Category: Oregon
Our 2018 Year In Review

Our 2018 Year In Review

By |

Hey Guys! Happy New Year’s Eve!!

I thought we’d end the year with a quick post to share some of our favorite memories from this year.

Our year started off…well…not the best. We spent last New Year’s Eve driving through an ice storm to get back to Missouri so Jerl could have eye surgery and our home-on-wheels could get a new engine. It was a stressful start to the year, but it got loads better!

We made it to twenty-one different National Park Units this year! Twenty-one! Two of those were revisits, but nineteen were new for us…so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that seven of our top ten memories for this year are about National Parks.

Let’s start with our honorable mention…Sparky’s Burgers in Hatch, New Mexico just missed our top ten, but we all like it so much we decided it really should at least get an honorable mention! We’d been eyeing Sparky’s for a couple of years now. We found out about it in 2015 while we were in Alamogordo, but didn’t want to drive that far in the time we had in the area. This year, however, we made it! And Guys…it’s so good! We got there right as they were opening and it’s a good thing because when we left, the line was already starting to curve around the block. Alex had to try one of Sparky’s famous green chili shakes. He chose chocolate and raved about it the whole time. I think next time I may have to get one too!

Our number ten spot isn’t a foodie or city or state…it’s not a National or State Park…it’s a view. The Columbia River Gorge from the Portland Women’s Form State Scenic Viewpoint in Corbett, OR was spectacular even though the smoke from some nearby fires was wafting through. We had this entire viewing area to ourselves…well…there was one other person there and he was busy having a conversation with himself…so…yeah. But, that view!

Sequoia Park Zoo comes next. We found this little zoo in Eureka, CA and made time to visit right at the end of a day of exploration. We got there just in time for the red panda feeding and zoo talk. We’ve been to some of the top rated zoos in the country and this little zoo is one of our favorites. Happy animals, clean and big exhibits…what more does a zoo need? What it lacks in size, it more than makes up for in heart.

One of the things we love is a good view and what better place to get a view than atop one of Colorado’s tallest mountains. Pikes Peak is the most expensive mountain we’ve explored…but Guys…that view. When we were there, the summit was torn up for construction of the new Summit House. It’ll be fantastic when it’s done! We just might have to go back and see it completed!

One of the states that Jerl has been looking forward to the most is Colorado. The mountains have called his name for many years so it shouldn’t be a surprise that Rocky Mountain National Park is on our top ten list. We were only able to spend one day exploring this giant park and hope to go back one day to see more of it.

Yosemite National Park is in the number six spot on our top ten list for 2018! We were there right before the busy season, but there were still so many people. The few days we ventured into Yosemite Valley the crowds were insane! It wasn’t our thing…all of the crowds. But, when we drove Glacier Road and Tioga Road…the crowds weren’t nearly as bad and the views were ah-mazing!

One of the places I’d been looking forward to visiting is Redwood National and State Park! These two parks work together to preserve one of the largest tracks of old growth coastal redwoods left in the US. And! There’s Fern Canyon! This canyon has fifty feet walls covered in several types of ferns. It was so fun to wade down the small creek! If traveling isn’t your thing…you can take a look at Fern Canyon without leaving your home…it was used to film parts of Jurassic Park II.

We made it to Oregon right as the burn season was revving up. We could see the smoke from one of the fires at the park we were staying in. We were worried we wouldn’t make it up to Crater Lake National Park due to the fires. I’m so glad we did! Crater Lake is gorgeous! The blue of that water!! There’s a bit of lore that says the blue bird used to be black before it dipped into the waters of Crater Lake.

Olympic National Park rests in the number three spot on our top ten list for this year! This place…Guys, I could totally spend a season or two in this area of Washington. There is so much to love about Olympic National Park! You get beaches, mountain vistas, and forests of moss covered trees to hike through!

This next park is not only in our number two spot, but was the biggest surprise for us. We weren’t entirely sure of what to expect from Kings Canyon National Park, but we loved it! You get the gorgeous tall trees and you get to explore a huge canyon! We somehow ended up taking an old forest service road to get into the park and in doing so drove right through one of the largest groves of redwood old growth left. We had it to ourselves and it was fantastic! The canyon was a total surprise. There are views for days, hikes and waterfalls to explore!

