Cindy and I love to mountain bike, and our favorite ride is in Sisters, Oregon. Sisters is located "on the dry side" of the mountains, east of Eugene. The climate is sunny and dry, not what comes to mind when most people think of Oregon. It's a small tourist town of about 1,000 people.
The ride begins at the south end of town and is about 15 miles in all. It starts out level and then slowly climbs for quite a while, then follows with a steep ascent up the side of Peterson Ridge. All the work is rewarded at the top with stunning 360 degree views of the surrounding mountains and desert.
This time we took Reilly, our Welsh springer spaniel. Normally we would ride out a couple of miles and then return to the car so he could take a snooze while we rode the distance. This time around, he joined for about 10 miles of the ride. Since it was hot, he got mighty thirsty and heated, but a couple of creeks along the way provided relief and comfort. As hot and tired as he was, we couldn't do the whole ride. But it felt great to get out in the wild and get some exercise!
And as you can see in the comments below, totally unplanned, we ran into my brother Griff and his wife Catherine back in Sisters after the ride. They were taking a weekend "on the dry side" in Bend and were working their way back to Portland. We just happened to run into them!