Wednesday in Bend, Oregon

After our visit to Tumalo Falls (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2022/07/wednesday-to-tumalo-falls.html), we drove back into Bend to a park that Carl's daughter, Joan, had recommended, McKay Park. She said that they had enjoyed watching tubers and surfers using the river at this spot...

It is called "Bend Whitewater Park". You may be able to see from the picture on this informational sign that there are 3 channels...

A closer up picture to be able to read about it.

This was the channel nearest to the park where we were observing -- primarily for tubing.

The next channel over was for "river surfing" and kayaking.

Another warning sign

This was towards the end of the rafting area.

Folks were getting out of the water with their innertubes and rafts.

Coming down the river

We walked along the river to the area above the bridge that you can see in the picture above.

There were rafters either entering the river at this point, or, those who had entered it further up and enjoyed a slow drift to this point.

Video above of rafters entering the rapids

 

If the videos don't work within the blog post, they can all be seen here: https://youtu.be/TKW50r7-XZU

Pictures of rafters entering the rapids area...

... in the rapids...

Everyone seemed to be having a good time!

In the middle channel was the river surfing area -- you can see one surfer in the water (only one at a time allowed).

A video of a fellow surfing:

If the videos don't work within the blog post, they can all be seen here: https://youtu.be/TKW50r7-XZU

We decided to walk to a place nearby to get lunch, and our route took us over the bridge upriver from the rapids and surfing area...

A surfer on the wave

A video of a surfer taken from the bridge:

If the videos don't work within the blog post, they can all be seen here: https://youtu.be/TKW50r7-XZU

A video of a surfer entering the wave:

A view down toward the surfing area (on the right) and rafting area (on the left) from the bridge above.

Surfer in the "wave"

Tunnel under the bridge was colorfully decorated.

Flowers in a garden area near the riverfront walkway

The three large (I think decorative) smokestacks are the emblem of the Old Mill District of Bend.

We walked to an area where there were food trucks outside a brew pub and got a Greek salad with gyro meat.

There were more things we could have seen and done in Bend, but we also wanted to go to Costco and the grocery store... so we headed out to get our shopping done and to return to the rig.