Meet-Ups, Love & Beer – Bend, OR
Since my last post we’ve been enjoying our continued “nesting” time here in Bend. We had the best of intentions to get out, hike and sightsee (like we did last year), but I’ve actually got shockingly little to report and, even more shockingly, it’s because of work.
One of my many former lives was as a food photographer and just recently I got recruited to write a recipe article. So, together with mastermind-cook Paul we’ve spent the majority of our free time this past week shooting (with a camera that is) and eating food. It’s not the worst job you could have (our bellies have approved) and all the recipes will eventually end up on the blog, so you’ll get to share the fruits of that endeavor too, but for now it’s all hush-hush and the only thing I can tell you is we’ve got some tasty gems planned.
Outside of food, friends, beer and horses (of all things) have drawn us out for occasional activities, so here’s the update:
Bend Wheelingit Meetup
By far the biggest social event of the past 7 days was actually our blog meet-up last Saturday at Crux Fermentation and IT…WAS…AWESOME!
We had a small group of folks, maybe around 20 people total that turned up, but it was a thoroughly laid-back and fun occasion. My memory for names is abyssal, but some of the folks who turned up were Bill (who we met in Borrego earlier this year), Mike, Rick, Glenn & Linda, Kristen & Jason (The Snowmads), Cody & Tricia (ourwanderingrhythm), Brecht & Becky (brechtify) and and a bunch more who I’ve shockingly forgotten by name (I blame my bird-seed-size name memory bank and the third bottle of oh-so-yummy Tough Love Stout).
Either way we all had a total BLAST just hanging and chatting with like-minded folks over a few good brews. Some of these people are full-timers, others have settled down in Bend while even others are part-timers. Like I’ve said many times before on the blog there’s no right or wrong way to live this life, and as long as whatever you’re doing is fulfilling your personal and financial dreams then rock on!
THANK you to everyone who showed up. Honestly, it was a ton of fun.
More Meetings
The next day after the meet-ups we extended our get-together time with new buddies Kristen & Jason (The Snowmads) and Cody & Tricia (ourwanderingrhythm) at the cottage which the former were renting in Bend while their new Trek was being worked on for warranty issues in Eugene. It was another relaxed and splendid evening shared with good company, good food & good beer and very typical of the kind of meets we have on the road.
I’ve written about this before, but it bears repeating. Pretty much every fulltime RVer we’ve met on the road we’ve formed an almost instantaneous connection and settled into an ease of conversation that I rarely experienced before RVing. It’s a deep social engagement that I never expected when we started this journey.
I think it boils down to the fact that RVers all share a love of travel and tend to be flexible (it’s rather hard to live this lifestyle otherwise). Our connections are, by the very nature of our travel, short-lived so we make the most of them by by-passing the boring chit-chat to get to the good stuff. It reminds me very much of the types of friendships I formed backpacking in my youth….short-lived but intense in a very good way.
For The Love Of Horses
Since those meets we’ve been basically holed-up in our rig on the “farm”, tending the chickens and writing. We did see a day of hail, a day of snow and several days of rain. Plus we got recruited to check-in on the neighbors horses for a few days while they were gone.
For a teenage horse-girl like me this was a dream come true, but for horse-phobic hubby it was quite the challenge. It took 3 days for the horses and Paul to get within body-length of each other, but once he got that first horse-love-nuzzle, hubby was totally bitten.
The power of love, baby!
And Beer (Of Course)
And of course there’s beer. Sadly we’ve not succeeded in attending near the number of beer tastings that we did earlier this year in San Diego, but we’ve done our best.
Outside of San Diego, Bend is actually my favorite beer place in the west and with no less than 26 craft breweries in the area, many of which have won multiple awards, it’s no surprise we’re dedicated fans.
Most folks who come here do the entire Bend Ale Trail, but we made the mistake in 2014 of hitting Crux Fermentation early on in our visit which meant pretty much all else was irrelevant. This place is QUALITY with a capital Q and it’s still far and beyond my #1 brewery in the area. This year we did another flight, ALL of which we enjoyed (Half Hitch is still our fav IPA) and tasted their barrel-aged stout (Tough Love) which is amazing and on-par with the top stouts I had in San Diego. Perhaps I shouldn’t even mention the fact that we’ve been to Crux three times since we got here…?
Despite our Crux-obsession we did manage to squeeze in three other spots this time around worth a mention:
Boneyard Beer is a hole-in-the-wall garage of a brewery with all the funky and hip charm of a Hells Angel’s Club. The owners are tattoed to the hilt, walls are covered in cool cross-bones, you can buy beer soap and Dawg Grog (seriously), and tastings are only $1 each with the first one on the house. We weren’t blown away by the beer here, but we did enjoy their Armored Fist Ale and totally dug the funky decor.
Rat Hole Brewing sounds like it should be a hole-in-the-wall, but it’s actually an airy, classy brew-pub which puts out an exceptional quality of brews. Their Pilsner, Scottish Red and Imperial Stout were all excellent, so much so that they now rank in my top 5 breweries in the area. I highly recommend them!
