Central Oregon rewind

Looking west toward the Cascades from Pilot Butte / City of Bend photo

I would be hard pressed to say exactly when was the last time I was in Central Oregon. I'm guessing it was something like a decade or more. But, finally, Lori and I had a reason to cross the mountains on Saturday: an invitation to stay with friends at their new townhouse. We drove through off-and-on rain the whole way and we even got a few snow showers as we passed Timberline Lodge.

So it was appropriate, I suppose, that we encountered overcast skies as we approached Bend, a former mill town that's become familiar to readers of Sunset and The New York Times as an upscale community that's home to an inordinate number of doctors, lawyers, skiers and others who are into winter sports. I say appropriate because the slate gray skies that obscured the normally majestic view of the Three Sisters and Broken Top was a metaphor for the barely recognizable town where we made our home for two years in the late Seventies.

We were in our mid-20s then, still a couple years away from becoming parents, and we mostly hung out with other reporters who worked with me at The Bulletin, as small daily newspaper known as a great training ground for ambitious young journalists.

Drake Park / Jennifer Clark photo

Back then, Bend had maybe 16,000 residents and the local mill was still the largest employer in town. We learned to cross country ski and ice skate on an actual frozen pond; climbed the South Sister and nearby Black Butte; and thoroughly enjoyed the crisp, clean high desert air and panoramic views of the Cascade Mountains. Downtown, such as it was, offered a mishmash of forgettable storefronts, mediocre restaurants and very little night life.

And now?

Well, as surprised as we were to see the growth in Madras and Redmond, two no-longer-so-small towns north of Bend, we were blown away by the scale of change in the former timber town. The big-box retailers have moved in with a vengeance on U.S. 97 at the north end of town. Drake Park is still a jewel in the historic city center, offering a central gathering place alongside the Deschutes River.

But downtown looks as though someone picked up the old shopping district, turned it upside down and shook everything out. Now, Wall and Bond streets offer a collection of boutique shops, sushi bars and trendy restaurants, a refurbished theatre and the obligatory Starbucks. In place of antiquated equipment and shabby housing south of town, the Old Mill District now offers a tourist-oriented shopping experience similar to what you'd find at any regional shopping mall -- i.e., lots of national retailers and a multiplex theater.

Three Sisters at sunset / Robert Gustafson photo

Nearby, across a footbridge, the Les Schwab Amphitheater now offers some great bands, typically before or after they've played a show in Portland or Seattle. Recent acts: Death Cab For Cutie, The Decemberists, Iron and Wine, Alison Krauss & Union Station.

Nothing, though, prepared us for the complete transformation of the west side. A cluster of upscale subdivisions extending away from town offers a mind-boggling array of townhouses, massive single-family homes, even a gated subdivision for those inclined to buy an extra layer of privacy. Summit High School lies in the midst of this affluence, with state-of-the-art buildings and athletic facilities and, no doubt, a student body demographic resembling that of Lakeridge, Lincoln or Jesuit high schools here in the metro area.

With so many for-sale signs on so many properties and so many structures under construction, it's hard  in some cases to tell what's still being built versus what's been abandoned. But it's very easy to see how the Bend housing market overheated and then crashed big-time in recent years.

The city now has a little over 80,000 residents. The Bulletin has a fancy new home on S.W. Chandler Avenue, which I presume is named after its legendary editor-publisher Robert W. Chandler -- the gruff old guy who hired me way back when and left a towering journalistic and philanthropic legacy when he died in 1996.

If  Thomas Wolfe were born here, he'd certainly have every reason to say, "You can't go home again."

Even though I lived here a scant two years, the Bend of old and the Bend of today might as well exist on different planets. The change is simply breathtaking. I imagine the mountain views are as gorgeous as ever, but it'll take another trip -- with clear weather -- to confirm that.

Spring thunderstorm / Jennifer Clark photo