Travel With Me: Sunriver, Oregon

I’ve been going to Sunriver, Oregon for a long time. I think the first time was when I was 7 or 8, or at least in that age range. Sunriver is technically a resort town, or a planned community, and my family has been renting houses there for a long time. In recent years, my family decided to purchase a home in Sunriver as an investment property, which has been great for helping us take more vacations!

(You can read my previous post about traveling to Sunriver with a toddler here.)

Sunriver is located in central Oregon, about 20-30 minutes from Bend. This means visitors have access to basically all of Bend easily—that means more restaurants and shopping, as well as attractions like the High Desert Museum and the Lava Caves. I’ve been going to Sunriver for so long that I feel like I have a very set routine—but it also means I feel like I know just about everything there is to know.

Rarely ever do I do travel posts, but it’s been something I wanted to start sharing a bit more.

We headed over to Sunriver on Friday evening. Forrest had been having a pretty rough day; he’s been having more separation anxiety from me lately (something he has literally never had before!), and got sent home from school he was so upset. We had a good talk about learning to calm himself down. It probably didn’t help that we’d had a big day Thursday and his nap and sleep schedule were totally off. However, we made it to Sunriver on time to eat dinner.

We ate the Village Bar & Grill. Like most of the restaurants in Sunriver, they have a smaller menu than most people are used to, but they have really good, if slightly expensive, food. I got the Blackened Chicken Caesar Salad, which was spicier than I expected (but still good). Forrest got typical kid food: a hot dog and fries.

After dinner, we made our way to our house. Sunriver had some permanent residents, but is mostly rental houses; my family owned a small house previously, but recently sold it to purchase a different home. It was my first time seeing it and it was as lovely as I’d been told it was!

Forrest played for a little while and then we went for a short walk on the bike path, before I put him to bed. I drank a glass of wine and relaxed with my family for a while before going to bed myself.

The next day, I went for a walk myself in the morning. The best part about Sunriver really is all the bike and walking paths. It is still pretty chilly in the mornings in Central Oregon, so I had to bundle up. However, I was excited because I was going to pick up Danny around noon.

Danny had been at a teaching conference in Eagle Crest, which is also not far from Bend. I planned to pick him up so he could join us in Sunriver.

When I got back from my walk, I helped clean up after breakfast and played with Forrest a bit. He was feeling antsy and excited, but really, really didn’t want to nap at all, despite waking up at 3am. (Yes, he woke up at 3am. Kids and vacation are often harder than I expect.) While I tried to get him to nap, the rest of my family played Yahtzee, which is a Sunriver family tradition.

Once he woke up, I got him ready for the rest of the day and we blew bubbles outside for a while. Then, when my mom got back from a walk, I borrowed her car to go get Danny. He was as excited to see the new house as I was, so we didn’t stop much on the drive back.

The afternoon was spent showing Danny the house, going on a walk, then going out to dinner for my brother’s birthday.

On Sunday, we planned to have a barbecue, so I baked my brother a birthday cake. Then, I went on another walk alone—then a walk with Forrest, because he insisted. When I got back, my mom and brother were planning to go on a walk as well, so of course Forrest wanted to go on that one as well! I think Forrest walked a total of 6 miles!

Once they got back, we headed to the Village to pick up a few things at the grocery store. Forrest had also been promised a book by my mom, so we went to Sunriver Books to pick one out. He picked an ABCs of Oregon book, which I was really proud of; he’s been very interested in letters and knowing what things say lately. We headed back to the house and started working on lunch.

We headed home not long after lunch. It’s such a short drive between Sunriver and Eugene, only about 2-3 hours (depending on traffic and the weather), it makes it easy to take small weekend trips. I’m already so excited for another trip. There are so many things I love doing in Sunriver—the bike paths along the river, as well as the horse stables, shopping at the Village, bike riding, and visiting the High Desert Museum, as well as exploring Bend—it’s hard to pack it into one trip!