Deschutes Brewery is a Bend classic. The very first brewery in the area, they’ve become huge so we were dubious that beer quality would hold up. Well, I’m happy to say we were wrong. They aren’t a match to Crux, but their stuff is good, and they offer specialty brews at the pub which are not available elsewhere. A particular surprise was their Abyss Imperial Stout which is only available seasonally and was absolutely superb! The Fresh-Squeezed IPA, Nitro Cream Ale and Bachelor Bitter were also notable.
Note/ Both Crux & Rat Hole have outdoor areas that are 100% dog-friendly (Crux has a huge patio+field, Rat Hole has a patio). Boneyard does not allow dogs inside the brewery, but you can tie them up outside while you taste (the place is literally the size of a garage). Deschutes patio was not open so they did not allow dogs while we were here. You can see which breweries are dog-friendly HERE.
That’s it for the round-up. We’ve got a one more morning here in Bend before we shoot off to Portland where Paul will unceremoniously dump me while he flies home for a few days. I will be in good company though as we’re re-meeting some buddies and plan to attack all the local coffee shops until the caffeine overdose causes my mind to explode. Should be fun 🙂
Related Posts:
- Beautiful Bend Part I – Outdoor Adventures
- Beautiful Bend Part II – Drinking Escapades
- The RV Journey -> Three Twists I Never Expected When We Started Out
- There’s No One Right Way To Fulltime RV
If you haven’t done so already, we’d recommend a trip east to the Painted Hills unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. You can climb up to the top of a large hill that looks down upon the site. One of our favorite places so far as we’re just days away from our one-year anniversary of full-timing it.
Totally. We visited them last year and it was ABSOLUTELY one of my bucket items. Here are the posts in case you missed them:
John Day Fossil Beds Part I – Blue Basin Dreams
John Day Fossil Beds Part II – Painted Hills Visions
Nina
Holy Moly could we have fun in Bend. It’s been years since I (we) have been there. And I’m a born Oregonian.
Bend is an awesome little town, and their excellent beer just adds to their allure. Good food spots too!
Nina
Mmmmm, beer!
It’s a shame there are so many good microbrew places along 101 North of San Francisco. Problem is, fuel costs towing there, and finding a place to stay is tricky or expensive or both, to say the least. Still figuring out how I will pull off a Lagunitas, and Russian River brewery visit, maybe Sierra Nevada also in Chico, in the Travel Trailer.
One must have a long bucket list and time and resources to pull this off.
Oh yeah, that route has been on our wish list for ages!! Russian River is worth the trip all by itself! Not easy to do in “the beast” though. Maybe one day.
Nina
Oh, we are so envious! We just drank our last bottle from Alesmith and are having withdrawals. Any recommendations in Carson City or Reno? We’ll be there next week.
Gayle
Definitely. My #1 recommendation in Reno is Great Basin Brewery. Good spot with very decent brews! Their stout was not San Diego quality, but it was tasty and they had some lovely IPAs. There are a few additional craft beer guys downtown, but we didn’t try them.
In Carson City there’s really nothing. Lake Tahoe Brewing opened up there recently, but we were *not* impressed, so unfortunately I cannot recommend them.
Nina
Another brewery to try in Reno is Silver Peak Brewery (http://silverpeakrestaurant.com). We were there back in February and enjoyed a fine meal and a set of interesting tasters. Yum!
Cheers for the tip! I saw that brewery on Yelp, but we didn’t make it over there. Good to know it’s tasty.
Nina
The sunset from Crux Fermentation is one of the best in Bend … Love this photo!
Your shockingly little to report looks like my busy times. All that AND you were working. Pretty amazing. Love the chicks and horse picture. Glad Paul made some horsey friends. And what a FANTABULOUS sunset.
Yeah that sunset at the brewery is amazing. Crux is pretty famous for it and offers happy hour 1/2 hour before sunset and 1/2 hour after sunset everyday.
Nina
Were those chickens admiring those turquoise toenails? 🙂
Looks like the meetup was a lot of fun!
Yeah I think they might have been…and I think they thought they were food too. I got a few pecks in that pic LOL.
Nina
BoneYard IPA was recently available on tap at a local pub I visit on occasion, became their most popular IPA, but ran out the other afternoon when I stopped it. Obvious why that occurred!
DesChutes Brewery’s Fresh Squeezed always makes its way to my home refrigerator whenever I find it at a store (always in 6-pack bottles). I really like this IPA. Either one would be even better with a sunset like the one in your above photo. Awesome!
Cheers!
Paul snagged a 6-pack of the Deschutes Fresh-Squeezed for our beer stash too. I have to admit that for a fairly big brewery they do make solid stuff.
Nina
Hi guys, We wish we could have made this one but we couldn’t. Please consider doing another one this winter, 2015 / 2016 down south. We would make every effort to attend. We would like to meet you both. Your blog has been instrumental in helping us get started.
We’ll see how this winter pans out, but if we’re in a good spot for it we’ll certainly do another. It was really fun.
Nina
My wife & I are planning to full-time in a year…great information..thanks!
