I'm sorry to say that at this point the posts get a little shorter, and have many less photos. While the point and shoot does a fine job, it just doesn't give me the flexibility I like. In addition, as we were doing some biking at this point, taking photos kind of took a back seat.
Tuesday morning we were up fairly early, but had a leisurely time getting camp setup and getting some breakfast. We were meeting Graham and Colleen at 10:00 to go for our first ride of the trip. We met them enroute in the center of town, and headed out to the trailhead. The start of the ride was at the edge of the Deschutes River, a few miles out of town. The ride started with a pretty good climb, then navigated through a series of rough and rocky sections. It was pretty tough going at the beginning, but eventually the trail evened out and turned into the more typical flowy, fun trails I was expecting.
Justine on our first ride of the trip.
The trail ran along the edge of the river for most of the time, and we were provided with some great views out over this very peaceful and serene scene. A couple of times we got to watch rafters as they floated down the river. It was pretty cool to see. Our mountain biking ride ended at Dillon Falls, a set of rapids that were also pretty cool to see. Justine and I had to be back relatively early to get ready for our concert that night, so we took off on Graham and Colleen, and rode back a fair bit faster than we went out.
Rafters out on the river.
There were sections where the rapids looked pretty fun.
And other sections where it just looked very serene.
The ride back was overall a little more downhill, and was a lot of fun. We got back in less than half the time it took us to go out, and were able to get our gear all sorted and packed up. As the trail head was right on the river, I took the opportunity to jump in and go for a swim. The water was really cold, and the current was a lot stronger then I was expecting, from looking at it. Still, the swim was very refreshing, and gave me a chance to wash off the dirt and grime from the ride.
The Deschutes River runs right through the center of town (and I'm sure must have something to do with the name). It adds such a great feel to the town. This was taken from a bridge right near the Old Mill District, which at one time housed the largest pine mill in the country.
We stopped in town for some lunch, and to pick up a few things. We then headed back to the campsite to get ready for the evening. Justine had managed to get a couple of tickets for the Dave Matthews Band concert at the Bend Amphitheatre, which was seriously lucky, as we heard that the show sold out in four minutes.
The Amphitheatre started to fill up fairly early in the afternoon. The show started at 6:00, so it had a festival atmosphere.
The Amphitheatre is right in the town, on the river and ended up being a pretty great venue for a show. The doors were set to open at 4:00, with the band schedule to start at 6:00. We headed over pretty close to 4:00, and managed to find some street parking pretty close to the venue. We needed to do some shopping for our rode tomorrow, and so we walked into the Mill District again (it's basically across the river for where the Amphitheatre is), and picked up the few things we needed from REI.
And the show was under way!
It was about 5:30 by the time we got back into the venue and got settle on the lawn for the show. The band came on at about 6:30, and played almost nonstop until close to 10:00 p.m. While I'm not a huge fan of the band (Justine is for sure) I like some of the music, and you can't debate that they put on a great show.
Probably the most hilarious thing - the people watching the show for free from the river, while floating on rafts and various boats. I imagine it must have gotten cold once the sun went down.
After the show, we headed back to the campsite to call it a night. We had a big day of riding planned for Wednesday, and so we needed to get to sleep, and called it a night.