers years and other ingredients that is tangy and savory.  I also had the ‘traditional’ chocolate dipped chocolate chip cookie.  It was a delicious dinner and everything I ate Thursday was relatively healthy compared to the airport and road food I ate on my long day Wednesday.  In the evening we played Uno and I headed off to my hotel in Sisters before 9 pm.

For Friday I’ve accompanied my mother to a medical appointment in Bend and later we plan to walk from Drake Park to North Pacific park on the newly opened segment of the Deschutes River Trail.  Bend continues to explode in population, from a posted population of 18K when we moved here in about 1990 to over 100K now.  If Bend hadn’t built the Bend Parkway 15 years ago they would be utterly paralyzed now but even with the Parkway it feels like every road is packed with cars.  Not the little resort town of my memories although my mom and I agreed that traffic was actually horrible back then too just because there was pretty much just 1 way to get anywhere in town which was US-97 which was full of stoplights and totally clogged with RVs and other through traffic all summer long.

As planned, we went on the walk to and over the new connector trail at Drake park.  We also walked by one house we used to rent downtown and drove by the other.  The new trail segment is great and makes a good piece of riverfront accessible that wasn't before.  We got some good photos of ducks and reflections in the aptly named 'Mirror Pond'.

After the downtown walks we went to Shevlin park and did a nice ~2 mils stroll along Tumalo creek and the park road.  There were quite a few people out at the park but not too many to spoil the solitude most of the time.  Interspersed between and after the walks we went to a few stores for snacks and a few impulse buy add-ons to tonight's planned dinner at home.

It was a nice way to wrap up my brief visit to Central Oregon and seeing my mother while doing things we enjoy.