Somebody in our household celebrated the 25th anniversary of their 29th birthday recently. To mark that special occasion, we booked a rental house in Sisters, OR so we could play, relax and attend the Sarah McLachlan concert in Bend.
We arrived late afternoon on Saturday the 25th. The wind was whipping out of the west and the temperature was a lot chillier than back in Forest Grove. This particular rental house was a new one for us in the Tollgate neighborhood. It was quite nice though and would definitely consider it again.
On Sunday Mia and I headed out for a gravel ride that I found on The Dirty Freehub. We basically did it in reverse order and it was still fun. After the dam to the official starting point is a little lackluster but there are great views along sections of this ride.
Monday was Memorial Day and we took the chance to do our (almost) annual ride up McKenzie Pass to the Dee Wright Observatory. There is an ODOT paving project due to start on the east side anytime now, but since it was the holiday we figured we were safe.
The snow wall was almost nonexistent this year. Nowhere near as gigantic as in previous years. That did not detract from the fun one iota though. I think this ride is super fun and doing it (almost) annually with Mia is extra special.
Tuesday was our date night to the Sarah McLachlan concert. This is our third time seeing her over the years. Once in Boston a long time ago (pre-move to Oregon), once in PDX a few weeks prior to COVID shutting down the world and now this one in Bend, celebrating the 30th anniversary of her Fumbling Towards Ecstasy album. I was in college when this one came out! Let’s just say A LOT has changed/happened in that time.
Wednesday we took Codi for an easy stroll along the Metolius River. He did well for an old fella. There is minimal elevation on this hike and he had access to the river in several places too.
Mia wanted to hike to the top of Black Butte on Thursday, but I wasn’t thrilled with the road description and the fact that we had Clifford the Big Red Van. So instead we headed for Santiam Pass and would attempt to do a 10-mile roundtrip hike out to Santiam Lake. The snow wasn’t bad for the first mile, mile and half. Then things got interesting.
At the intersection of the Pacific Crest Trail and the Santiam Lake Trail things got interesting. We could follow the trail as it went from snow to bare path multiple times. However, the deeper we got the harder it was to find the trail. We followed some blazes but then nothing. We were along an unnamed body of water mentioned in the trail description but the trail was buried under multiple feet of snow. We wanered around a bit but eventually called it a day as we approached the three hour mark and had done barely 3.5 miles of hiking. We will be back later this year when more snow has melted. This should be a good one.
Friday was the depressing day of packing up and heading home. Not before a stop at Sisters Coffee and Sisters Bakery though, wouldn’t be a trip here without those two wonderful places.
Happy Birthday Mia, glad to spend a wonderful week with you in a place we both love!
Thanks for reading,
-Pete
ON & OFF RHODES 
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