Sunriver, OR

Thursday, we (Rashmi, her family, and I) drove six hours south from Centralia to Sunriver, OR. We crossed over the Columbia River (bottom picture) into Portland, wound through the Cascades near Mt. Hood (top picture), and made our way to the sparse, arid woods near Bend, OR. Eastern Oregon has the look of an old Western , a la Rio Bravo. By August, most of the grass has baked to a golden color, and tiny scrub brushes dot the severe, rocky hillsides amidst a multitude of trout streams. It's a drastic change to cross Oregon from West to East, as the daily high tempuratures increase by more than 30 degrees in less than 100 miles. Most of our week was taken up by reading and riding bicylces, but we also made time for golfing, some tennis (Rashmi's dad absolutely destroyed me but is too modest to say so), and whitewater rafting. The letter activity took place on the Deschutes River, and our river guide really gave us a good picture of what life is like in that part of the world. She spends her time outdoors year round (e.g., rafting/kayaking in the summer, rock climbing and mountainbiking in the fall, skiing all winter and spring, repeat). She, like a lot of the people living there, is an exemplar of Tom Wolfe's observation -- albeit in another context: “It began to dawn on me that surfing was just 25 percent sport and 75 percent way of life. It was a curious thing to build a communal life around.”