Day three started with Golf... well, for SM it did. CP dropped SM off at the golf course and took the opportunity to do a whole bunch of little things.
CP: First stop- The Village Baker for a little breakfast. We had bought the parmesan bread stick from this bakery at the farmers market the day before and it seemed worth a visit. I bought a orange poppy seed brioche for breakfast and two rosemary pandura rolls (for lunch?) Breakfast was followed by a quick stop at an off leash dog park (Murph couldn't have cared less. Sometimes he loves to run... sometimes he'd rather drive. He's quirky like that)
I wanted to stop by the Mill district - a new take on on an old part of town - people said it was beautiful. It was nice, and I spent some time and money at the 40% off sale at Ann Taylor Loft (SM - only one bag, but really full), but overall it was basically a very pretty outdoor shopping mall. So Murph and I left after the one shop.
Now our RV, Mel, has driven almost entirely cross country and has the bug (and coffee) splattered exterior to prove it. We had driven by a car wash bay that was large enough to fit her, so I took her in for a quick rinse off. It wasn't perfect but it made a big difference.
SM - while the other two fretted away the day puttering around, I played golf at the River's Edge Golf Club of Bend. It was a REALLY nice course. It did however, not play to the best parts of my game. It wasn't the longest course around, and it was target golf... shooting to small fairways and well-protected greens. I only took the driver out once in 18 holes. Well, I was slated for the 9:27 tee time with two other golfers. When I got to the tee, one commented that it was only his partners second time EVER playing golf and that I should just go ahead - alone. Sweet!! I took two sleeves of balls from my bag and put one of each type of ball in each pocket. I ended up playing two rounds of 18 as I played two balls per hole - one of each type in each pocket. By the 6th hole, I had caught up to two other foursomes who both let me play through without hesitation. After that, there were no other golfers in front of me. I ended the round(s) at 12:00. Amazingly enough, I scored the same on each type of ball - 92. Not bad for a course with a slope of 134.... I left the course and headed to the entrance to be picked up. It was three or four hundred yards from the pro shop and no one else should have been near there. But, there stood a grey-haired gentleman of about 60. He was holding a sign for passer-bys to see that read "Will work for golf". I chatted with him for a bit and he said he made the sign on a whim and that it had already scored him two free rounds of golf. I can't make this stuff up...
CP - Murph and I had decided to head to another park for a walk when we got a call from SM that he was already done golfing. So, we picked him up and all headed to the park. We whipped up some yummy tuna salad (with some veg from yesterdays farmers market) and put it on the rosemary pandura rolls. Yum!! CP and Murph took a little walk while SM took the RV in for an oil change and to refill the propane tank. Everyone was happy!
We headed back to the RV park, taking the opportunity on the way to stop by the last of the breweries on our Bend Ale Trail - Boneyard Beers. What a cool place! In what looked like a very recently converted commerical garage, stood a small brewery. The first thing we noticed was that they had a beer called "Black 13". If you know CP, you likely know she has some very specific opinions about numbers - what things need to be odd and what things need to be even. But, the most important rule of all is that the best number is 13. So, we immediately took the name of their beer as a promising sign! We walked in and the guy working came from the brewing room and said "Hey! Are you doing the ale trail?" We said yes and realized they must not get much walk in traffic.
He let us taste their three beers - "The girl beer", "The Pale Ale", "The Black 13". They were amazing. The girl beer was the best cherry wheat beer we have ever tried. Neither of us tend to love the fruit beers, an occasional blueberry beer notwithstanding. But this was a GREAT light summery beer. The pale ale was hoppy enough for SM (really an IPA) to like it but smooth enough that CP liked it as well... and the Black 13 - to no ones shock - was pretty much perfection. A cross between a brown, a porter and a stout, made with 13 ingredients and 13 steps in the brewing process.
They also gave us a quick taste of "The dirty girl" - a beer that was half "Girl Beer" and half "Black 13"... it shouldn't work, but it really did. After the tasting came the brewery tour. Now, this guy really knew his stuff. Actually, he was relatively new to the brewing scene - one year - but he was all-in. He was one of the owners. Come to find out that the name of the brewery - Boneyard - came from the fact that all the equipment of the brewery came from the scrap yard and graveyards of other micro breweries across the country. His partner worked in brewery construction so he had all the contacts one would need to score an unused 20 barrel system (They had planned to start with a 5 barrel) How cool!! They had scavenged parts and pieces of junk to manufacture the lot into a functioning brewery - that put out GREAT beer. Pretty cool! We had earned our very last stamp on the Ale Trail map.
Next stop was the Bend Visitor Center where we would get our free gift for all of this HARD work we put in to this ale trailing. CP bounded into the center with her passport filled with the requisite seven individual brewery stamps. Bring on the free gift!!! Which turned out to be a flexible pint glass that can be crushed, wadded up, and thrown in a pocket. Perfect for the road! Only to be told now that they were out of gifts.... Damn them!! Even though the joy of seven breweries in one community is gift enough, a commemorative salute to Carot (Carolynn and Scott combined) would have been nice. They assured her they would mail it to her. Time will tell...
We returned to the RV park, said goodbye to Murph and grabbed our bikes to head to town for a bit more exploring followed by dinner.
We stopped into a local winery/shop in downtown Bend - Volcano Vines. CP had read good stuff about it so we decided to head over before we went out to dinner. For $5 each we tasted three of their wines, a syrah, a blend, and a white wine that they hadn't even bottled yet (and neither of us can recall the name) and three of their house made Sangrias: peach, melon and cranberry/pomegranate. We were shocked at how great they all were!
On an extremely busy Thursday night in Bend, OR (sarcasm), we decided to make a reservation for dinner at Blacksmith - the local steak eatery. We both hesitate to call it a steak house as that designation conjures up visions of overweight drooling patrons slugging back bad beer, tables strewn with gingham - napkins and cloths, and hay - yah hay - strewn all over the floor. The only thing that even close to that vision were the two of us drooling over the menu. Other than that, this place was first class. It had great reviews that CP had read... for good reason. While at Volcano Vineyards, we chatted up the woman working the counter and another patron. They were both interested in our trip and over-excited that we had enjoyed Bend so far. We asked them for a dinner recommendation, even though we had already made a reservation. It's just so interesting to hear what the locals have to say... they each gave us three restaurants but both said that Blacksmith was the best place in town! Cool! CPs research paid off again.
We split a wedge salad to start and then both ordered a tenderloin, CP with a bernaise sauce and SM with a blue cheese, bacon and caramelized onion garnish. As sides, we split the sauteed mushrooms, truffled macaroni and cheese and polenta wedges (with plenty of leftovers to bring home). The meal was absolutely wonderful. We it all off with a few coffees and a "Wonka Tart", a chocolatey, nutty tart that neither of us needed (SM - CP, speak for yourself), but both enjoyed.
To burn off a few Blacksmith calories, we biked back to the RV. We crashed early to get ready for the Oregon coast in the morning!
No comments:
Post a Comment