A Free Weekend

A week ago I was in Marin on my birthday. So yesterday I celebrated it with my wife. For the first time since moving here I had a free weekend, a weekend where I didn't have to drive to California and back, didn't have to pack and unpack, load and unload boxes. Yesterday we went exploring. We drove around Sunriver, Sisters, Redmond and Prineville, south, west, north and east of Bend.

We had lunch at the Gallery restaurant in Sisters. Lunch was great. Sisters is a small town of about 1600 people, just a few minutes west of Bend. The town has a large number of galleries and places to eat, most with an Old West theme. It reminds me a bit of Big Bear in Southern California, and other towns that still look like the old west.

Dinner was at Shoji's in Bend, a Japanese restaurant where they chop and grill the food right in front of you in an entertaining fashion, similar to Benihana's. The food was great, and it was fun to watch it be prepared.



Today we drove in to Bend again for the Winterfest in downtown Bend, a collection of booths with music, art, food and crafts. One of the things that drew us to Central Oregon was downtown Bend. It's an attractive, vital downtown area with lots of galleries and restaurants, where people gather and walk around and socialize. You can tell a lot about a town by its downtown. Above is an ice sculpture at the Winterfest, and a view of the river. Downtown Bend is right on a bend in the river. Go figure. :)



These sculptures were the only ice I saw in Bend. Then we went home and I shoveled more ice and snow from the front of my house. We had a half-dozen little birds at the feeder, sharing it with the squirrels. They were about the size of a large thumb. I think they may have been chickadees. When I see them again, I'll try to get their picture, but they're fast and skittish.


Blog Tag: Images