Bend, OR

Lots of driving.

After briefly spending time in Sabin with Tally's family, we trekked across ND, stopping for the evening in P.L. with my family. It was nice to be able to see everyone, even if it was pretty brief. The next day, we made it to Pocatello after a long one, then trekked through Idaho and Oregon to reach Bend. The weather was a little iffy, but nothing like Tally had to put up with driving herself back to MN in November, so I was thankful, as it could have been worse.

Let's talk about Bend. It seemed like a pretty neat little town, though we only spent one night and the next day until noon there. Really cool downtown with lots of interesting shops and restaurants. We stayed at this place called the Oxford, which reminded me of the HoDo in Fargo. They were really, really nice there.

The most interesting thing to me was the smell around Bend. It was really wonderful. You know how mountain areas smell like pine, spruce, etc. Tally and I noticed many variations of this smell on our trip through the Western U.S. Bend's was perhaps the most interesting and the best, in our opinion. It almost smelled sweet with a cinnamon component. Maybe I'm crazy, but I thought that was really interesting.