Car-Camping! Mark and I met several good friends at the Paradise Campground along the McKenzie River for a weekend of biking, relaxing and sleeping on the ground. Actually most of our friends have real RV's so they didn't sleep on the ground. : ) We got a great site right along the river and enjoyed sitting in our camp chairs on the bank. As our neighbors Dennis and Maureen called it "the veranda". We had to break out our car camping gear which hasn't been used for many moons. We have backpacked several times in the past few years, but this is all different gear. Ended up making a list of what we need to get for next time which will be my birthday trip to the Wallowas in August. Used a big tent that neither of us has slept in before, only used by teenage boys (David and assorted friends and cousins). It worked great, as did the Coleman stove. 
We had great weather. Warm but cool at night. Saturday we biked the McKenzie River Trail, which is supposedly in the top 10 in mountain biking trails in the nation. It is a tough one. 26.5 biles from beginning to end. Our group split up into two. One group did a car shuttle to the top at Clear Lake and rode down to the campground. About 24 miles I think. I have done that part of the trail before and didn't remember that I liked it that much (and I didn't even do the last 8 miles!) I joined the group that rode out and back from our campground almost to the reservoir. This is where I had stopped on my previous ride. We had a great time. Got lots of good exercise riding the slightly uphill and really uphill on the way out, and then mostly downhill on the way back. One great feature is all of the bridges along the way. Always a challenge to fit yourself AND a bike over. Felt like a rookie when I only filled my Camelbak 1/3 full and ran out of water before we even reached the turnaround point. Then had no lunch for the "lunch stop". Not sure what I was thinking, but thank goodness for nurse Maureen who let me suck her Camelbak dry and gave me a PayDay bar to eat. Bad Mazama I am. Enjoyed the ride and then waited for the other group to return.
We had a good old-fashioned weenie roast that night. Only one incident of "weenie down" in the firepit. Enjoyed catching up with good friends.
Sunday we biked to Belknap Hot Springs (about 2 miles on the trail) with Dennis and Maureen and paid $7 for an hour enjoying the hot springs pool at the resort. They had ice cream so we had to get that too...
Favorite part of the weekend was enjoying early morning coffee by the river with Michael and Diane. One of those "life is good" moments for sure.
On our return trip we took an alternate route and stopped to see Sahalie Falls and Clear Lake and had lunch in Detroit.
There are dozens of campgrounds in the McKenzie River area. I want to go back!!! The Clear Lake Resort looked like a must do to me, with the clearest water I've ever seen.
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