It was time for our annual trip to Sisters, Oregon for the quilt show and workshops (and fishing, hiking and biking.) We planned to stay a few days at Deschutes River State Park. We booked a beautiful site that had plenty of shade, which was important because the temperature reached 35 degrees (C) both days we were there.

Both days, we set the alarm 6:00 am, had a quick breakfast and rode from the campsite along an old rail bed that has been converted to a gravel trail. We had good views of the Deschutes River the whole way. Most of our riding was in the shade, except for a few sections, one of them allowing us to get a good photo. We rode for about two hours and covered about 20 kilometres.

In the hot afternoon, Wendy set up her quilting studio in the trailer. We also cooled off by using our pool noodles to float a few hundred metres down a slow moving section of the river.

Next stop was Bend/Sisters RV Resort. Because we had a bigger unit we needed to change to another site. This one had good shade and pleasant neighbours.

Doug hiked up the Tam McArthur Rim to Crater Lake under Broken Top Mountain, farther than he had gone on previous trips. He felt pretty good completing the 20 kilometre hike on a warm day.

While he was hiking, a flock of butterflies flew over the ridge. The air was so thick with them that he had to keep his mouth shut so he didn’t swallow one. Here’s a photo of one that was resting for a few minutes.

While Doug was hiking, Wendy was taking a art quilt class called “Creativi-tree.” She fused fabric to the backing, and added paint and stitches. Here are the small pieces (11×14″ and 10×10″) “in-progress.”

Tuesday for Doug was a “rest” day but was filled with washing the truck and RV, getting groceries etc. On Wednesday, he headed up to the same area that he had hiked, but this time he took his float tube. While he was fishing, he could look at the ridge that he had hiked a few days before. He hiked the whole skyline in the photo below (and further.) He caught and released four rainbows. There’s a photo of one of them below.

Wendy took a two day class from Jean Wells, called “Simply the land.” It was a design class and similar to a class she took from Jean three years before, so it helped to consolidate her learning. The photo below shows Wendy’s “fall grasses landscape” in progress.

On Thursday, Doug was raring to go again and took his bike from the RV park up to Peterson Ridge, into Sisters for lunch, then back to the camp for a total of 40 kilometres. He met some nice horsewomen near the top of the ridge who took his photo. One of the Three Sisters is behind him in the photo.

Wendy took another class of a new technique, which was interesting but slow, so no pictures. She was quite tired when Doug picked her up from class, but perked up after beers and dinner in Bend.

Saturday was the famous outdoor quilt show in Sisters. Wendy took over a hundred photos throughout the day. Here’s a small sampling. The photo below is of the side of the Stitchin’ Post quilt shop.

Wendy toured the quilt show with Linda, her friend from Cranbrook who also took some classes.

Fishing is big in the area and so are fish related quilts.

Quilts are hung all over town, and the organizers work hard to group the quilts so each one complements the others.

After our week in Sisters, we drove to Camp Sherman, about an hour northwest. We stayed at the Cold Springs Resort, where we had stayed previous years. This time we had a different site, right beside the creek. It was hot during the day, but cooled off nicely each evening.

We discovered a bike trail that we had overlooked other years, that went from our campsite at Camp Sherman to Suttle Lake. We enjoyed it so much that we rode it twice. The first photo shows a portion of the trail around Suttle Lake; the second one is of the forest section and the third one gives the statistics that were collected using a mountain biking app that assumed we were at the ski area, hence the title.

Doug had a great time fishing the Metolius, and caught (and released) his biggest fish: a 13″ rainbow on a #14 Golden Stone.

And the birding was excellent as well. Here’s a cedar waxwing with a Saskatoon berry, taking right at our trailer, a rufous hummingbird that posed on the overhead wire, a young American Dipper and one of a pair of young Common Mergansers that were cavorting in the current.

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Most of our readers know we’ve been home awhile. Oh well, at least this post is written before we head off again!