Restaurants open for Turkey Day
Don’t feel like cooking for the whole family? Or perhaps you procrastinated and don’t want to face the grocery stores last minute? Here are a few restaurants open and serving dinner on Thanksgiving. If you’re lucky, you may still be able to nab a reservation. Restaurants Open Thanksgiving Day 2018 10 Below | Noon-8pm$52/adults, $19/ages…
Last school year, nearly 22,000 Oregon kids didn’t have a home
The good news: The number of students in Oregon who don’t have a home of their own is down from last year. The bad news: The number of students in Oregon who don’t have a home of their own is still close to 22,000. Last week, the Oregon Department of Education released its data on…
Torched Towns: Could Bend be Next?
While the most destructive wildfire in California’s history rages on, the U.S. Forest Service and Pyrologix—a Montana-based wildfire analysis firm—have identified the 100 communities in the Pacific Northwest with the highest cumulative risk of wildfire. Bend ranks number 8. “The high ranking mentioned above confirms all the work that we have been doing since the…
Bend Beats Out Redmond For Affordable Housing Program
The City of Bend will be the first to test out a state affordable housing project. The Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development chose Bend, likely for its acute affordable housing shortages. Redmond and Bend were both in the running to test out House Bill 4079, which allows cities to use a non-traditional urban…
Big Changes for Well-Traveled Trails
Ask a local how they feel about the traffic on trails and natural areas in Central Oregon, and chances are they’ll tell you that things are way too crowded. Some might even say that the wilderness areas near Bend are being “loved to death”—the phrase used in a post written by local writer Katy Bryce…
Sharpen Your Saw! It’s Christmas Tree Huntin’ Time
For those hearty souls who like to cut their own Christmas tree like Clark W. Griswold, the time to buy your permits has come. The $5 permits are good for one tree and are available for purchase weekdays from 8am to 4:30pm at the Deschutes or Ochoco Supervisor or District Offices, as well as retail…
PRIZE GIVEAWAY: $200 Toward Lodging at FivePine Lodge!
If you sign up for the Cascades Reader before 12pm on Nov. 30, 2018, you’ll be entered to win a $200 voucher toward a stay at FivePine Lodge!
In Local Races, a Huge Jump in Voting from the Last Midterm Election
Midterm elections—the elections that take place in between presidential election years—traditionally see lower voter turnout rates than presidential election years. That holds true for the 2018 election cycle, compared to 2016, but in terms of sheer numbers, voters in Deschutes County turned out in far bigger numbers this year than they did in 2014. Here…
Poetry Contest
The winning poems from the 2018 Source poetry contest—and a word about why they won, from the judges. The 2nd annual Source poetry contest was, like last year, a collaboration between this publication and the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program at Oregon State University-Cascades. We received hundreds of submissions from writers in…
Craft Beer’s Not-So-Micro Future
This week marks my final beer column for the Source. After just over four years, I move out of Central Oregon and move on in my career. (I could keep on writing this section, but it would start talking a lot more about Japan and Vermont than Bend, and my editor would likely complain.) Since…
Cenozoic Park
Passing through the Thomas Condon Paleontology Center in John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, near Picture Gorge, Ore., you’ll find the geologic equivalent of Noah’s Ark. Apparently, proto-cheetah, zebra, rhino and nearly every other conceivable terrestrial vertebrate wandered the Oregon countryside, according to a comprehensive fossil record starting 55 million years ago. Ever dreamt of…
Don’t let legal businesses get the short shrift
When Oregonians voted in favor of legalizing recreational marijuana, they did so, at least in part, to legitimize an industry that had benefited only the black market for decades. Voters saw that by legalizing the market and allowing producers to grow and sell marijuana out in the open, there would be a new stream of…
Top 10 Gravel Rides in Central Oregon
There’s lots of buzz in the cycling community about gravel riding. With new bikes that are a mashup between mountain bikes and road bikes, this is a new type of cycling for a lot of riders, with routes that are both challenging and scenic. And with the forecast offering plenty of sunny days and highs…
