Bend, OR

Have you been interacting with OneThousandThingsTo-Do.com? Did you know that you can? OneThousandThingsTo-Do.com IS a community built by members of your community and is just waiting for you to join in on the fun!
In the last year and a half, OneThousandThingsTo-Do.com and its city sites have grown into a community of more [...]

Three times this summer, you can get your French fix at Pomegranate Home and Garden’s French Flea Market, an event where local artists and antique dealers peddle unique and beautiful wares in the shop’s charming courtyard. Located on the outskirts of the Shopko Shopping Center, Pomegranate Home and Garden is Bend’s purveyor of shabby chic home wares, letterpress stationary, fancy French soaps, and treasures for the garden.

I headed over to the second summer flea market a couple Saturdays ago where a dozen vendors were selling furniture, art, French knick knacks like signs that say “bain” and “chambre,” Eiffel Tower inspired jewelry, vintage clothing, antique buttons and more. I enjoyed milling about the grounds, looking at trinkets and exploring Pomegranate’s pleasant shop, which is housed in an old wood-shingled split level building. A separate shed-like structure accommodates the garden part of the home and garden shop.

Comfy, funky and a bit like hanging out in your bohemian aunt’s uptown loft, Townshend’s is a spot of hip and cozy sophistication in downtown Bend. The décor, a cushy mix of candy-colored couches, dark wood and brick, is as inviting as the spicy aroma that clouds your head as you walk into the Bond Street shop. The loose-leaf menu is a 12-page tea volume, with 84 varieties of green, white, black, oolong, chai, rooibos, máte, and herbal teas. All loose-leaf teas are available hot or iced in 3 different sizes, including a pot to share among friends. Townshend’s also serves tea lattes and bubble tea, a sweet creamy tea with tapioca balls that you suck up through a special wide straw.

Hidden across the train tracks on a dusty street rumbling with semi trucks and lined with chain-link fence, Sparrow Bakery is a bright spot in an unlikely location. The little brown brick building that houses the European-style bakery and coffee shop is tucked in amongst a particularly industrial area between downtown Bend and the Old Mill District. But don’t let the unusual locale deter you from stopping into this pleasant little shop for coffee, tea and unique, tasty baked goods.

Located 20 miles west of Bend, the town of Sisters, Oregon, is Bend’s distinctively western neighbor. Every building on the little downtown stretch has an old-town western façade, and when driving through town I almost expect a band of cowboys and Indians to come charging out of the saloon and have a confrontation at the intersection of Main and Spruce. This past weekend, part of my vision came true (sans Indian altercation) as cowboys and cowgirls took the town by storm at the 68th Annual Sisters Rodeo. My friends and I went on Friday night, the opening night of the three-day event, and enjoyed some good old fashioned steer roping, barrel racing and fried food consumption.

I have always been fascinated by the steep canyons & largess in which Columbia River resides; the barge boats that pass through occasionally and the wheel house boat , where as a kid I was intrigued by the fact that the large wheel on the back of a boat propelled this boat forward; the myriad waterfalls and extravagant views that I see in the 14 miles that I normally travel.Columbia River itself is a 1200 mile river spanning 7 states (not including Canada) from Canada to Oregon and is the largest in the Pacific Northwest and flows into our Pacific Ocean. The majority of the Oregon part of the river is nestled within a deep canyon providing extravagant & exceptional panoramic views.

This past weekend I went to another of my pirate gatherings as I do each year and it was at a place I didn’t know that existed, a place called Horning’s Hideout. What a cool place. Over 100 acres, some treed, some grassed with a 2 streams, a 5 acre stocked fishing pond and a separate breeding ground to keep the fish continually stocked. Three separate playgrounds for all the kids, an island in the middle of the lake, all kinds of wildlife and about 100 colored & albino peacocks & peahens. This area is absolutely stunning and no one knows where you are and would ever even know this place existed if the owners didn’t allow public use.

Stand along the high wild edged coastline and feel the wind, the sea breeze and watch the sun set or rise amongst this craggy face of the cliff that hosts Cape Perpetua. Wander among the 2700 acre forest that is denser than the Amazon Jungle, see the meat eating plants throughout this same forest and no they do not eat us humans. Take the little ones up to visit the giant spruce tree that is at least 30 feet thick and is written as 185 feet tall.

Thump Coffee is one of those tragically hip coffee shops where I suddenly feel the need to don thick-rimmed glasses and have intellectual discussions about mung beans or the Icelandic Post-Rock movement. Everything, from the brick walls, the tattooed, bandana-wearing baristas, the strictly fair trade coffee, and the semi-permanent art installation on which customers can decorate a small wooden plank with their wishes for the world, whispers hipster haven. Happily, even a non or pseudo-hipster like myself can enjoy the artistically alluring atmosphere, quality coffee and free wi-fi connection.

Never having been to a waxworks museum but always wanting to go I decided it was time to wander amongst the dead, regaled in the historical form and see how they spoke to me.

Recreated in waxy life forms and reminiscent of the past were several very lifelike characters, some I knew and some I was being introduced to. Of course the ever famous Dracula was the first one to see. There were displays that reminded me of the prohibition, back alley bar fights amongst gangsters. Maybe these folks should have paid their dues in the business.