Have you ever been to Sunriver? What’s your favorite thing to do?

Here's What I Learned from An Autumn Road Trip (with a Toddler)

I am not a traveller.

I know, I know. It seems like everyone these days talks non stop about traveling. Everyone wants to travel and see the world. And in some ways, I definitely want to see the world. But I don’t like traveling.

I don’t like driving for long periods of time. I don’t like airplanes. I don’t like the stressed, naked feeling of being transitional between two places (home and destination). I don’t like the anxiety it gives me. And now that I have a small human I’m responsible for, I absolutely do not like having to pack up everything I can think of for him (including but not limited to: blankets, toys, any medication he might need, extra food, juice, cups he can use, forks he can use, emergency meals, and milk). The amount he needs has consistently gone down since he was a baby (no more giant container of formula, bottles, bottle wash, sanitizer bags, Pack’n’Play, and more), but it’s still a lot.

And doing it by myself? Excuse me, no thanks.

Well, I did just that on Friday. Danny had gone over to Central Oregon (Sunriver, to be exact) for a teaching conference in Bend. My parents have a cabin in Sunriver, so we had decided it would be a family vacation. But with Forrest in school now, I didn’t want him to miss a day so we planned to go over once he got done with school.

As the days lead up to Friday, I started to seriously panic. Taking a three-hour plus road trip by myself with a toddler? Packing up the whole car on my own? I was nervous. Danny told me he would be fine if I decided not to do it, but I knew he really wanted me to. And of course, Forrest was excited at the prospect of a vacation. Nothing makes him nervous.

As I wrote on Instagram, I didn’t want my anxiety to make Forrest miss out. Yes, it would have been better for me personally to stay at home for the weekend. But Forrest would have missed out on some potential fun and that prospect made me sad.

So I did it. On Friday afternoon, I packed up the car, got Forrest a Happy Meal (no judgement), and drove 3 hours with a potty trained toddler. Here’s everything I learned.

1. It’s probably going to all be fine.

Probably. My biggest worry was that, while going over the pass, Forrest would need to use the bathroom. Since he’s relatively newly potty trained (it’s been about 3 or 4 months), when he has to go, he usually has to go immediately. This is fairly normal for preschool age kids. However, while driving across a mountain pass, the last thing I wanted to do I was pull over and break out the little potty we keep in the car. However, my anxiety was for nothing: we stopped at a rest area before the pass and he was fine all the way until we got to the cabin.

So yeah, the thing you worry about? It’s probably going to be fine. (Please remember to tell me this next time I go on a real vacation aka go flying.)

2. It’s ok to do things you normally wouldn’t (or that you would).

I had all these plans for things Fo and I would do. Museums. Outdoor parks. Everything. I wanted him to have as much fun as possible while we were on our own mini-trip, especially as Danny was still in a conference on Saturday. However, we ended up going for a nice long walk to get coffee and a treat, then went shopping and spent time relaxing in the cabin. I felt bad that we hadn’t done any of the exciting stuff I had planned, but we did have a nice lunch out together (my first time taking him to a real restaurant on my own) and he really has fun no matter what.

3. The weather won’t cooperate, but that’s fine.

Part of the reason we didn’t do all the fun stuff I had planned? It was raining! I think of Central Oregon as very cold and relatively dry. But it had been raining at home and that rain followed us on vacation. So, the museum I wanted to go to? Mostly outdoors. The walking trails? Off limits thanks to the puddles and downpour. We made it for our walk in the morning, but that was about it. We had fun jumping in puddles outside the cabin, then retreating inside to warm up and go pick up Danny from the conference. The weather wasn’t really what I had planned on, but that’s Autumn for you, really!

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This is a much more personal post than I usually post for Blogtober, but I thought I’d try something different! I had so much fun over the weekend (even when Forrest pretended to have a stomach ache to get us to leave dinner!) and I tried something outside of my routine—and it was all fine! What’s something you are challenging yourself to try this Fall?