Crooked River Camping

After our trek around Paulina Lake we checked out the map to see where we should camp next. We didn't want to go too far from one of the major towns in Central Oregon and hub remembered an old potential camping area along the Crooked River, where he'd spent some time hiking around when he was younger. So we drove over to see if we could find the spot again....passing many of the beautiful fields and livestock along the way.

 And sure enough, we found it and what looked like a great place to camp even if we weren't entirely sure if it was actually a legit camp site.

But after 20 miles of hiking between the day before and that morning, it was great to string up the hammock between two trees, pull out the lawn chairs, and lay in the back of the truck reading and enjoying the afternoon sun. The dogs were even too tired to care too much about their bones ;)

 We did take the half-mile canyon trail down to the river twice however and caught some beautiful views:

 Steelhead Falls and the little separate cascading water section on the far left is a man-made fish ladder:

 Back up at the camp site, we set up the tent, moved the truck to be our wind block, and after a low-key dinner, we crawled in for the night.

At 4:45am we woke up to a ruckus from a far camp section where some "long-term campers" were located. Not being sure of what was going on and not wanting to get involved, we quickly broke camp, loaded up, and headed out around 5am.

By waking up that early (which happens most the time when camping), we were fortunate enough to catch the beauty of the sunrise against the snowy mountains:

We ended up driving over to Smith Rock State Park, which we intended to go back and hike down into the canyon later in the day but didn't ever get back there. We did catch a few pictures from above the canyon however and watched some mule deer cross a stretch of the road:

Since it was barely above freezing and 6:30am, we drove into town and tried out the Black Bear Diner--incredibly friendly service, lots of good food for cheap including healthier options, a core value of willing to make substitutions per your request, and its a somewhat local-like option as its only located in the PNW. 

Part 3 to come ;)