A few years ago, I hosted back to back Oregon Photo Tours with Jeff Clow. What do you do when you have two photo tours over a two week period and want to do something different on the weekend? If you thought rest was in the cards, you are wrong. We hopped into the car and headed Northeast five hours to spend it in Bend, Oregon. I had dinner there several years ago when headed down to San Francisco. I remembered liking the area and I wanted to explore it. On the way there, we stopped for a little while at Crater Lake National Park. Upon getting to Bend, we set out and spent the day exploring the many lakes south of Bend along the Cascade Lakes Scenic Byway. The highlight of the weekend was visiting Smith Rock State Park on Sunday. This impressive park reveals its secrets on the many hikes that take you through the rugged landscape along the Crooked River. We only had about 90 minutes to spend there and it is already on the list to revisit again, albeit for a much longer stay.