After Portland, my plan was to stop in Utah to see an old friend from high school and then drive on to Colorado. However, the beautiful thing about travel is that you meet people along the way and those people make for a good excuse to take a detour and visit a new place. Stella and I met someone who was taking a cross-country road trip on his motorcycle and several of our stops overlapped. He was from Bend, Oregon and invited me to visit on my drive back East. I didn’t know anything about Bend. I had no idea that the place, though pretty much isolated with no neighboring cities, is absolutely jaw-droppingly beautiful. Lakes and mountains lie just outside of town and it offers year-round activities for lovers of the outdoors.

The time flew by quickly in Bend. We went kayaking, I visited Crater Lake National Park, and I even had my first taste of Rocky Mountain oysters… and they were good. I have a million gorgeous photos and am still trying to narrow them down for upcoming posts on this beautiful area in Oregon. Stay tuned!

And, just as a completely random conclusive photo, as I was walking around town one morning with my tea in hand, I stopped into a book shop. I was busy listening to two geeky employees of the bookshop eagerly talk comic books, when I nearly screamed. This is a cruel little joke for a bookstore!