We started the day with an hour swim then took a backcountry route our of Bend which took us about 10 miles out of our way, a big sacrifice but totally worth it!  We did get some strange looks as we rode our fully packed touring bikes up trails for mountain bikes!  The route took us down a river and past the lava fields.  We spent about 3 hours going only about 4 miles as we were stopping every couple hundred feet to gawk at the latest scene. All this stopping was nice at the time but  a killer once we got back on the road.  Because tomorrow has a killer 6 mile climb at the end of 50 miles of steady uphill we needed to get our mileage in, and with a steady headwind I pretty much blew up, Sandra had to pull most of the last 15 miles.  On these fully loaded touring bikes that 6 mile climb we have coming up tomorrow might take us about 2.5 - 3 hours to complete!  We had planed on camping out in the open tonight but came across a very nice RV / Camping - Big Pines RV Park with hot water and internet so we plunked down our $18 and are living it up! Trruth is I was not at all excited about the prospect of "camping" in an RV park but honestly we needed some comforts as we are both pretty well exhausted.   

A link to tomorrows ride and climb into crater lake

http://cycleroute.org/?slat=43.4761234&slng=-121.6883962&elat=42.8683339&elng=-122.16896750000001&mode=DRIVING