Sunriver in January

Carla and I headed up to Sunriver on New Year's morning to spend a couple of days with friends. Our friends won a week at a house in the central Oregon resort and invited us to come and stay for a couple of days. We've had a cold but dry winter; on the drive over Santiam Pass Detroit Lake looked more like Detroit Creek.  There was hardly any snow in the mountains. Sunriver lived up to its name, but there was no snow for snow showing or cross-country skiing on the trails. That's fine with me, a couple of brisk walks is more my style.

I love the high sky in Central Oregon; it is so big and more expansive than Portland's in the winter.

Icy Deschutes River with Mt Bachelor in the background.

The tiny white specs across the river are swans; we got much closer as you can see below.

For a view of this bridge in summer, check this post.

Pedestrian/bike bridge

Dramatic skies and the Cascade peaks over the landscape

Cold but clear

 There are a couple of trumpeter swans in Sunriver. The trumpeter swan is the heaviest bird in North America. Tundra swans are similar but usually have a yellow spot in front of their eyes. Here is a guide for distinguishing the two types of swans.

Trumpeter Swan

On the way home we pulled over to grab a picture of the Three Sisters mountains.

The Three Sisters

It just so happened that Linda along with her two sons and significant others (wife & girlfriend) were at another house. So one of the nights we all got together for dinner. We made a full event of it making spaghetti noodles from scratch along with a couple of great sauces that Carla and Mary Ann learned how to make at a class a month or so before. It was wonderful chance to see them through new eyes and talk with them as adult friends rather than kids.