Oregon

DRIVE ACROSS IDAHO
Reluctantly we knew we had to leave Kelly, WY and continue on our journey.  We left after a good hike with Heather in the morning and drove across the Tetons into Idaho.  Then we stopped for a quick tasting at the Grand Teton Brewery Co.  Really delicious beer!  We drove the Craters of the Moon in Idaho and made our way to Boise to stay with a friend, Chelessa, whom I met while living in ATL. We didn't have much time to spend in Boise and Chelessa had class so we didn't get to spend a ton of time with her.  Annie did get a new mountain bike though!  We really wanted to get them before we got to Bend, OR which has some superb trails.

BEND, OR
We got to our couch surfers, Kevin's, house that evening and he cooked us a delicious meal of salmon, kelp, and quinoa along with some local beer from the Deshutes brewery.  We had a really great time with the couch surfing community in Bend.  Annie sent out requests to 3 different people and they all responded able to host us.  We stayed with Kevin both nights but we got to meet everyone else while we were there.  Tom & Candy invited us to a really awesome event called Ignite Bend.  It's a free community event where they have 10 people give 5 minute presentations about basically anything.  We learned about how you can swim with sharks, appreciating clear cuts, how we are being affected by the social online connections and Tom was actually speaking about couch surfing.  They have a few of these events a year with over 400 people in the audience all excited.  The presentations were all quick, to the point, really funny and well put together.   Tom's was talking about how people open their homes to people and we aren't going to be axe murders, which are the majority of people's initial reaction when we talk about couch surfing.

Even then with the Couch Surfing a lot of people don't understand why someone would let random strangers into their house, cook them food, let them shower, etc.  What do they get out of it?  I think there are a ton of reasons why, but a few of the main ones that we've found are that....


WHY DO PEOPLE HOST COUCH SURFERS
* People like giving back to other travelers.  A lot have surfed and been treated great and want to give back.  It's good Karma :)
* It's a great way to meet travelers and live vicariously through them when you're not in a position to be exploring the world at the moment.
* It's fun to share where you live with people from different cultures and backgrounds.  To learn about them and to teach them what life is like in that part of the world / country.
* It's also fun to do some sight seeing / touring "touristy" places that you never would do in your home town unless you're showing someone else around.
* It's an excuse to drink on weeknights!

Seriously everyone that we've met in the couch surfer community has been so nice and amazing people.  Most people that we've met on our trip have been this way.  I think that's one of the beauties of traveling is really getting to appreciate how many good people there are in this world.  Sure there are some bad apples now and then and we aren't naive and blindly trust everyone (we did get our bikes stolen in DC.... and we prefer to stay out of the big cities in general) but there are a lot of good souls out there.  Sadly I think that surprises a lot of people.

Anyways Bend is a pretty kick ass city. It's the "hub of Oregon's outdoor paradise".  The mountain biking was a blast.  It's been such a long time since we've really been on bikes out in the woods.  It felt great riding our new bikes.  We spent the morning riding around Phil's loop.  It's a good single lane through the woods.  Nothing super technical and not a lot of endurance climbs but just a fun fast trail through the woods.  The trail was sandy and that took a while to get use to.  I've never done anything like that out east.  The perfect day of mountain biking wouldn't be complete with some good brewery tastings.  We met up with another couch surfer at Boneyard Brewery for a couple tastings before we went to the Ignite Bend show.  After the show we went and checked out Pete Karsounes, ( http://www.petekmusic.com),  at Old Francis school.  It was an old school that they've converted into a movie theater, a few different bars, and restaurants.  We hung out there for awhile with our couch surfing buddies and then headed home.

The next morning we left to get to southern Oregon.  We drove through the Lava Buttes and down to Crater Lake where we hiked around that afternoon.  The geology of Oregon is pretty incredible. There are so many volcanoes.  It's pretty impressive to see the lava fields full of the obsidian stones from thousands of years ago.