Witherspoon Visit to Bend

For my three day weekend in October the whole family (sans Jami’s fiancé Ben) came to visit EJ, Gus and I in Bend.  In true EJ & Jeneé fashion, we had an itinerary set weeks before the trip commenced.  My parents rented a great house where we all stayed on the West side of town which gave us a perfect location to start from for all of our adventures.  We had such a great weekend I wished it could have lasted longer.

Wednesday:  Mom, Dad and Jill arrived early afternoon and checked out the house before coming to see the hospital and our house.  Then we went to dinner in The Old Mill District, an area along that river that used to be a lumber mill and is now an outdoor shopping mall/concert venue/park area, and had dinner there.  After that the Michiganders hit the hay after their long day of travel and EJ, Gus and I went to pick up Geoff at the airport.  Geoff’s bag didn’t make it past Chicago, but he did not let it slow him down at all the next day.  Gus was more excited to see Geoff than you can imagine.

Thursday:  EJ had to work for the morning, so I took my family to the upper Deschutes River to go for a scenic hike and to see some water falls.

Family at Dillon Falls.

Jill and Dad on a boulder in the Deschutes!

Mom and Geoff on the Deschutes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After our hike we met up with EJ and hit our favorite lunch spot, Parilla, for some delicious wraps.  Then we rented mountain bikes and headed to Phil’s Trail system to show off the fantastic mountain biking that Bend has to offer.  Everyone enjoyed mountain biking, but we had some wounded soldiers by the end of the ride.  In fact, by the end of the day I was the only Witherspoon/Daws that had not endured some sort of physical ailment.  Geoff definitely took the most gnarly fall but we figured that chicks would dig his bloodied Facebook pictures so overall he probably came out even.

Geoff after getting thrown riding the terrain park.

Friday:  We got breakfast and went downtown to check out the shops before going to the airport to pick up Jami.  As soon as we got her we went to Smith Rock State Park.  The park is a beautiful area of huge rock formations created by volcanic eruptions and it is a major rock climbing destination in central Oregon.

Smith Rock State Park

We hiked a trail called Misery Ridge which took us up high and gave us a great view of the Sisters mountains and the whole area.  We got to watch some rock climbing and Gus went for a swim in the river while Jami scouted fishing spots for Ben.  After that we got a delicious late lunch and some brews (since no one brought water on the hike) at a renovated train station restaurant in Terrebonne.  This was the beginning of our weekend brew celebration.

 

 

Friday evening we went downtown to drink some more brews and check out the Fall Festival and Art Hop.  Bend seems to have a festival, or some other reason to shut the streets down and celebrate with microbrews, just about every weekend.  It is one of the things we really like about Bend!

Saturday:  The boys watched the Spartan football game and the girls went out to a delicious breakfast at The Victorian and then went wedding dress shopping for Jami!  I think Jami surprised all of us, especially herself, at her willingness to try on different styles of dresses.  We all have our favorite dress from the day and are keeping our fingers crossed!!

After dress shopping we met up with the boys and some of my friends from BEMC to cruise town on The Original Cycle Pub!  It is a customer powered trolly that we pedaled around town to a couple of different breweries.  It was a fun way to sample some beer and enjoy the crisp fall air.  We followed up the cycle pub with a tour of Deschutes Brewing Co., which is the oldest craft brew creator in Bend.  And since we still hadn’t had enough to drink after that, we went to 10 Barrel, our favorite brewery, for dinner.

Sunday:  For our last day we decided to hike the Green Lakes Trail in the Sisters Wilderness.  This is the area where Homeward Bound was filmed and the scenery is spectacular.  The hike was around 8 miles round trip which may have been a little much considering all the brew we enjoyed the day before, but the family time and amazing views were totally worth it.  This was definitely one of the prettiest hikes we have ever done.

The trip was an absolute blast!  I hope everyone can come back soon!  Thanks Mom and Dad!

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