Days 14 & 15 - The End, Part 1

We started the day in Rocklin with a delicious breakfast with Dan's niece and her boyfriend at Venita Rhea's (look closely at the mural when you're there...). Then we headed north on US-97 towards the Shasta area.

it's just cool that this has to be a
sign at Sierra Nevada Brewery

But no trip to inland northern California is complete without a stop at The Holy Land...aka the Sierra Nevada brewery in Chico. If you know Dan even a little, you know how vital this little magical place is to his, um, lifestyle. It is actually a really impressive operation, known for it's amazing commitment to sustainability. It's nice to support a business that is truly dedicated to managing their environmental impact.

We mosied on up the road through lovely Klamath Falls, OR with an ultimate destination of Bend, OR, one of our very favorite towns. The Goog was telling us about 8 hours from Rocklin to Bend, but we considered the aforementioned F-L-L-R effect and knew we'd be there pretty late. We rolled in around 9:30pm, headed to the 10 Barrels Brewery for a late dinner, grabbed a bundle of firewood and headed just a few miles north to the Tumalo State Park campground. This is a fantastic, family-friendly place to camp just outside the city if you are looking for somewhere to go close to Bend. Highly recommended.

Upper Klamath Lake

On the way into Bend we began discussing the fact that a big Northwest Overland event (Spring Plink, Drink, n' Trek) was taking place over the weekend just a couple hours from where we were going. Originally we planned to to drive all the way home, then Dan was going to return almost all the way back to Bend the next day. As the desert dust was clearing out of our brains we realized the foolishness of this idea, and arranged for a rental car in Bend to get Amy home to rescue the pets and keep Dan from adding miles, hours, and gas payments to the trip.

The next day we went back into Bend and were able to have a nice long lunch with one of Amy's oldest and dearest friends, who works in Bend helping low-income seniors with meeting housing needs. After a nice lunch at McMenamin's Old St. Francis School (awesome outdoor seating!) we picked up a zippy little Hyundai Accent at Enterprise and split our stuff in the parking lot of a laundromat. It was like some sort of twisted high school breakup. We said "See ya around sometime" to each other, and Amy headed off to the north while Dan hunkered down to wash some dirty duds.

Amy's drive into Seattle was beautiful. A stop at the Stonehenge World War I Memorial on the Washington side of the Biggs crossing over the Columbia River for some breathtaking views, right underneath the massive wind turbines. Headed up through Yakima, stopped in Ellensburg as the rain was looming overhead. Got home late that night, happy to be back, and rescued the dog from the kennel...all healed up from his unfortunate altercation. We're sure it was the other guy's fault...