Beautiful Bend

I made it after 10 hours of flight/airport times. Now I know what it's like to be a rock star. :) My friends Lil and Dave have an amazing house on "the hill" in Bend, which translates to "the nice area" of town. Real estate is unreal here. Our friend Heather, who lives 4 blocks down the hill, showed us an overgrown little plot of land by her house that sold for $295,000 recently. It's just a strip of LAND, people. Thankfully, I'm not hoping to move here any time soon.

We walked a bit yesterday by the river. Gorgeous - saw some swans. The landscape is so diverse here - flying in I was confused if I was coming to the desert or to ALASKA, the mountains were so big (how quickly I forget, eh?) This morning we went to the library for "story time" for 0-18 month olds. Maddie is just out of the age range, so we cheated and came in the back door. (Not really.) I left in the middle of the first song as I felt a wee bit out of place without a small child on my lap, and besides, I didn't know the song they were singing. But oh how the melody of that song followed me, stuck in my head, as I wandered the Bend library and saw dreadlocks and fleece and hiking shoes and Mountainsmith bags... sigh. It was just like being back in Boulder. Everybody drives an SUV or even better, a Prius, and they have big dogs that look like they just got back from Iditarod.

So after Maddie's nap, we'll go to the Farmer's Market, and buy some veggies for the weekend, and since they have NO SALES TAX here (hello? In TN it's almost 10%!!) I'm hoping to do a little bit of shopping. We're gonna go to a bluegrass show tonight - as if I don't know what THAT'S like living with Miss Sugar Hill - and go to an Outward Bound staff party and a balloon festival later in the week. I'll let you know how it goes!