Just a quick check in. We packed up and left the John Day Fossil Bed area this morning. We arrived in Bend and found the downtown area where we had lunch on a patio by the Deschutes River and walked around the shops for a bit. Then we drove out to the Deschutes National Forest to find the Tumalo Falls.

We hiked up to the top of the falls and I took some more photos.

We then checked into our hotel. We had dinner at the restaurant here. Again, we got a great table on the deck right next to the river. It was a gorgeous evening. My steal was not cooked to my specifications so the waiter comped us this gigantic chocolate dessert. It is a chocolate bag filled with dark and white chocolate. We could barely make a dent in it.

Tomorrow, we will head back to hot Portland and reunite with Mr Scooter.

This was a pretty good day, with less driving! We went back out to the Painted Hills area and drove back to two different short hiking trails. The first was leaf hill which is an area where many botanical fossils have been found. For some reason, I lost the photos that I took there. It was interesting, but not that photogenic. The next area, Painted Cove, was breathtaking. It was an area where you could get up close and personal with a painted hill. Here is Mr C walking on the special walkway.

Here are a couple of other shots.

The lower  rock is really lavender – it is lava rock. Click on this and you will see red, lavender and chartreuse with some shades of blue.

I took this shot with Instagram on my iPhone. I did no fiddling with the color. This is how it looked.

We then went back to the overlook of the famous painted hills. The greens were much more vivid in the morning light. The whole place was a riot of color.

I took a panorama shot with an app I have on my iPhone. Click to see it enlarged.

After lunch, we drove out to the town of Fossil. We were going to go to the fossil beds, but it proved to be a bit more of a drive than we want to take. The landscape ran the gamut of wow to bucolic farm scenes.

This was a view driving back to Mitchell.

Tomorrow, we will pack up and head to Bend for some R & R at the Riverhouse Resort. We were going to go to Joseph, but are going to save that for another trip when we can stay longer.

I think it is cooler here than Portland. We have the windows open, feeling a cool breeze and watching a French film we found in the DVD library here at the cottage. So I shall say adieu! We will be driving back to 98° in Portland on Friday!

This morning, we left Sisters and after a stop at the Trader Joe’s in Bend, we headed east to Mitchell, Oregon.

We saw more rugged landscape. I had no idea this was out here in eastern Oregon.

Upon arriving in Mitchell, we found the local general store, a somewhat intimidating establishment.

We ate our lunch in a little park near the store and then headed up the hill to find our cottage.

We have a beautiful garden all to ourselves.

We unloaded our stuff and put our food in the fridge and hopped back into the car to drive the Journey Through Time Scenic byway. It is a 70 mile loop around the John Day Fossil Bed area.

The landscape changed as we wound our way up and down with many curves and exciting vistas.

Cathedral rock!

After some rest and wine and a great dinner, we jumped back into the car to see the famous painted hills at sunset. There were several areas of painted hills, but the most famous vista is a drive back in off the main road. You can drive up to a lookout point. It was absolutely awesome.

There was some smoke in the sky from a forest fire and so the sunset was spectacular.

I know I am boring you with all of these photos!!! We are going back tomorrow morning to see them in daylight and to hike further back to see the other side of the vista. There will probably be more photos.

Addendum: I forgot to mention that we stopped at the Condon Paleontology Center. It was a beautiful facility and we learned so much about the fossils and ancient history of this area.