In Bend and soooo disappointed, what happened?

[Mikej]

Google island park Idaho. Much nicer. My family had a nice cabin in sun river for 25 years. Place starting sucking year 15.

I've spent many years going over to work in Bend. Starting sucking in 1995.
Cause even the conservatives are liberal.

Island Park, Mac's Inn, used to be one of our playground areas living in the Salt Lake Valley. Damn, I miss places like that, though I imagine it's changed drastically from the late '60s- '70s? We used to visit there on the way up to Henry's Lake.. Big Springs? One of the coolest thing I ever saw in my life!

 

[Oregonhunter5]

Hasn't changed much at all. There's a bunch more cabins, but not really a lot more stores. And there's a sheeet ton of money there, but here's the difference, it's like 95% republican. Maybe 98.

 

[clearconscience]

The picture looks more like Terrebonne or Crooked River Ranch a little north of Bend.

Where was that taken?

Nailed it! My parents live in on the Crooked River ranch.
That's where we stay and travel to Bend for fun and entertainment.

I remember going to Bend in the late 90s and it was awesome seemed like the whole town shut down at 8pm.

Even on crooked river here. We spent our summers here as a kid and it was high desert as far as you could see.
We ran around for miles with our BB guns shooting lizards and snakes.

Now it's a neighborhood

 

[Sgt Nambu]

I can remember rodent shooting within a mile or two of town (Bend). As to the ghost town videos, which I loved, my earliest memories are of my folks and I visiting ghost towns in eastern Nevada! LOL!!! My folks used to loot them! That was in the '40's, no one cared. It was a family saying for years that the middle of nowhere was about a mile closer to town than we were!

That's where I learned all these terrific social skills!

 

[Hybrid Slave]

Clearconscience, I do not mean this to be an attack, because I truly empathize with your sentiment. But whenever I read about people lamenting about beautiful places going to "shyte", I cannot help but think of all the people whose comments I read on forums like these (and even this website) who zealously advocate for free, unchecked capitalism and the "American way of life", yahdah, yahdah, yahdah.
Please understand, before anyone starts labeling me as a socialist hipster tree hugger, that I believe in the ideals of our Constitution and I've served my country, and would do so again. However, I just think that it is ironic how so many will zealously wave the flag of unchecked capitalism and free markets without ever considering certain questions like "Where does it stop?", "How long will the land and resources hold out?", "Just how far can we keep expanding while our bank accounts grow fatter and fatter"?

I witnessed what you are referring to occur in southern California starting in the early 70s. Back then. it was very much like the Rogue Valley is today, only better because we had shoreline just 45 minutes away, and high desert not much further. There was no (significant traffic; rush hour was truly rush HOUR, and not a cluster**** for 3/4s of the day as it is now. You could hike five miles into the mountains and not see another human being for a days. And there were many secluded pockets in which to plink.

But I saw development sprawl like a cancer across the land all the way to the Arizona border, and it is now the opposite of what I described; traffic is absolute insanity, people are everywhere, and access is very restricted. You can drive for hours in any direction and will find significant development. This came with the "Asian invasion".

Those little commies absolutely love unchecked capitalism and the "American Way". So much so that they came over here with suit cases full of American dollars and bought up, at asking price, every scrap of land that they could get their greedy hands on, thereby driving real estate prices to the moon.

And where you or I may see a a five acre plot as a humble self sustaining home with fruit trees and a garden, maybe some sheep, a goat or cow, these damn locusts will slam down as many San Fran sardine style town houses as they can legally bribe the city to allow, and then bring in more locusts who'll do the same. And it blows my mind that some people are so damned worried about humble working Mexicans, while Asian "locusts are being welcomed with open bank accounts.

And it will happen here as well. It's been happening, and will keep happening. And those that are thinking, "Oh, I'll just move to Idaho, Wyoming, the Dakotas..." ...whatever buddy. They aren't going to be safe from progress either. The way we are going, it is inevitable. Every scrap of land worth having will be bought up and developed. And the only people who will have access to prime untouched pieces are all going to part of some elite, exclusive little wealthy mans club of which working stiffs like myself, maybe you, and anyone else who get their hands dirty and have callouses, and put their backs into earning their living are not members.

And they (the locusts) don't have to be Asian either. There are already plenty of them here. And the elected whores in DC answer to them and them alone.

When the land is finally paved, fenced off, and overpopulated from coast to coast, will we then be "great again"? American society seems, to me, to be extremely short sighted. The flags of "idealism that some people wave so zealously, I suppose, are so damn big that they obscure their objective view of the bigger long term picture.

 

[cigars]

We are staying at Tumalo for three days and will have to navigate our way thru Bend to the High Desert Museum

Love the HDM! Enjoy!

 

[RVTECH]

Love the HDM! Enjoy!

Yep been a fan since it opened. I haven't been in a while but I try to go when a 'traveling display' I am interested in is featured for a while.

 

[Mikej]

And those that are thinking, "Oh, I'll just move to Idaho, Wyoming, the Dakotas..." ...whatever buddy. They aren't going to be safe from progress either. The way we are going, it is inevitable. Every scrap of land worth having will be bought up and developed.

That's why there is some small amount of satisfaction that I'll be dead when that happens. I feel very sad for the children of now. Fewer and fewer of them will be able to enjoy the simple things a large number of the members here enjoyed growing up...... Hell with that. They don't care I bet. As long as they've got a phone to keep their face in!

