I didn't take many photos going through Oregon. We were just passing through really to get to Washington. The only national park we wanted to see was Crater Lake. We skipped it though due to wildfires in the southwest corner of the state, and many park rangers told us the lake was under quite a bit of smoke and hardly visible. We were disappointed but plugged along up the coast.
Right as we got into the state, we stopped in Brookings for a wonderful lunch at The Art Alley Grille. We traveled some more up rt 101 until we got almost halfway up the states coast to Florence. We grocery shopped, then put up for the night just north of the town at a national forest campground. It was a noisy night with music and kids being kids. We vowed that the next night we would find a more secluded spot.
We went back into Florence and visited the farmers market on the pier that morning. We picked up some delicious fruit and a few handcrafted pieces of jewelry. Ran into a hippie gypsy lady that was quite interesting. She told us of some of her travels and we told her of ours. She was traveling alone with her cute little dog and often stayed in dispersed sites, as we did, or used an online network site to use an extra bedroom or driveway at someone's house in exchange for her cooking dinner. She also said if she went to Hare Krishna temples, after meditating she would likely find a soul who would take her in for a night or two. We found this a very interesting way of traveling...
We ran into a few more people from out of town that were also very helpful in informing us of neat places to stay in the state.
After extending our stay longer for lunch, we hit the road.
After getting no useable information out of a forest ranger and searching for what felt like an endless afternoon for a dispersed site in the Suislaw National Forest, we headed inland at Waldport, on rt 34. We were told by a campground host that we may have a better chance of finding something, either dispersed or a campground that wasn't full, off of the coastline. We drove until 7:30 and claimed the last spot available in another busy, kid ridden national forest campground. Oh well, we thought, tomorrow, tomorrow we would find a quieter spot.
This second campsite was a blessing in disguise! We met the coolest couple that lived along the coast where we had just come from. We chatted for a bit that night about routes we could take I bland more and they invited us back for a crayfish snack in the morning.
Our crayfish snack turned into a breakfast, all four of us sat around sipping coffee and I made scrambled eggs while Debbie whipped up some great fried potatoes.
Their cute little dog, Spencer.
Mandy, checking out the crayfish.
We sat around a few hours more, while Randy pulled out his self-made guitar and Debbie brought our her mandolin. They played a few songs and sang, we sat there with full bellies and enjoyed. We talked some more and they very helpful information and were even kind enough as to give us their maps. Destination, BLM land, north of Green Peter Lake.
Along the way, from suggestion of Randy, we stopped at Sunrise Sourdough Bakery in Philomath. It was devine! A hot little shop where the little man who owns it comes in bakes, and only is open on Sundays for resale. We chose a loaf of garlic onion bread, fresh out of his huge ovens and two cinnamon rolls. We drove off and as we bit into the rolls, knew we had to have them again for morning. We turned around and bought two more.
Upon arriving at Green Peter Lake, it was a Sunday afternoon, it you wouldn't have known it! It was hopping with boats, bikinis, beer, and loud dudes! We drove past this chaos until the lake turns to river and settled in nicely along a turn in the road that had an easy walk down to the crystal green water.
First time using our awning!
We lounged, had a few cocktails, I blogged, all four of us swam and even climbed up a small waterfall across the river. It was a fun and very peaceful time.
We had talked about driving up northeast of the Warm Springs Indian Reservation to visit a place we had both read about in a book. The book title is Homestead, by Jane Kirkpatrick, it's the author's personal memoir about her and her husbands time homesteading out on the John Day River. Unfortunately, the river got the best of us and staying an extra night made our decision to skip heading more east final.
We drove along until we reached rt 22. We got great views of Mt. Jefferson along the way.
Mt. Hood peaking up.
Getting into Portland.
Mt. Hood again from the city.
After visiting McMenamin's Chapel Pub, we hit the road and decided to stay along the Columbia River. We headed east on 30 to 84 and arrived at a nice city park with a very small campground at Cascade Locks. Interestingly enough, I had just finished reading Wild by Cheryl Strayed, where she hikes the PCT and ends her journey at the Bridge of the Gods. Besides this highlight of this area, there was much history of Lewis, Clark, and Sacajawea to be thought of too.
It was a gorgeous night, we walked along Thunder Island, I got this view of the campsites.
The Columbia River.
Awaking the next morning, we went out to breakfast, hit the grocery store (tried to buy all we needed, seeing there is no sales tax in Oregon), and went into the post office to mail a package out. While in the post office, a PCT hiker came in, looking worn out, dirty, stinky, and hairy.
He asked for his package (any of you that don't know, the hikers mail themselves packages at certain junctures in their hike so they have enough money, food, and supplies while making the walk from Mexico to Canada) and I asked him, "Where did you start?".
He looked at me bewildered, like I was crazy for asking, or maybe he is just real tired of hearing that question.
"Mexico." He replied, seeming irritated that he had to answer.
We finished our transaction, headed to the door that he and his big pack were semi blocking, we squeezed by and Pete said " Good luck with the rest of your walk."
"Thanks.", the guy mumbled back.
Maybe he was having a bad day. It was still pretty cool to run into him.
We made our way to the bridge, payed our $1.00 and crossed over into Washington!
