Oregon

I had just dropped off Nichole and Kate in Bellingham, WA then headed south to pick up Jeff and Jonas in Portland, OR. One week's adventure rolled into another! I was really excited to see the boys. I loved spending a week with the girls, but there were several times when I thought how much one or both of the boys would have enjoyed what I was doing or where I was at. Now I got to share the next week's adventures with them.

Our adventures started on Monday, Sept 11, at Multnomah Falls. We got there before any of the crowds. It was awesome! The bridge was empty. We were able to stand in uninterrupted awe at this massive waterfall. After viewing the falls from the base, we hiked up to the top. It was a bit of a hike. Jonas was a trooper. He didn't love it, but once we got to the top, he agreed it was worth the hike. Even just the view of the river from the top was incredible. At the top, the boys played in the river and found another little waterfall before standing at the top of Multnomah Falls. Again, we had the the top to ourselves. We enjoyed a few minutes at the top before heading down. 

After that, we made our way to Bend, OR, where we met up with Jeff's sister, Julie, and niece, Heidi. Julie and Heidi flew in from Germany to get Heidi set up for college at Oregon State University (satellite campus). Because they were stateside, we made the effort to go see them. Jeff's parents, Katie, and Greg also drove in to Oregon to spend the week. They met up with Julie and Heidi on Saturday. I'm not sure Jonas even remembers the last time he saw Julie or her girls so it was fun to catch up. We just spent the evening hanging out at the little cabin we rented. Heidi and Jonas went paddle boarding (and Jeff jumped on a kayak) on the river that was just in the backyard, and Jonas played foosball and pool with Greg. We ended the day roasting marshmallows around a campfire.

Tuesday (Sept. 12th) we headed out to explore the area around Bend. We started at Lava Butte. We had no idea all of the volcanic activity that existed in this area thousands of years ago. There were so many "cones" (old volcanoes), lava fields, and more. We hiked up to the top of Lava Butte to see the crater caused by its last eruption then made our way into the city. Bend is beautiful! It's such a fun city with lots of outdoor recreational opportunities. The river literally bends its way around the city. We walked along the river for a bit before we grabbed lunch then introduced Jonas to a staple of mine and Jeff's childhood - Blockbuster. This was the last remaining Blockbuster on earth and was a complete throwback for me! I used to love Blockbuster. We would rent VHS movies because there were no streaming services. If we wanted to watch a movie, we had to rent one. I remember being excited about the new releases and just wandering the aisles and aisles of old movies. Jonas had no clue why I was so excited about this little stop. The store still had tons of movies to rent but they were obviously all DVD's and not VHS. Still, I think they earned more revenue from the t-shirts and other souvenirs they sold. We bought a deck of playing cards and an ornament. After that fun stop, we toured Heidi's small campus (and I mean SMALL....there were only 5 buildings total and that included the dorms) then finally went back to the cabin to enjoy our last evening together. (And yes, Jonas was back out on the paddle board with Heidi. He loved that!)

Wednesday (Sept 13th) we checked out of the little cabin and headed toward Crater Lake National Park. I have enjoyed exploring these national parks. There is so much diversity and beauty in our country. I loved traveling internationally and still have a few places I'd like to visit, but if I never go out of country again, I still think I'd have more than enough incredible places to visit here. In any case, the crater was breathtaking! I didn't realize how much I would enjoy the views of this lake. The water was such a deep blue hue. We stopped at a couple of viewpoints before finding a place to have a picnic. The chipmunks were so friendly! They are probably used to all the human interaction and were even bold enough to take food from Jonas's hand. He loved that! After our picnic, we made our way to Cleetwood Cove trail. This is the only trail in the park that leads down to the lake. It's a mile hike straight down...and straight back up, but it's worth the effort. The lake was even more incredible up close. Jeff and Jonas even decided to swim in it. It was a little too cold for me, but I did enjoy dipping my toes in. While we were down there, we had made reservations to do a boat tour. Even though it was much later than I wanted to do it (because we still had a four hour drive to our accommodations for that night), I was glad we did. We got to float around the entire lake and see some of the crazy formations made by this incredible crater. Scientists estimate that this volcano erupted over 7,000 years ago. It's thousands of feet deep in the deepest area and you can see down at least 320 feet. It's that clear! The only water this lake receives is from rain or snow and it maintains its depth with only about 16 feet of variation during the year. We saw waterfalls, obsidian flows, and even the "old man" of the lake. This was a dead tree that just floats upright in the water. It was pretty cool too. Finally, our tour ended and we hiked back to the cars. We said our final goodbyes to Julie and Heidi. They headed back to Bend while we made our way to Northern California.

