Bend Oregon Photos - Out of Business

Bend Oregon: Not all rainbows and butterflies...

Contrary to what all the Realtors and tourism businesses in Bend Oregon will tell you... Bend is not all that beautiful. In fact, there are a lot of ugly, run down, and poverty stricken places here. Although, I doubt you are going to find this information on most of the websites you visit.

I was out and about town today, and decided to snap a few pictures of the ugly side of Bend Oregon. Surprisingly, for a tourist town (and a town full of extreme wealth), there are quite a bit of unsightly areas. After all, I feel that since there are two sides to this coin, readers of this blog deserve not to be duped.

These photos are all taken with in probably a quarter of a mile of each other. It's on Bend's Northwest end, off of Revere. There is a homeless shelter over here, sadly, I don't think it's a coincidence. On this side of town you will find a lot of off/on ramps are to the parkway, railroad tracks, and bridges pass over here as well.

This is an area of places that have gone out of business. Seemingly, one after another. I decided to document this on Bend Oregon Photos.

Below are some photos of Bend Oregon's north side:

These are photos of an old Chinese restaurant in Bend, called the Shanghai Garden. It was a well known place for years, but now is out of business. An empty building and for lease signs are now all that remain of this once busy restaurant... This building was (for a long time) a local pool, spa, and stove place. I remember going here once or twice as a kid with my parents. A large pool was out front with a fountain and an over-sized kid's play floaty could often be seen covering the sidewalk most summers. Now... an empty building and lot.

Bend Oregon Photos - Lava Lands & South Bend

If you were to take a drive five to 10 minutes south of Bend Oregon you find the Central Oregon Lava lands. This is a great place to climb cinder buttes of old dried lava and explore caves! Yes.... lava caves. As you can see from the picture I posted to left, it is in the Deschutes National Forest. There you can also find a visitor's center and a lot of information about the area's history. A few miles North of the lava caves you can find the High Desert Museum, which is also a great source for information on Central Oregon's history and geology as well.

The other photograph is an image I took inside the Lava Lands, to left of the visitor's center. Highway 97 is the highway you use to access the Lava Lands and this sign shows visitors how to get back to the road. You can see there is access to the Deschutes River and Benham falls as well.

Bend Oregon Photos - Lightning

I am kicking myself at the moment. I didn't have my digital camera ready last night. Last night Bend Oregon put on one of biggest lightning shows its ever had in the past 25 years or so. In fact, the last two nights displayed some of the most beautifully colored sun sets and fascinating lightning shows! Most of last night's bolts were striking on my side of town too! In fact, at one point, one came down probably no more than 250 yards away from me. It was a little unsettling, but very very cool. My goal now is to get the camera ready (just low on batteries at the moment), and get some pictures going on here on Bend Oregon Photos!