Our number one memory of 2018 is Sequoia National Park! We heart tall trees in a serious way. We can’t get enough of them. We stayed in the Sequoia National Park area for two weeks and we spent every spare minute we could up the mountain, in the park walking amongst the tall trees. I’m already trying to plan our next trip to Sequoia.

We’ve wrapped up our State Tour. Y’all haven’t seen the last few posts about those explorations yet, but they’re coming! We hope that each of you have a wonderful New Year’s Day and a blessed 2019! Thank you for being a part of our crazy nomad journey!

See y’all down the road!
Portland Area Part Two

Portland Area Part Two

By |

Hey Guys!! We stayed in the Portland area for two weeks and we tried to squish as much as we could into those two weeks. We didn’t see everything on our list…but we came close.

Most of the time we spent in this area was smoky but we were lucky enough to have a couple of sun filled days to take in the views. We found a great overlook that gave us a nice view of Mount Hood. You can see the haze of smoke in the picture above.

Fort Vancouver was a British fur trading post built in 1824. The National Park Service has done an excellent job recreating Fort Vancouver. When I was looking it up online, I wasn’t sure if it was going to be much more than a partial fence and a building or two…it was really hard to tell online.

There was a volunteer manning the blacksmith building. If you ever really want to get a feel for what life was like while you’re at one of these forts…talk to the volunteers. The volunteers that choose to spend their time teaching the public about what life was like during certain areas or times are some of the most knowledgeable and passionate people we’ve met. We got to see what it took to make just one nail while we were in the blacksmith shop. He talked to us about how anytime the people in the fort needed anything they had to make it themselves. Want a house…better start making nails. Some of the blacksmiths back then could make 100s of nails an hour. The best ones could make 1000s of nails per hour. It took our volunteer a few minutes to make one. The blacksmith was one of the most important people in any settlement and usually made the most money.

The other building that had volunteers present the day we went was the carpenter’s building.  They were making some chairs while we were there.

Due to the lack of funding right now, there was only one Ranger on site and just a handful of volunteers so several of the buildings were locked up. One of the volunteers offered to show us the fur trading building where the area’s settlers would bring in their furs to get money or trade for other items. The biggest money maker was the beaver fur that the top hats were made of. Any respecting gentleman had a top hat made of beaver fur. They would bring the furs in all bundled up in 50 pound packs like the ones in the above left picture. The furs were inspected and weighed before a price was agreed upon.

There was a separate trading building for the Native Americans of the area. One family at a time was let into the fort to trade. When one family left another was let in.

I loved the garden at the fort! Look at all of those pretties! Y’all know my love affair with pretties. I can’t tell you how many pics of different flowers I took…probably more than what was necessary. Ha! The garden was full of life. Bees buzzing around…birds flitting about…I do love a good garden.

Pearson Air Museum is in the same area as Fort Vancouver. I believe the two parks are run jointly. The museum is dedicated to preserving the aviation history of the area. There are some very cool planes and exhibits in an old hangar.

The museum also keeps the history of the old mill that used to be in the area. I love this mural of the lumber mill that helped supply the WWI construction of biplanes. This was a great little museum that had a surprising amount of history and information crammed in it. We could have spent several hours here, but we’d spent all morning at Fort Vancouver and some of us were starting to get a little…hangry and needed food.

I knew there was a lot to do in the Portland area, but I really didn’t know just how much there would be to do! Maybe one day we’ll find ourselves back in the area.

See y’all down the road!

#westernloop2018
Troutdale, OR

Troutdale, OR

By |

Hey Guys! We spent two weeks in Troutdale, OR so we could check out Portland and see the Columbia River Gorge area.

We really enjoyed staying in Troutdale. It was a cute little town and was close to pretty much everything we wanted to check out in the area.

The RV park we stayed in was right by the river. On weekends it was crazy busy, but through the week it wasn’t too bad. There were tons of marionberry bushes all loaded with ripe berries down by the river and the boys would walk down with me to help pick some. They would eat a few then wander off to the river. Honestly, I think I ended up with more berries in the bowl without their help, but I appreciated the company. We enjoyed fresh marionberries daily while we stayed at this park! Yum!!

