O.K. O.K. Downtown Bend is the Place to Be.

Linda and I did a kinda crazy thing. We packed up the car after work on Sunday and drove to Burns. Stayed the night in a motel. Woke up the next morning, and drove to Ontario.

Then drove across the river to Payette, Idaho. Just so Linda could say she's been to Idaho. We resisted the temptation to drive another hour to Boise.

The real reason was to get away, to get out of Bend.

It was hard for me to leave. I did bang up business on both Saturday and Sunday, and there seemed to be a bunch of tourists in town. So my excuse to stay would've been because the store was doing so well; of course, if the store was doing horrible, then that would have been my excuse to stay.

But kept to my word, and we left.

Linda and I really enjoy each other's company. We stopped innumerable times along the way, to take pictures. About halfway through the trip, I decided to take pictures of fences. Just because.

So I have a bunch of pictures with fences. I'm thinking of posting a picture a day on my blog, with no explanation. Just a picture.

Burns felt like a disaster zone. And absolutely infested with mosquitoes.

Vale was a beautiful little down, with great old buildings. Someone with a couple million bucks could fix up the whole main street into a showplace. It could become a classier Sisters-type town, pulling people from Boise and eastern Oregon. Linda was asking about the wall murals, what their theme was, and the girl at the Dairy Queen said, in a mildly bored voice, "Oh, that's just old History. You know, the way people used to have to do stuff...."

"...the way people used to have to do stuff...." You know, history.

Ontario was much bigger than I remember from my ski race trips to Bogus Basis 40 years ago. Wiki says around 12k, but it seemed much larger. The downtown wasn't anywhere near as attractive as Vale.

All these downtowns seem to be suffering, which makes Bend seem all that more prosperous. Too bad they can't revive them, because some of them have good bones.

Most all the stores were closed, because of the holiday, and most seemed to close on Mondays, anyway. There were bookstores in Vale and Ontario, and amazingly, a card shop in Ontario. I feel like calling him and asking his secret.

Bottomline, there just aren't enough people in those places to make a decent living as my type of small business. Downtown Bend is the place to be.

Sorry if this blog seems a bit perfunctory. I'm tired from all the driving.