Before we even started breakfast, the kids began lobbying for a return trip to the mountain bike park. The Family Man riding area is favorite place of the Beck family, so it didn’t take long before we were formulating a plan for us all to do a bit more riding.
Thatcher has been lobbying Ethan for a new bike helmet.
Ethan guided us on some trails that we hadn’t found yesterday. Thatcher and Cam were impressive, and looked right at home on the dusty tracks.
Julia following Thatcher down a moderately scenic trail.
Eventually, we had to break the news to all of the kids that the Bartlett rig was moving on. Our destination for this evening was Bend, OR, about 2.5 hours south of Hood River. We loaded our dusty bikes, posed for one group photo and said our thank-yous and goodbyes.
When you ask a tired rider sitting in the parking lot if he will take your group picture, don't be surprised if the main subject of the image is the sweet bike.
A morning mountain biking session hadn't been in our original plan for the day, but it was completely worth it. However, we had heard there were some new forest fires between Mt. Hood and Bend that might require a significant detour that would delay our arrival in Bend. We consulted the Gazeteer that Aunt EJ had given us to see what the alternate routes might be and used our phones to figure out which roads were open. According to ODOT, it looked like the roads on the most direct route were still open, so we grabbed some gas station sandwiches, filled the Sprinter with diesel and headed south.
Eat your sandwich, son. We are headed for that mountain behind you.
As we neared the base of Mt. Hood, I intentionally passed the turn-off toward Bend. We might be OK getting through the fires without a detour, but we were not going to pass near the small village of Government Camp without stopping at the Huckleberry Inn for a Huckleberry Shake.
The exterior of the Inn has had a facelift since my last visit back in 1990. During my ski racing days, I used to spend weeks in the summer training on the snowfields of Mt. Hood.
The lunch counter and the Huckleberry Shakes still look familiar. Huckleberries are like small blueberries. They are perfectly sized to get stuck in the middle of your straw.
Back on the road we could see the fire cloud on the horizon ahead of us and the smell of smoke was unavoidable. We had heard that the fire we were about to drive through had started when a tow-behind camper had a blowout on one of its tires. Instead of pulling over to change it, the driver kept driving on the rim, sending sparks off of the roadway and into the roadside tinder for about 15 miles. As a result, there were multiple touch-off points and the fire quickly grew out of control.
The Warm Springs fire cloud. We are heading south on Rte 26.
The scene along the roadside. This fire was completely avoidable. Laziness and carelessness on the part of one person put people and property in jeopardy.
There are additional fires raging in other states throughout the west. On NPR today we heard that the USFS Forest Fire Center is considering bringing in crews from other countries since all of our domestic crews are already assigned to the current blazes.
The smoke followed us all the way to Bend, where we were looking forward to seeing our friends the Dimmigs. We arrived at about 4 pm, but before we were allowed in the house, we had to get through security. If he lets us through, we will stay here for two nights.
