Extra Days in Bend

Days 28 and 29.

I had to spend an extra day in Bend, Oregon. It was my own damn fault. I created a negative feedback loop with the postal service.

To shorten the sad story, I used the wrong post office address for general delivery. They were not the designated general delivery post office. So main PO would get package and send it to branch PO near me. Branch near me saw "General Delivery" and returned it to main PO. Repeat.

Still I got to explore Bend. It is a large sprawling city. Pretty bad land use planning. About every third car had California plates. Talking to locals, it appears the Bend real estate market is incredibly hot for two reasons. First, covid 19 has made people realize a lot of work can be done remotely. Second, localized factors make people want to leave their homes in nearby Portland (civil unrest) or adjacent California (fiscal cliff-diving) to come to a temperate, 4 season area with 300 days of sunshine and skiing and fishing and tons of other outdoor activities. Bend is beautiful, but it is clearly getting californicated.

A real life example. I was in downtown. At a clearly marked crosswalk (big white stripes, flashing light) I started across. A car with California plates rolled through a stop sign and almost hit me. He honked. I pointed to the sign and told him "I am in a crosswalk." Quickly scouring his brain for an intelligent response, the best he could come up with was flipping me off and speeding away, presumably to gather with other cretins.

Like any urban area on the west coast, there’s a fair amount of obvious homelessness.

Bend had a pretty good library, a few museums (closed) and some nice older neghborhoods. I even found an amazing food truck, the Tin Pig, that made the best chicken sandwich I have ever eaten.

I think if I were to move to Bend I might look into one of the older homes and avoid the planned communities, with their faux log cabins and million dollar homes. I definitely want a signed crosswalk.

Back to business, I resupplied. I also found a shuttle, Shuttle Oregon, that would take me from Bend to the exact spot I left the trail, Santiam Pass, for $20. I also went to the grocery store again and bought too much cruddy food. I’m sure my pack weighed over 40 pounds.

I was set to hit the trail. Next up: Three Sisters Wilderness.