At a local food chain called Burgerville we found an amazing marionberry shake! It was so good!

My favorite thing about the location of this RV park was it’s proximity to the river and all of the available walking paths we had. We like to get out and walk around everyday. Some parks make this easier than others. At this one we could walk down by the river, then make our way over to the main street of Troutdale. We could easily spend more time in this area. Troutdale is the cutest little town with art dotted here and there down the main street. We made ourselves a walking loop we liked to do in the evenings. Down by the river then up to the main street and back. We’d get right around 2 miles in when it was all said and done.

Location, location, location. Our home-base for the area was right next to the Columbia River Gorge. The Columbia River Gorge is where the Columbia River makes its way through the area by cutting a path right into the Cascade mountains. If you drive the Historic Columbia River Highway, you’ll come across some amazing waterfalls! This one is a popular one called Multnomah Falls and it’s right off the highway. You don’t have to put in a long arduous hike to get to this one which makes it nice and quick to visit but also is probably why this place was absolutely packed when we got there one morning. We were lucky to find a parking spot! To get to the falls you have to walk in a tunnel that goes under the highway and then under a railroad track. A train went by while we were there…I have to admit that the crowd and the location of the highway/train kind of detracts from the beauty of the falls.

If you stay on the Historic Columbia River Highway you’ll come to the Portland Women’s Forum State Scenic Viewpoint. From the road, it doesn’t look like much. When we pulled in, there was one other car…and I think the guy was living out of his car and staying there over night. But, we pretty much had the place to ourselves to ogle the view. And what a view it was! In the picture above you can see the Vista House sitting up on the cliff over to the right of the picture. That’s where most people go and that’s where we were headed when we saw this little gem of a pull-off.

When we eventually got back in the car and headed to the Vista House, it was packed. There were so many people even though the Vista House was closed. We got there just before they officially closed. I barley had enough time to grab a couple of souvenirs. We hoped that everyone would leave after closing, but we definitely weren’t the only ones hanging around for the view. It is a great view, but I’ll be honest…I think I prefer the view from the Portland Women’s Forum State Scenic Viewpoint.

Now, y’all know we love our foodies. And y’all have probably heard how Portland, OR is a huge foodie town. One of the things we wanted to experience is the famed Portland food truck scene. There are several areas of Portland that have a big gathering of food trucks…they call them Food Cart Pods. We did a little research on what was where and landed at this pod. I don’t remember what it was called, but it had food options for everyone. Charles got some Asian, a couple of us got Polish food, Nicholas had Mexican, and then one of us had Salvadorian food! I expected it to be a fast food setup with everything disposable, but some places had actual plates that you return to them when you’re done. There were tables to sit at while we ate. We were very pleasantly surprised by our food pod experience. We tried to go to a different one while we were in the area, but it didn’t work out. We went on a Sunday and tons of the carts were closed and there wasn’t a place to sit down to eat…so we passed.

But Guys…Portland did not disappoint with the foodies. Not even a little. It’s probably a good thing we were only there for two weeks…there are so many foodie spots to try!

We squished quite a few adventures into the two short weeks we had in the Troutdale area so I’m going to break this area up into two posts. I’ll leave you with these two pretties that we saw on one of our evening walks.

Stay tuned for part two!

See y’all down the road!

#westernloop2018
Salem, OR

Salem, OR

By |

Hey Guys! We spent one week in Salem, OR exploring the area.

When we left Central Point we were surrounded by wildfires. The RV park was filling with smoke, it was extremely hot and dry, and Guys…we were just so ready to head north to try and get away from it all. When we started out to our next spot, we headed up I-5 and the smoke started getting worse. We got a little worried it would get too thick to drive through, but as we got up out of the valley, the smoke cleared and it turned into a beautiful day.

One of the things we always love to see is what each state looks like…topography, agriculture, different architectural styles…sometimes it surprises us. Like Oregon. We saw so many huge hay fields. Hay as far as the eye could see! It was all mowed down and ready for harvesting, but it still looked really neat. And dry. It’s no wonder why Oregon is a fire hazard every summer.

