Early July is the wrong time to visit this area, most trails will have snow and the trails that I wanted to hike had extra snow and …………………. a billion mosquitos trying to eat me. But I am definitely coming back next year at the correct time.
I stayed in the town of Sisters, Oregon. It is the prettiest small town that I have seen and I would love to live there one day. Logistics note: you cant pump your own gas in Oregon, WTF.
With that in mind, I highly recommend to drive the scenic route in McKenzie Highway if you are coming from the west. A nice attraction is the Dee Wright Observatory. Earlier in the 20th century someone decided to use actual lava rocks to create a two story structure with small windows pointing to the main peaks in the area: Mt Washington, South Sister, Mt Jefferson. The area is a complete lava field that came from one of the peaks and nature has not reclaimed it yet. Notice the two islands of green; that is not reclaimed, the lava field flowed around them.