We don't take blue skies for granted this summer!

We love a beautiful blue-sky day, and lately we have learned not to take those clear skies for granted. Our travels this summer have been affected by the unusual heat that has blanketed all of the country. We've had several record-breaking days of heat here in the Pacific Northwest, where people don't usually have air-conditioning in their homes. We have also been affected by the smoke that is rising from a record number of forest fires. While the big ones like the Dixie fire and the Bootleg Fire make the national news, locally we find evidence of smaller fires all the time. We check the regional forest fire web site, and any given day there will be over 40 forest fires somewhere in the west. The old blackened trees we see on our journey are evidence that this isn't the first summer of wild fires.

We have learned not to take for granted blue skies, and the ability to see clouds in the sky. We have gotten a few days when the sky was a dirty gray color with no hint of clouds, and we know that the wind has shifted the smoke in our direction. So we were glad to see blue skies and clouds when we pulled into our campground in Redmond, Oregon. We are at the Expo Center and Fairgrounds RV Park--the most expensive stay in our 6.5 years of traveling. The crazy thing is that this park is $20-40 cheaper per night that many of the other campgrounds in this area!

With 50-amp electricity and cooler weather, it seemed a good time to do some baking. We made a crisp using the free fruit we've been blessed with lately. One half is apple, using the apples we picked in the national monument orchard at Cant Ranch. The other half is apricot from the fruit we picked in Mitchell, Oregon, with Ray and Alice. It was very tasty, especially warm out of the oven with vanilla ice cream on top.

Besides baking desserts, the real reason we are here is to explore around Bend, Oregon. We've heard good things about this area from other travelers, and it seemed like a good place to see for the first time this summer. We drove the 30 miles to Bend to check off all the must-see boxes in this little city. Hiking the River Trail that connects the parks and the Deschutes River - Check!

Visiting the downtown Old Mill shopping and dining district with its three iconic old chimneys - Check!

Watching the tubers float down the Deschutes River through much of the town of Bend - Check!

Watching the chaos at Bend Whitewater Park, where the man-made rapids make for a more challenging place to get in and out of the water - Check!

Watching the surfers on the whitewater rapids - Check!

Driving to the top of Pilot Butte to get a bird's eye view of the city of Bend and its surrounding mountains. A bronze map at the top points to the mountains we should be able to see at the horizon. We have learned not to take blue skies for granted because the view today is a little smoky. We didn't have great views of icons like Mount Bachelor, Lava Butte, and Mount Washington, but - Check!

After visiting downtown Bend, we headed for Shevlin Park. Even though we are only a few miles from downtown, it feels like we are very far away from the city. Here the pine trees grow so tall that it's hard to even see Denisa standing at the base of one.

After walking the trail beside the Tumalo River, we decided it is time for a bike ride. We took the paved path beside the edge of the forest,

and we're glad we have a smooth surface to ride since we're heading uphill among these tall trees.

This is a loop ride, as now we will ride back on the pine-needle-covered path through the woods--and it's downhill all the way home! What a great bike ride to finish our day in Bend, Oregon.

The smoke is back this evening, as we watch a very orange sun setting through a gray sky. 

Now that we've seen the city of Bend, we're ready to see the mountain scenery that surrounds it. We have a couple scenic loop drives planned over the next days, and we hope the smoke lets us see those beautiful Cascade Mountains that we have come to see. But we have learned that this summer in the western part of the United States, we can't take blue skies for granted!