Days 4 to 6: Deschutes!

Steve spent many months planning a Deschutes River trip: a three day rafting/two nights camping, float down some 50 miles of the Deschutes with twelve of his nearest and dearest. Mark and I rented a car and drove the 8hrs to Bend after Mark's full day of work on Thursday, June 22nd. We packed the car with our plants and Mark's mountain bike (which is too valuable to go in the pod) that we then drove up to Seattle after the rafting trip. The plants will stay with Rhi & Ryan and the bike will be with Matt, Liz and Wally for the months of July and August. We got into Bend around midnight and were up at 6am on Friday. We threw our bags in the car and ate a quick breakfast. Within an hour of driving we were at the put-in. All 12 of us floated down the river in 3 boats. Two boats rowed and one paddled. We had an absolute blast! The three mornings and afternoons on the river were peaceful, with beautiful scenery and a mix of relaxing ripples and intense Class 4 rapids. We spotted about a dozen wild horses on the Native American Reservation, which was on the west bank for most of our trip. We saw osprey continuously throughout the trip, as well as two mountain sheep. We cliff jumped off of 40+ foot rocks, swam, lazed on the rafts, opened beers, strategized on campsites, timing and route of rapids. There was lots of chat and laughs! In the evenings we played games. Mark and Eli did a fabulous job of creating a variety of activities for us: a running/floating relay contest, a team making name/flag/song contest, followed by a trivia competition centered on rivers. We also cooked all our meals, set up and took down camp each night and avoided rattlesnakes! The spiders and ants were harder to avoid. Steve put together a seemless trip & his Gonzaga and Marin friends were a real treat to meet. After Bend we drove the 6 more hours to Seattle, unloaded the car, slept for 5hrs and headed to the airport for our last week in SF!!! PS we bought a drone :)