Bender in Bend

A few weeks ago, I took a trip up to Oregon to spend some time with some friends in Eugene and see my buddies from Baltimore,The Bridge, play a couple shows in Eugene and Bend. I intend to do this every time they're on the West Coast, but never really do the planning. However, when I found out that ticket's from Oakland to Eugene were $10 I had to make it happen. That's for a flight. In an airplane. A flight in an airplane for $10. That's like the same as a fancy bowl of soup.

Same Price

Anyway, I figured it would be a good chance to see some friends, party wolf balls, and hopefully shoot some photos.

Upon arriving, I was swooped by Brent. We went on some errands and checked out his gallery, where I saw this amazing collection of pickles wearing hats. These things are fucking awesome. One even had the beer helmet!

While Brent was getting some work done, I walked across the street to get a sandwich. It was pulled pork and cost about the same as a plane ticket from Eugene to Oakland. On my way back, some dude's called out from an alley and wanted to take a picture of ME. They were students and asked me where I would like to be if I could be anywhere. Apparently, my answer wasn't very original, because they pulled out a sign that said what I said, handed it to me and took my picture.

one haggard dude

I hope they weren't genies or scientists transporting people to wherever they want to be, because I totally missed out if they were. As I mentioned earlier, I can always get back to Eugene for the price of a pulled pork sandwich, but I was afraid that if I picked somewhere else, I might wind up there without the sandwich and I was REALLY hungry.

After the gallery, we went by Brent's glass shop, where he had to fix a this or a that. I used that time to stroll around the area and grab a few frames. I was really feeling the foggy, wet, lush, working class feel of things and was looking forward to doing a lot of shooting while I was in Oregon. During those few minutes, I shot a few meh-tastic photos that I was able to enhance through the magic of vignetting.

A few hours later we went to the show. It was packed, mostly with hippies, many of whom had neck tattoos, which I found to be slightly amusing. The boys ripped it (I didn't shoot) and the party continued afterwards at Brent's house.

This is where it started to get weird.

(Tightly edited to protect the innocent)

This isn't what it looks like.

The next morning, haggard, we packed the vehicles and headed for bend. It was a beautiful drive, but we barely stopped, so no photos. Plus, my head was pounding.

That night's show was at some weird hotel/venue/movie theater/restauraunt/bar/roman bath. Seriously, the place had all that stuff.

"Cris, you're the most adorable boy I've ever seen."

"I love you sooooo much Cris."

"Cris, you have the goodest band."

I think she liked Cris.

It started and ended pretty early and we took it over to the home of an older hippie fella who fed us barbque and openly touched his dog's wiener. The dog's name, by the way, is Beef.

Brittany fell asleep with her shoes on, an act that is not without consequence.

Once that got boring we headed for the hotel and attempted to get some rest before a big day of snowboarding at Mt. Bachelor. I think we still stayed up till 6.

It was rad.

After we came off the mountain, or apres ski if you're French, we headed to downtown Bend for some dinner and I took the Mamiya for a spin around the block while we were waiting to be seated. That's when I met these dudes, whom you may recognize from the my previous post.

I really liked these kids. They were super nice and emailed me for copies of the photos recently. I hope they liked them.

I slept all the way back to Eugene, except for the gas station stop, at which I ate an entire canister of Jalepeno Pringles. Once in Eugene, it was straight to bed.

I spent the following morning playing with Danny's dogs before heading to the airport to catch my flight that cost about the same as a fancy bowl of soup.

I can't say it was a productive trip, but it sure was fun.