The Amazing Adventures of los von ZauRunyon!: Sisters!

We visited the town of Sisters in Central Oregon so Ian could learn more about his adopted state and because I hadn't been to Central OR in years. It's a lovely drive over the mountains and one of those spectacular climate/ flora lines: one minute you're in the rain and western forests, and the next you're coming down the mountains in the sun and central forests. Sisters is named for the Three Sisters dormant volcanoes that lie south of Mt Hood and Mt Jefferson in the Oregon Cascades.

Three cheers for the new truck!! Even though Ian is playing grumpy-grumpy-grumpy, he's still quite happy and comfortable.

Guita likes having her own truck, but she's not sure about having to sit all the way in the back!

To get from Estacada to Sisters, you can take any number of beautiful routes. Going there, we took Hwy 224 SE from Estacada up along the Clackamas River. It's beautiful - I love the stretches of straight road (not very common in NW Oregon) and the trees lined up like sentinels. It was a low, drizzly sky that day, so the gray and green were stunning.

About 3000 feet lower than our house in Mexico City, but much colder! McKenzie Pass is one of Oregon's most spectacular passes and highly worth a visit in summer!

If it weren't cloudy, we would have been able to see two of the Three Sisters. As it was, we got a great view of the rugged and desolate landscape (not quite post-apocalyptic to my eyes, though Ian didn't back down from his assessment), and the light through the clouds made it even spookier!

No, it wasn't really that cold, but our blood is thin from two years in Mexico! And it was legitimately in the mid-40s. This is near Sisters in the Deschutes National Forest in Central Oregon - beautiful!

We took Guita for a hike called "swampy lakes" outside of Bend, Oregon. The hike was lovely, but it was oddly short on swamps and lakes. The creeks were very pretty, and the forest was very different from the Western Oregon forest!

Guita has a complex and varied system of communicating her level of enthusiasm with her tail and behavior. At the beginning of a hike, she's at the top level, happy, with her tail up and her hips swinging. Happy lasts about 15 or 20 minutes, and then she slips a level to endurance. Stamina-free dogs are lots of fun and great for working people like us!

Here's the second level of enthusiasm: endurance. Note that endurance lasts only about 15 minutes and kicks in about 15 minutes after the start of the hike. The tail is still up and wagging, but she's not bounding and bouncing like earlier!

Here she demonstrates the third position: enduring. She's still leading, but her tail is down and only swinging slightly.

This is the fourth level of enthusiasm. Note that she is following Ian and the tail is still in "enduring" position. But check out the gorgeous scenery!!