Our drive to Klamath, CA was interesting. There have, unfortunately, been many wildfires in this region. During part of our drive, we were escorted by a pilot car through a stretch of about 20 miles of mountain roads past actively burning (more like smoldering) trees. I was grateful that the closer we got to the redwoods, however, the less the fire had touched them. We drove another stretch of about 10 miles of incredibly HUGE trees. It was in the dark...and I honestly expected Sasquatch to jump out of the trees at us, but it was so cool. The next morning (Thursday, Sept 14th), we explored the Redwoods. We started with the drive thru tree near our hotel. Our vehicle was still a little too big for us to comfortably try to fit it through the tree, but we snapped a picture then moved on to the Trees of Mystery park. I honestly just loved driving the roads around the park. The trees were so tall and so wide! The park was fun though. We all enjoyed the treetop walk. It was so cool to be so high up in these massive trees. The Brotherhood tree was the tallest and largest in the park. Scientists even found different ecosystems in the tops of the tree! Crazy! We admired the lightning tree and the regrowth it is experiencing. That was something I loved about all these trees - even when one dies, new life springs from it and needs it for its own growth. There were so many life lessons I discussed with Jonas as we wandered this park and admired its beauty.

Finally, we left the redwoods and headed up the coast of Oregon. I know so many people love the beaches of Southern California, but the Oregon and Washington beaches are more incredible to me. I love seeing the massive rock formations surrounded by water by the coast. We found a beach about an hour north of the park and decided to stop to have a picnic and let Jonas swim. The crazy kid couldn't wait to get in the water! He loved running from and into the the waves. It was also fun to explore the tide pools with Jeff and Jonas again. We finally found a starfish! Kate and I searched for one while we were in Washington but never saw one. Jonas, Jeff and I found two. After a couple of hours exploring the beach, we continued with our drive north. We made a brief stop in the cute coastal town of Bandon. We were lucky to hit a couple of stores that were still open, but most were closing up. We wandered the boardwalk before we decided to get some dinner and head to our hotel for the evening...and yes, the sunset over the Oregon coast was incredible.

Our hotel that evening was right on the beach. We woke up on Friday (September 15th) and headed down to the beach as the sun rose. It was probably my favorite morning of the trip. Jeff had bought a fun toy called a fox tail. It's actually meant for dogs but Jeff and Jonas loved tossing it back and forth to each other as we walked down the beach. It was a chilly morning, which meant there weren't many people. I know most people think of visiting beaches in the summer, but I like going in the off seasons because what I enjoy most is the serenity of the waves...not the chaos of the crowds. 

After a nice walk, we headed to our first stop, the Sea Lion Cave. We were so excited to see all the sea lions...but as luck would have it, we were about 2 weeks too late! Evidently, during this time of year, the sea lions go back out into the ocean to fatten up for the winter. We were so bummed, but Jonas still wanted to try to see if there was one sea lion hanging back so we headed down to the cave anyway. There wasn't a sea lion (at least not a live one...a few bones though), but the cave was still pretty impressive. Obviously, we didn't stay there long before moving on to another hike down to a beach and eventually Thor's Well. This is a fun natural blow hole. The ocean waves push up through this hole in the rock and can create an impressive spout of water. What I also like about this stop is that there are so many rocks to scramble around on. We hiked over to the bridge then hiked along the shoreline where Jonas spotted a little pod of dolphins! He was thrilled to see them, especially since we'd missed the sea lions. Just a little tender mercy. We had fun hiking around then headed to our next stop...

Tillamook! You can't be on the Oregon coast and not make a stop for some ice cream at the Tillamook factory. We definitely made the stop and enjoyed some ice cream and cheese curds before exploring the factory. 

We continued to push our way north towards Cannon Beach; however, there's one little beach just south of Cannon Beach that Jeff and I loved even more, Hug Point. We were so excited to get there at a lower tide because it meant that we could walk over to the caves and fresh water stream that dumps out onto the beach instead of hiking up and over the little mountain in between the beaches. We explored the stream, the caves, and more tide pools before Jeff and Jonas decided they were going to walk the 4 miles from Hug Point to Haystack Rock. They wanted to enjoy as much of the beach as they could. On their walk they even found several intact sand dollars! I ended up driving the car up to Cannon Beach and met them at Haystack Rock. 

I was so proud of Jonas this entire trip! He was so patient with everyone's agendas. He was eager to find fun each day...even when disappointing things happened like not seeing the sea lions. I couldn't believe our trip was coming to a close. We had dinner in Cannon Beach then headed 20 minutes north to Seaside where we stayed our final night. Seaside is a fun town! This is where Lewis and Clark ended their expedition. We went to the trail's end, wandered the fun downtown area, and watched the sunset again. My heart was just happy...being there with Jeff and Jonas and watching Mother Nature show off her incredible colors. I'm grateful for a Divine Creator who loves us enough to create this incredible world where we get to enjoy this mortal experience with the ones we love.

Saturday (Sept 16th) we flew home; however, our flight wasn't until the evening so we had a few hours to kill in Portland first. We decided to spend all that time in Washington Park. We explored the International Test Rose Garden, hiked some trails, stopped to play in a park, and enjoyed the animals at the zoo. (The giraffes are my favorite but Jeff loved trying to provoke the rhino. Jonas enjoyed watching the monkeys and seals.) Our trip had come to an end...but Jeff had one more surprise. He upgraded our tickets home to first class. Silly man! Jonas loved the big seat and extra snacks. I would have been fine in coach, but Jeff likes his space. After two unforgettable weeks away, it was finally nice to be back home.