Wandering Wednesday: Oregon

A beautiful lazy part of the Deschutes River in Sunriver, Oregon close to Bend. We stayed there for a few days and enjoyed it quite a bit. Bike riding, river rafting (well floating really) and hiking.

 Yes we know we're ridiculous with our matching SF Giants/Jerry Garcia hats. But at least we know we are. Yes we're *those* people now, but in our defense we just got these hats at the game a couple weeks ago, so they were fresh and clean and easily accessible.

 My niece took this picture of my eye in one of the lava tube rocks at the Lava Lands visitor center. One of the adjacent holes had a ground squirrel hanging out in it which was quite a surprise.

The giggling about Lava Butte (Lava Butt!) was contagious. This is my sister-in-law Karen and her two girls. 

 We got to hike around the rim of the crater on the crunchy pumice/volcanic rock and I loved seeing mix of colors.

 Part of the pumice field/lava flow and the view out towards the Sisters.

 This lonely dead tree made me think of a dragon.

 View of the volcanic crater from below. That's a lot of lava.

 Closeup of a tightly woven cornhusk bag.

 Don't these look like something from Dr. Seuss?

 We did a few hikes, this one was along the Deschutes River towards the falls. But it looked just as lazy and calm as the section we'd rafted the day before.

 But just around a bend it turned into this! I took a lot of picture of the swirling water and was glad to get this one catching the spray.

 Here's the approach to Benham Falls.

This is Benham Falls which was loud and crashing and quite violent. We all decided we were glad to not be rafting through this section.