I've been wanting to blog about this, so I'll have to make it a quick one before another 3 weeks pass. I am doing a noise analysis project for a new road over in Bend and had to go do the noise monitoring for a couple of days a few weeks ago. I stayed for 2 nights and Doug brought the boys over to join me for the 2nd night. We love Bend. It has really changed immensely since we first visited it in, oh....1997! We did a spring break drive up to snowboard Bachelor. This completely colored our decision to move to Portland due to the belief that Mt. Hood must be as epic as Mt. Bachelor with the added bonus of being only 60something miles away (no need for a hotel!). The belief was completely off-base, so Bend remains an awesome destination for us that we do not visit often enough. It's about 3 hours away and is a high desert town. It's dry and has a lot more pine trees and sun than Portland.
On Saturday we swam in the hotel pool (or hot tub - me) and then headed to the High Desert Museum (after checking out a tiny store of Japanese things in downtown).
The museum was a great combination of indoor and outdoor exhibits. It was also the perfect day for visiting. It was a beautiful 85 degree day. Bend can get pretty hot in the summertime.
The replica homestead was my favorite part. I was pretty entranced by anything prairie-related as a child, and I think I still am. The ladies in costume were very entertaining in their characters and put the kids to work scrubbing the porch. The younger of the two challenged Doug and I to do a hoop rolling race to the barn and back. When I won she informed him he'd been beaten at a boy's game, no less! The pick up sticks were for girls.
Ebin had a few high points during the day. He fell of the bench hitting his head on concrete during the Birds of Prey show which had signs all over the doors saying QUIET because the birds get startled. Well, I hope they survived the trauma of the screaming. He then tried to duck under the ropes to climb the old firetruck after I told him he couldn't. He looked at it with a sparkle in his eye, looked at me with a sideways glance and a smirk, and then went for it. Having put the kibosh on that he decided to jet out of the gift store with a kaleidoscope. I started chasing him (as a guy says 'Well it looks like he recovered from the bump on the head!') and then realized, oh, he is REALLY running and I had to start sprinting through the museum entrance hall with my loud-slapping flip-flops. Ahem. Three year olds. He got to ride back to Portland with Doug :)
In addition to the amazing outdoor exhibits, the museum also had very impressive indoor collections. There was a large Native American exhibit about the Columbia Plateau tribes that goes right up through modern times and a great one called 'Sin in the Sagebrush' about the gambling halls and brothels of the wild west. All in all it was a great family day - fun for all of us!
