Redmond OR to Redmond OR - Crater Lake Loop

Nice motel again (Dave is getting soft) We have managed the entire trip to get a single room with either a cot (whose turn tonight) to a suite with a foldout counch. Works pretty well and not too expensive divided 3 ways. Today we go to Crater Lake. It is a straight shot down on Rt 97 on THE MOST BORING ROAD IN THE STATE. They must have fired up a big Cat bulldozer, filled it with diesel, pulled the levers back with bungee cords and called down state to catch it when it came in. The east side of the Cascade mountain range is considered high plateau and is very different from the coast. Dry and sunny for the most part. We turned west and headed up the hill to Crater Lake. This is a volacano that filled in with water. The water all comes from rain and it is azure blue and beautiful. The snow banks are still 8 to 10 ft high and that makes it pretty cold. We yacked with 3 guys from Northern California on beemers. There is some discontent with BMW bikes bubbling with the newer BMW models. Especially electronics. My brothers new 1200GS had the fuel guage crap out twice, Dave lost the horn and cruise control on his 2010 R1200RT, Jeff lost his cruise control on his 2002 K1200, and one of these guys had a rear pinion bearing go bad after 16K miles, and BMW does not cover any of this stuff after the first year. They better straighten this out or their reputation is toast. I am guessing the old guard engineers retired and the new "kids" came in with all this fancy electronics, etc.
So we looped around Crater Lake and then headed back to Bend on the same BORING ROAD to meet some folks that Dave knew through a recuiting task last year. Bend is a nice town with a happening population. We met Anne and Abby in the park where a farmers market was going on. They told us a great short ride to the local ski aea (Mt Bachelor) and we agreed to meet back in town for pm dinner at a local micro-brew. The ride to Bachelor was wonderful. The ski area was open on weekends still and they had lots of snow. We almost got locked in the road to the ski area after sort of sneaking in, but the chain did not get locked so we got out. We met Annes husband Ken and his co-worker Mike. We had long philisophical conversations about the similiarities between Oregon and Vermont. Twin sons from different mothers. We talked for a couple hours and then Abby escorted us back to the main road and we returned the 20 miles to Redmond. Long happy day.