The main reason we spent time in Salem was to visit the State Capitol Building. Right from the start, I liked this one. Most of the SCBs look something like the National one in DC so it’s nice when we find one that’s different. I wasn’t expecting a dome, but check this one out! I love the patriotic theme of it. The Oregon SCB wasn’t flashy and it wasn’t huge. It didn’t have every square inch covered in decoration but, there were some very nice murals and they used marble from all over the country. It was very tasteful and simplistic. What decorations there were all had meaning.

We added our Oregon sticker! The map is looking kind of full! It’ll be a month before we get to add the Idaho sticker as we start making our way south for the winter.

We heard about a Silver Falls State Park a few weeks before we got to the Salem area. It wasn’t too far from where we were staying so we went to check it out. The most popular trail there is the Trail of Ten Falls. It’s a ten mile trail that takes you by ten falls.

The day we went it was over 100 degrees. It was so so hot. With no breeze. We decided we’d check out two of the falls, but it was just too uncomfortable to try to do all ten miles. We did see some of the local wildlife. This guy wasn’t interested in us at all, he was trying to find place to cool off.

This area of Oregon was shaped by lava flows. Some geologists think there were around eight different lava flows layered up one on top of another in the Silver Falls SP area. Some layered up to as much as 600 feet thick. One of the coolest things about this SP is that the trail actually goes behind some of the waterfalls! Not only was it neat to walk behind a waterfall and look through it…the cooling mist coming off of the waterfall was very welcome. We might have lingered longer than necessary. Ha!

Foodies! Some friends of ours (waves at the McConnels) told us about a BBQ place in the area so we went to check it out. It was so good! Check out that tray full of food! Yum!

It’s getting harder to find pretties…this summer season has been so hot and dry the flowers are either all dried up or too far away to get a decent picture of.

We enjoyed the Salem area more than we thought we would! We would totally visit the area again…during cooler weather.

See y’all down the road!

#westernloop2018

Pizza Roundup Abby’s Legendary Pizza

Pizza Roundup Abby’s Legendary Pizza

By |

Pizza Street

To my fellow pizza lovers! I bring you a post from Central Point, OR.

Abby’s Legendary Pizza was unfortunately not too great. The food itself was pretty good, but the buffet only had two pizzas at a time. That’s not a lot! They had a lot of mashed potatoes and fried chicken though. We asked for a cheese pizza but they said they only put two pizzas out at a time and they don’t like to put cheese pizza on the buffet because it gets eaten too quickly. Sounds like they should put it out more often if it goes that quick!

Sorry about the blurry picture.

We forgot about the pics for the sammiches but they were… underwhelming in size for what we payed.

I regret to say that Abby’s Legendary Pizza only gets 2.5 stars, due to the ridiculousness of refusing to put up a cheese pizza and just the bad experience we had there. Now, I’m not saying the food wasn’t good, I’m just saying the business practices are not great.

See y’all next time on…

Pizza Street!!

Written by Nicholas
Hello Oregon!

Hello Oregon!

By |

Hey Guys! We spent two hot and smoky weeks in Central Point, OR.

I was a little worried about this drive day. I’d heard that highway 199 between Central City, CA and Grant’s Pass, OR could be a bit of a white knuckler. Lots of narrow winding roads combined with steep grades. The thought of it kept me up the night before. It turned out to be…not so bad. There were spots of narrow winding roads…there were definitely some steep grades up and down…but, we’d been on worse roads and Jerl handled it like a pro.

I’d been preparing myself for a stressful drive day…I was prepared for it. What I wasn’t prepared for was how stinkin’ pretty the drive was! We followed this river for quite some time and the coloring of it was just…wow! I tried several times to get a good shot of it as we were navigating the road. It’s not the greatest shot, but you can get an idea of how pretty the area was.

The RV park we stayed in was in a great location and at an even better price. After three months of steep California prices we were ready to get back to some more reasonable rates.

