We continued our journey south to Oregon. We stayed for a week at Champoeg State Park, south of Portland. While there, we caught up with some friends (our first time hanging out with friends since our trip began) who took us out for the day to help celebrate Travis' birthday. We visited the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum, which houses the Spruce Goose. Abigayle enjoyed the museum, but it was even more fun because she had friends to share a child's point of view with. Our good fortunes with the weather also ran out in Portland, as we endured biblical rains for several days. Finally escaping the weather, we headed east to Bend, OR.
Bend was one of the places Travis was looking very forward to visiting. We setup camp for a week in Tumalo Falls State Park, and spent nearly every day exploring the mountain biking in the area. Our friends from Portland came down for a day of riding and playing, and we enjoyed a great dinner and brew at the Deschutes Brewery.
Sadly, we had to leave Bend and cross back over the Cascade mountains before a big snowstorm hit. On our way, we drove through Crater Lake National Park and had an exciting time driving the RV on the snowy roads. We camped for a couple nights at Valley of the Rogue State Park while waiting out the remnants of the storm. Our next destination is the Redwood forests of northern California!
Welcome to Oregon.
Campsite in Bend.
Resting at Farewell Bend Park.
Walking bridge at Drake Park.
Abigayle and Travis riding the Deschutes River Trail in Bend.
Catching air on a unicycle, crazy!
Welcome art at the Bend Park and Recreation Office.
Trail art on Phil's Trail.
Abigayle's leaf bouquet.
Giddy-up dino!
Great friends from the
Portland area who drove 3 hours to visit us in Bend!!
Deschutes Brewery after a hard day of playing!
Heading up towards Crater Lake, road conditions are getting slick.
After leaving Anacortes, we caught the ferry from Coupeville to Port Townsend on our way to the
Olympic Peninsula. We spent several days camping in the Olympic National Park. Our favorite place was the Hoh Rainforest which, even though it had not rained in a while, was still filled with vibrant green colors.
We worked our way south after leaving the Olympic National Park, on our way to Mount St. Helens. The devastation at Mount St. Helens was just amazing to see, but it was also cool to see how much had grown back since I had visited there in 1994.
On our way to Seattle, we picked up our first mail drop in Spokane, WA. It was a pretty painless process except for trying to find a place to park the motorhome in downtown Spokane. After a couple days in Spokane, we continued our trek across Washington State.
We arrived in Seattle and got a campsite about a half hour north of town. It was a pretty nice KOA on a lake, and we spent the day just hanging out and riding a paddle boat on the lake. The next day we rented a car and headed to Seattle. We visited the typical tourist things, the Space Needle, Pike Market, and the Seattle Art Museum. By the time we left, it was rush our and rather than sit in traffic we hit the REI flagship store to kill some time.
The next day we pulled up camp and moved to Anacortes for a couple days. We got on the bikes and scouted for our boat dock for our whale watching trip the next day. We then found a great seafood restaurant and had dinner. Upon returning to camp, Abigayle was beyond excited to find a family with kids had setup camp beside us. She immediately dropped her bike and introduced herself to the kids and they played until bedtime.
The next day we went on a whale watching tour and along with beautiful views of the San Juan Islands, we saw dolphins, seals, sea lions, bald eagles and orcas.
