We took our time this morning, which was nice. We had muffins and bananas that my husband had picked up last night, while watching the news, which we haven't seen for a while. We have been listening to NPR, whenever we can find a station. So, we haven't been totally out of the loop.
It was lovely, when we left at 10 am (2046). The first order of business was to find the Michaels that I had located through Google last night. It was near the area with the Best Buy that my husband got my new keyboard from. Why go to Michaels, when it will pretty much have the same things as the one at home? My husband gave me a necklace for my birthday the 25th, which I have not been able to get off since then. We needed pliers. We found the Michaels just four miles away at 10:15. I chose pliers from the jewelry-making department that would work on a jump ring. Luckily, I had a coupon on my app. The clerk also spent time trying to get me rewards points on the program I signed up for at home. Once we finally had the pliers paid for, my husband decided to attack the chain in the store due to its lighting. Unfortunately the ball at the end of the chain came off as he freed me. I was willing to forget it, but the clerk managed to find it. The necklace is nice, but I was beginning to feel like a belled cat due to the charms on it jangling. Once on the road at 10:35, I worked to get the app to recognize me and my password, before I forgot it needed dealing with.
We were driving through a valley of ranches on Route 20. I was hoping for a spot to take a picture, when we came upon a viewpoint at 10:46. There was a really nice ranch home behind it:
On the other side of the road was a wonderful vista featuring the Three Sisters and neighboring mountains. They'd kindly put a sign at the viewpoint labeling each mountain. Very helpful for my album. The snow looked just gorgeous.
At the viewpoint, there was a cool 1947 yellow MG that was participating in some sort of road rally and this was a check-in spot.
At 10:55, it was time to push on. In the town of Sisters, we took a bit of a detour to look for a needlework shop, but it turned out to be for quilting. We continued through town and on the other side, we both began to get the feeling that we were headed the wrong way, in spite of the map. We finally realized, we were not going to be going our intended route, if we continued this way. We wanted to go over McKenzie Pass, because it looked like a shorter distance.
So, we turned around 6 miles out of town and headed back toward Sisters and soon saw a sign to the pass via Route 242. It was a beautiful drive that took us up into the higher elevations again. At 11:45 (2092), we came to a pull-out at Windy Point, which was aptly named. We were shocked to see more lava!
That's Belknap Crater across that lava field. That lava is from 1500 years ago and little grows there still. Mount Washington, which is oddly shaped, lay pretty much directly across from the pull-out.
After 10 minutes, we climbed back in the car an headed off. Soon, we found ourselves actually driving through the lava, which formed walls on either side of us.
At 12:05 (2095), we reached a very popular stop at the summit of the pass at 5325 feet. Here was the Dee Wright Observatory, as well as a marked path you could follow through the lava. This was a truly awesome stop, it turned out. The observatory was actually made from lava rock back in the 30's.
Even the stairs were made from the rock. It was two stories tall, with the top one being flat and open to the air, while the other had window holes.
In the center of the top floor was a bronze circle with arrows on it pointing to the various mountains around us. Two that I was sure of were North Sister and Middle Sister:
The view from up there was truly spectacular and such a treat!
On the way back down, I stopped in the room below and found what a marvel of engineering this observatory really was. The windows were not all the same size. In fact some were quite smaller. On closer inspection, I saw that below each window was a name- the name of the mountain or feature you could see through it. What planning! For example, this is Black Butte, 12.4 miles away, as seen through its window:
How cool is that?!
There was a latrine on the far side below the observatory with more parking. I also wanted to walk the path a little and see some of the signs. From one such sign on the way down from the observatory, I found out that this island of greenery actually dates back 1700 years ago to the eruption from Little Belknap and that such islands are known by their Hawaiian name of kipuka. (We get a lot of volcanic terms from them, actually.)
If we weren't going to eat lunch too late, we had to press on. So, we headed off at 12:32 and I found there was no cell coverage, which wasn't a big surprise. What was a surprise was when I found I'd filled my camera and had to put in a new memory card. I do take a lot of pictures. Anyway, we went through more lava for a while and then back to woods. I, of course, dozed off.
A series of curves woke me and I got a few shots of the dense forest.
At 1:23 (2121), we pulled in to the first food place we saw, McKenzie Station Pub in McKenzie Bridge.
It was a quirky looking place and a little warm, but cooler than outside.
We were told to sit anywhere we liked and we took time to look around while waiting for the menu. Even though the sign outside said it was a gift shop, too, little had apparent price tags. We both ordered Diet Cokes (@$2), which I saw were poured from cans behind the counter. They were probably too far out to be able to justify soda on tap. Food took a while even though there were few other customers. I got the Innskeeper Club, which was toasted on sourdough bread, which, while not hot, still scratched that spot behind the two front teeth and bothered me the rest of the day. The sandwich was tasty, though. My husband got the Cranberry Pecan Chicken Salad, which is a weird concept for a chicken salad, but he liked it. Both cost $9. With tip, the bill came to $27.
We left at 2:05 and had cell coverage again in 10 minutes. My husband likes to support my hobbies, so our first stop in Eugene would be at a needlework shop I'd found online at home. At 3:08 (2174), we parked in a lot just down the street from the 5th Street Market.
Our destination was in the back corner. It was called Mindy's and she'd crossed out Needlework on the map. She'd added clothing a while back on a lark and it was doing better than the needlework. The clothes were expensive, but she had a knack for putting jewelry with them. She had mostly needlepoint canvases, some quite lovely. There were no Oregon charts, but she did have a lovely canvas of Multnomah Falls. At $30, I couldn't justify turning it into a cross stitch chart. She did carry Mill Hill kits, although a bit pricier than I usually go for. However, I did choose several, as well as some paper canvas for doing cross stitch.
We were back on the road at 3:58 and two minutes later found ourselves at the Courtesy Inn.
When we later found out the Olympic track and field trials were taking place in town, we figured that's why the name brand places had been so expensive. But, this motor court had been updated and the room was spacious.
My husband got in some practice time before we left at 5:10 for dinner. We had to search for a parking space and wound up two blocks from the Excelsior Inn at 5:30 (2176). He had to put $3.50 on the meter to cover the time until it wouldn't need money.
We waited inside for our hosts. The place was gorgeous, with lots of old stained glass. Evidently, it is quite pricey to stay there. Our hosts were a woman who'd gone to my husband's high school and with whom he'd done a recital back when we were dating and her husband. She teaches piano and he is a dean at the University of Oregon. We had a delicious bread with dipping oil. I ordered 4 Fromage, which was delicious, and my husband got Queen Cod, which he liked.
Our hosts had eaten there recently, but insisted we get dessert, even though they didn't. We split a Fruit Tartlet, which was a nice ending to the meal.
We enjoyed friendly conversation, even though my husband and the wife had not seen each other in years and we did not know the husband. They not only treated us to the dinner, but also drove us to the concert hall at the school at 7:15.
We were staying in town tonight simply to take advantage of this chance to attend the Oregon Bach Festival concert at 7:30. My husband had purchased balcony seats online, which were not inexpensive. (The climb down was much more painful than up.) We were there for Baroque Concerti with Monica Huggett (and a lot of other people). Sight lines were less than optimal due to the seat alignment. It was an excellent concert and it was obvious that the audience appreciated what they heard.
We walked back to the car past off-campus apartment buildings. We were on our way at 9:37 and back at the motel at 9:45 with 2178 on the odometer, but feeling like we'd traveled a lot more than 132 miles.
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