 

[RVTECH]

I feel very sad for the children of now. Fewer and fewer of them will be able to enjoy the simple things a large number of the members here enjoyed growing up......

This is true - but at the same time there are a LOT of people who, even in relatively 'earlier' times did not grow up enjoying the 'simpler things'. Even as a teen in So Cal in the 70's I remember having to drive a ways to get 'away from it all' and do a little plinking or get into the woods. Then I moved to Oregon and what I loved was only minutes away so it was like a 'spiritual awakening'. I do however work with a guy who grew up in Houston, Texas and he tells me all they ever did was 'go shopping' - It's obvious he did not have much of an interest in the outdoors anyway but even when I talk to him I don't think he conceptualizes the advantage of having vast amounts of public land available. He doesn't venture far from home much and I don't think he realizes what is available to him.

 

[partsed]

Love the HDM! Enjoy!

They have a WW2 exhibit going on right now, so that is an added bonus to everything else they have to offer!!

 

[Ura-Ki]

We lived over near Eagle Rock during summer months and would venture far and wide on our dirt bikes! Our place butted up to the Red Cloud Ranch, and it was a blast to be able to hunt and fly fish when ever we wanted, Then all the land developers came in and started buying every thing they could, from Ry Valley all the way north, it all went to Sheit. We used to go down to Sisters for "Fun" instead of hanging around Redmond or Bend, as it was cooler and the hiking and lakes and streams were awesome, then in the 90's people started "retiring" there, and it exploded. Sisters used to be a really cool town, now it's just another strip mall town that caters to the rich and the komiefornicationing crowd from the south!!!

So glad I got out of Orygun, but man, I sure do miss all the once cool places.
Shushhhhhhhhhh No one say a word about the Strawberry Mountains area, it's one of the last areas of the State not yet discovered by the Kali HORDS!!!

 

[CoastRange57]

Nailed it! My parents live in on the Crooked River ranch.
That's where we stay and travel to Bend for fun and entertainment.

I remember going to Bend in the late 90s and it was awesome seemed like the whole town shut down at 8pm.

Even on crooked river here. We spent our summers here as a kid and it was high desert as far as you could see.
We ran around for miles with our BB guns shooting lizards and snakes.

Now it's a neighborhood

We bought property in Crooked River last year. 2 acres. We were over there first of July and are going over there next week to post no trespassing signs on our property so nobody there for the eclipse gets any ideas about camping there. We have went to Bend once, took the grandkids to a Bend Elks baseball game, probably take them to another one next weekend.

Granted Crooked River could be called a neighborhood now, but it really is a pretty nice neighborhood. We live south of Forest Grove now and the day to day travels can get quite tedious, plus about every third person you run into is a piece of sh*t. The people we have met at Crooked River are very nice people, offered us all kinds of help and assistance and we are really looking forward to living there. Plus the cost of the ground and building a home is very affordable compared to the insanity of the valley right now.

 

[Argonaut]

In my experiance, this happens wherever there is a large collage influence. We have the same in Moscow Idaho and Pullman Washington. Moscow is the most liberal county in Idaho and Boise is not far behind. Logan Utah is another example. It is a tragedy.

 

[speleologist]

A friend once told me that back in the 1960s, Bend had one or two stop signs. It was a name they put on the map to keep the area from looking empty. I asked around and other older Oregonians say it's a fair description. My question to those of you who saw Bend back then, is that true?

 

[Argonaut]

A friend once told me that back in the 1960s, Bend had one or two stop signs. It was a name they put on the map to keep the area from looking empty. I asked around and other older Oregonians say it's a fair description. My question to those of you who saw Bend back then, is that true?

Yep

 

[2Wheels4Ever]

Bend? Yes I hate going there, but I have 20 acres in Sisters and I love it. I stay away from the city and they stay away from me.

 

[CoastRange57]

Bend? Yes I hate going there, but I have 20 acres in Sisters and I love it. I stay away from the city and they stay away from me.

Likewise. We have our two acres in Crooked River and two of our boys live in Sisters. Going over there this weekend. Going to Bend is like going to Portland over here. Painful at best, and only if absolutely required.

 

[RVTECH]

It was a name they put on the map to keep the area from looking empty. I a

The name 'Bend' is actually a shortened version of 'Farewell Bend' which was a phrase used by pioneers in the late 1800s who camped near a shallow spot that was easy to cross. The name was shortened to 'Bend' when the first Post Office was established. There is also reference to the phrase 'The Bend in the river' as being used to describe this area also.

 

[USMCVeteran]

I used to live on Deschutes River Ranch before moving my flag up to Alaska in 1995, at that time Bend's population was around 50,000. I flew down to the lower 48 in 2003 to visit friends who live around the Bend area, was astonished at how the areas population had exploded to around 85,000. That's too bad, it was such a "sleepy" town when I lived there.

 

[mike633]

So I grew up coming to Bend for out family vacations and all my life wanted to live here so bad.
But last year and this year have changed that idea.

It seems to get worse every year from the californians and portland hipster/tree hugger crowd.

I think it's time to finally stop making the trip. It's way over crowded and ridiculously expensive.

Man this is such a disappointment to me. My favorite place on this earth and I don't even want to visit.

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