Bug guarding our gear at the put-in...he liked the solid ground
We just got back from a long and fun weekend in Oregon. Most of our time was spent on the Deschutes River. The whole raft trip was a wedding present from my bro, Mac, and his girlfriend, Stephanie. It was SO much fun...my parents came up from California and my lil sis flew out from Colorado too. The Deschutes River flows through the area of Oregon known as the "rain shadow" which basically means it gets no rain. And lucky for us it was sunny the whole time we were there. The mountains and hills are covered in cheat grass and columnar basalt...bizarre landscape for a large river to be flowing.
The wildlife was great, although I didn't get many pictures. We saw a ton of Great Blue Herons, Big Horn Sheep of the desert race, an osprey dive bombed into the river and came out with a good-sized trout. We stopped on the side of the river for a few minutes and it was right by this tree that was COVERED in caterpillar nests...so I did get a picture of one of them.
One of our camp spots had a very active night...the train passed by a couple of times, a bunch of deer ran through, a rock slide happened across the river, and an owl proceeded to kill a rodent...you could hear the hoo-hooing for a while and then the rodent screamed and then it got nice and quiet after that.
As hard as I tried, we never got a group photo, but here is one of our fully-loaded boats. Enough gear for 7 people and a dog for 3 days.
The rapids weren't crazy...the highest rating was a 3+ I believe. There was one particular wave I remember because I swam through it...the duckie bucked me off...luckily I came up right by the boat and was able to climb back in, and most importantly I held onto my paddle the whole time! George was proud of me because I didn't "freak out".
Our guide extraordinaire
The cute MOM :)
A lunch break
Mac & Steph - the guides and cooks
It was tons of fun, thanks Mac & Steph!
Also a BIG thanks to the padres and Alethea for coming out for the party!
