Thursday night, after driving from Smith Rock State Park, I found a spot tucked away in the town of Sisters, OR. For those of you familiar with it, this had the feel of Leavenworth, WA, or maybe even more appropriately Jackson Hole, WY. A bit of a tourist town and touting the Wild West, the town did not lack for parking spots – perfect.

Friday morning, I looked up the closest independently-owned coffee shop with wifi and a spot to sit, headed over, and settled in for the last bit of work for the week. After a leisurely six hours, and a very successful refactoring of our tabular data display, I packed up and headed off to the Indian Ford campground, just south of Black Butte, in the Deschutes National Forest.

My chosen spot, not very far off the road, which itself wasn’t too far from the highway. I was able to very easily drive over to the campground and use their toilet though.

My plan was to boondock for the weekend and enjoy some gravel biking before heading farther south. I cooked up some beef stew with fresh onions and bell pepper for dinner.

With some pears-in-a-can for my cooking snack

By the time it was all cooked up, the beef stew didn’t look too shabby, despite it coming from a bag.

And I remembered I have a stack of crossword puzzles so I finished one off during and after dinner.

The first morning (Saturday) I took my time in the morning and cooked up eggs (with some more of the onion and bell pepper from the previous night), sausage and toast, washed down with a nice pot of French press coffee. Can you tell I like food? Sometimes it’s the most interesting part of my day.

I was worried I would miss toast… And I did. It turns out you can make toast just fine with some butter and a frying pan though!

After my brunch, I set off on a ~37 mile loop, with about 8 miles extra to get to and from the start of the loop. I’ll put some pictures here from my ride.

A view looking south across the Indian Ford Meadow Preserve of what I’d assume is South Sister and Mt Bachelor

The road was either bouldery, washboardy, or sandy as in this picture, inside a recently-burned portion of forest

At one point the road deteriorated into an unrideable, barely recognizable double track

The second half of the loop was filled with tracks that would be treacherous on a mountain bike, much less the 37mm tires I was running. The views were constantly changing and kept me going (and the knowledge that I would be able to sit down and be done at some point hehe).

Finally seeing pavement after some 3 hours of rock and dirt…

The trust steed after a solid day of riding

And the end of a day, with another sunset.

Here’s the Strava for the ride