We have Bend, Oregon in our summer plans–we have good friends (from North Ranch) who have a summer home near there and we want to visit them and John Day. Almost twenty one years ago this horse-phobic girl married a cowboy–you know what that meant don’t you!! He did buy me a beautiful, good horse and I learned to ride putting in many miles but always with a gut-ache from nervousness. Several years ago I sold my saddle and told the cowboy he was on his own with the riding business–he seldom rides any longer, either, I think he would like to but our interests have changed I guess and we don’t have cows to chase any longer.
I didn’t realize you were horse-phobic once Janna! Paul was happy petting the horses we looked after last week, but riding is a whole other thing. I started riding early, but Paul hasn’t had that experience. I’m not clear he’d ever get really comfortable on horseback.
Nina
Great looking group for your meet up, wish we could have come down from Terrebonne to join you. Good to see Baker Bill from boondockers there! Nina I keep seeing your tricks on the photos where you leave one item colored in the pic and turn the rest black and white. I think I remember you saying you use photoshop to do that. could you point me in the right direction on how to do that. I would appreciate it very much! Have fun in Portland with all the coffee, dont forget there is no such thing as getting enough coffee!! haha
Thanks, Doug H
We’ve met Bill multiple times now…that guy gets around LOL.
Regarding how to do the black & white in Photoshop. What I do is add a “Channel Mixer” layer to my photo and then chose the type of black/white I want (you can achieve the same thing by adding a “black/white” layer, but the channel mixer just gives you more options). Once I’m happy with the black/white I will use the paint-brush to brush through that layer (on the mask) and reveal whatever color I want underneath. That’s it!
This site kinda shows the steps I go through:
http://www.wikihow.com/Use-Selective-Coloring-in-Photoshop
Nina
thanks Nina, I will give that a try!! Enjoy Portland!
Looks like you’re making the most of your non-work time. Growing up a horsey-girl I totally get the fix – that wonderful smell and those stubbly-velvet noses are just the best 🙂 We definitely have to stop in Bend this Fall.
Seriously? A beer-colored sunset? It’s spectacular!
Yeah there’s nothing quite like the smell of horses. For horse-gals it’s the best!
Nina
Portland is my fave place for good brews, Bend is second… We are out east this year and although there are a few good craft beers here and there they mostly don’t know how to make a great IPA…
Do you have a top brewery in Portland? I plan to do some exploring over the next few weeks.
Nina
Looks like my kind of laid-back place. What a cool gig you have there!
Looks like a fun time in Bend! So cool that you know how to do food photography — I’m always trying to figure out how to get an appealing photo of an especially amazing meal and I never seem to succeed. You certainly photograph beer gorgeously!
Food photography is actually incredibly hard. I can’t profess to be an expert, but I learned quite a bit in my few years running my food photography biz. Good lighting, the right angle and food staging are all key.
Nina
I so love dreaming through your blogs and the colorful comments. I once was a traveling girl with my husband. He passed away 21 mths ago after a long illness. You folks have no idea how much your stories mean. I dream again through them. It’s my hope someday, I’ll meet the special someone who will share that “open road” passion and I’ll get the chance to meet up with some of you on the road. Till then, HAPPY TRAILS!!!
I’m so sorry for your loss Debbie. I’m truly humbled that I can provide some inspiration and dreams for others out there. It’s really the best compliment I can get. I wish you all the best with your dreams to get on the road again one day. I’ve met so many wonderful single ladies traveling out there. I know you can do it too!
Nina
Your meet up looked great… Can’t wait for the recipes… Have been on horses many times.. but they still scare me …I never got the bond… But I respect them and think they are magnificent animals…
I think you need to start young to get that horse-bond. At least most of the horse-lovers I know started young. I was riding at a very early age and was always obsessed by horses, right through to my teenage years. One day I hope to have a space where I can spend more time around them.
Nina
Looks like you are having a great time. I will keep those brew Houses in mind for the next time we are in the area. This is a new business that is popping up vp everywhere here in BC. I have checked out your friends blogs, they are great as well.
Hey Nina, it was great meeting up with you and Paul et al at Crux.
The Green Dragon (dog friendly) would be a good place to sample
some PDX beers, then go from there. The Lucky Lab (super dog friendly)
has ok brews, we go mostly for the dogs.
Sorry the weather was so clunky your last week in Bend, we are getting
tired of it ourselves. Enjoy the rest of the summer.
Glenn&Linda
It was GREAT to meet you too!!
Cheers very much for the Portland recommendations. We discovered Gigantic Brewery last night which is super dog-friendly and has awesome brews, so I’ve already got one good one under my belt. I’ll be looking forward to trying the others you mentioned.
Nina
What a lovely post! (I’m a few days behind, as usual!) We were so thankful to finally meet you guys after almost two years of missing each other geographically. You’re spot on about our time together being short lived but intense in the best way – we manage to cram so much fun into our short visits!
Can’t wait to see you guys again this fall or winter and get into more trouble. There’s still over 75 breweries in San Diego we haven’t been to! 😉
– Kristin, Jason and the furry clan
Very happy we got to meet & hang with you guys too!
Nina