Enter the Dragon
If there’s an idea or currently popular intellectual property that the American public might have heard about, Hollywood will try to find a way to spin it into gold. Whether it’s “The Emoji Movie” or Nicolas Cage trying to save people from the collapsing towers in “World Trade Center,” if there’s an idea to exploit,…
Saving Private Dyin’
When film nerds talk about the movies that changed their lives, it’s usually something classic that did it to them, like “Citizen Kane,” “Jaws” or “Stalker.” These are movies that change the way you not only view cinema, but also reshape your brain into something more interesting and adaptable. For me, it wasn’t some piece…
Deschutes County’s marijuana blues turn a darker hue
The “Blue Wave” that swept dozens of Democrats into the U.S. House didn’t mean much to those of us residing in what is still decidedly Trump Country. Reefer Madness now dominates the Deschutes County Commission in the forms of incumbent Phil Henderson and Commissioner-elect Patti Adair, who defeated Democrat James Cook by a thin margin…
American Hybrid
Country singer Jesse Dayton has worked with a lot of incredible musicians and filmmakers. He recorded with Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings. He co-wrote songs with Rob Zombie and acted in several of his films. He played guitar on tour for punk legends, X. Now, he’s got a full plate — touring, recording, acting and…
Purpose Fulfilled
Charlie Porter has had a busy career, with no signs of slowing down. Passionate and talented, the Portland-based trumpet player found his groove on the New York jazz scene while studying classical trumpet at The Juilliard School. Over the course of his career, Porter has spent time playing in jazz and classical musical projects, incorporating…
Best Man for the Sob
Best Man For The Sob I’m a 28-year-old guy with an amazing girlfriend. She gets upset and sometimes cries, and I never know how to soothe her. I’m afraid to say the wrong thing, so I don’t say anything at all. Of course, she then gets more upset, thinking I don’t care. But I do…
Bend October Sales Show Increased Median Price and Sales Volume Over Prior Month
Following an unexpected cooling-off period this summer, our local real estate market took an unexpected swing in the opposite direction for October. According to October 2018 Central Oregon MLS statistics for Bend single family residences (excluding condos and manufactured homes) on one acre or less, the market heated up again, with the median price increasing…
Michael Boonstra’s At Liberty Show
Art succeeds best when it can show you something you’ve seen before, but in a whole new way that allows you to rethink your own connection to the subject. Michael Boonstra’s show, “n o w h e r e,” now up through December at the At Liberty artists’ collective, does just that. Boonstra steps outside…
Truffles Play Big Among Oprah’s Favorite Things
Oprah recently released her favorite things of 2018. Of the food items, 25 percent of them included truffles. Is this just a continuation of her own truffle obsession, or an indication that truffles are about to trend harder? A friend recently told me she licks her truffle salt. In an article in Bon Appetit, Oprah…
Famous Oregon Writers
Why do we write, and what makes a great writer? Writing is an art form with a distinct goal: understanding. In today’s world, we share information in many ways, including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram… but we wanted to take a moment to recognize the great writers from Oregon, who worked mostly in print. These are…
Free Will Astrology—Week of November 15
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): The U.S. is the world’s top exporter of food. In second place is the Netherlands, which has 0.4 percent as much land as the U.S. How do Dutch farmers accomplish this miraculous feat? In part because of their massive greenhouses, which occupy vast areas of non-urbanized space. Another key factor is…
Letters to the Editor
In Response to, “On Tap Gets Toasty” on 11/5 What I’d love to see em fix is the parking. The food and drinks are always great but there is never anywhere to park. I just have to go park at Phagans and hope they don’t get mad because I live on the entire other side…
Sweet Solution to Food Waste
We throw out a lot of food in the U.S. every year—67 million tons, according to statistics released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2014. Food industry producers all the way to end consumers are looking for ways to cut waste for economic, social and environmental reasons. Two High Desert Food & Farm Alliance…
