Peggy’s brother, John, and sister, Kathy, arrived last night and stayed in a local hotel but popped in to visit us early this morning. Their arrival was timely because we got to take them along with us to my favorite breakfast restaurant, Jake’s, in Bend. This place serves a big, thick, very tasty piece of chicken fried steak covered with sausage gravy along with eggs and hash browns supplemented with an English Muffin for about $13 and it is superb. Faithful readers, if any, will remember that I have been on a pointless personal crusade to find the best chicken fried steak in the country and, despite searching in 42 states, we have found no restaurant which surpasses Jake’s. Dean’s in Clackamas is a close second and between these two diners, all others are left in the dust in the chicken fried steak arena.
Leaving Jake’s we went south to the High Desert Museum, one of our favorites. We spent a few hours wandering around this place but, unfortunately for us, our favorite exhibit of river otters was not open this early in the year. We did get to check out the great exhibits in the main building and the golden and bald eagles and owls in the flight center. They also have a pioneer homestead, old sawmill and, strangely, a sculpture of a sitting man made entirely of cast glass.
From the museum we tried to drive up the Lava Butte in Newberry Crater National Monument but it too was closed for some reason. We did drive through the lava field around the butte and did a drive-by viewing of the Deschutes River before heading back to the Barbarian Invader for some hobnobbing with Peggy’s brother and sister and watching Little Big Man, a great movie from the ’70s.
You can see some museum pix if you click here