The main thing we wanted to do while in Central Point was visit Crater Lake National Park. The day we went was a gorgeous day with an amazing blue sky and temps in the 80s. Check out the blue of that water! There’s an old Native American legend that says the blue bird was actually black until it took a dip into the water of Crater Lake. With a depth of 1,943 feet, Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the US and the seventh deepest lake in the world. It’s a combination of that depth and it’s source of water that gives the lake that incredible inky blue color.

The boys have vests and hats that they put all of their Junior Ranger badges on. They usually just wear them into the Visitor Center at each park to do the Rangering and then they take them off to do any exploring. It would totally stink to lose a badge somewhere. So, usually not too many people see them in their Rangering gear, but at Crater Lake we had to park farther away from the Visitor Center and the boys ended up wearing their gear down to one of the overlooks…and people kind of went nuts over it. I lost count of how many people wanted pictures of/with them or they wanted to just talk to them. The boys didn’t really know what to think of it all. They don’t do it for the attention or to grab more bling. They genuinely enjoy the learning.

Once we finished up with the Rangering we took off on Rim Drive. Rim Drive is around 38 miles and takes you all the way around Crater Lake.

Pumice Castle is 200 feet high and is the result of an eruption that took place 70,000 years ago.

The day we went to Crater Lake NP it was crazy busy. We figured we would end up eating in our car surrounded by other cars, but we ended up having an entire pull-off all to ourselves. We got out and sat on the wall and enjoyed a few minutes of quite solitude as we ate our picnic lunch. It was nice to get away from the crowds for awhile…and the view wasn’t bad either. ;-P

Phantom Ship is what remains of one of the mountain’s original cones…back around 400,000 years ago. From the view point on Rim Drive, Phantom Ship looks small, but it stands at an impressive 160 feet high. Can you see that teeny tiny why dot in between Phantom Ship and the edge of the caldera? That’s a real boat. If you look closely you can also see it in the big panorama picture earlier in the post. You can buy boat tickets to tour around the lake. We opted not to do the boat tour this time, but look forward to doing it next time.

If you’re looking for a nice day hike, you can walk all the way around the rim on the Rim Trail. We decided not to do this hike. We did walk a tiny bit of it while we were checking out some of the overlooks, but that’s it. We saw a few people who looked like they were going to try to do the whole hike, but it wasn’t our kind of hike. The trail was close to the road a lot and really…its pretty much the same view for the entire hike. A beautiful view…but the same view. If I’m going to go on a hike like that…it’s got to have a big payoff at the end in the form of a stellar vista or something.

Crater Lake was formed when the caldera of Mount Mazama filled in with rain and snow water. We’ll never know for sure what the 12,000 foot high volcano really looked like, but there are clues as to what features it held. When Mount Mazama exploded around 7,700 years ago it was forty-two times greater than the explosion of Mount St. Helen’s in 1980.

During our second week in Central Point there was a thunder storm and the lightening from that storm started a fire. (Top picture) We could see the smoke from our RV park. We watched it all week. Some days it seemed to be about out and other days it would roar back to life. It was far enough away that we weren’t too worried about it. And then we heard that a homeless person was trying to cook something with fire and it got away from them. (bottom left picture) It was close enough that we were worried about being able to escape if we needed to. The park was put on level two alert, but luckily this fire was put out by that evening. Between these two fires and a fire up north near the Grant’s Pass area…our park was filling with smoke and ash from all the fires started falling like snow on our RV park.

Before the valley filled with smoke, we were treated to some spectacular sunsets!

It was a busy two weeks. Along with exploring, we celebrated Charles’ birthday,

the boys started back to school,

and we celebrated our 21st anniversary!

We found some pretty tasty foodies during this stop! There was a cashew chicken noodle thing (left picture). Yup, that’s the actual name. Cashew Chicken Noodle Thing. Not really, but I can’t remember what it was called. It’s my new favorite Asian dish. It was so good everyone else “helped” me eat it. Wasn’t that nice of them?! Ha! I didn’t mind. The portions at this place were huge! We also found a really great little burger/brewery place. There’s a burger under that pile of jalapeno slaw…I promise. So far, we’ve been super impressed with the foodie finds in Oregon!

There weren’t very many pretties. It was full on summer and super hot and dry, but I did find this one pink pretty.

We didn’t do much exploring during these two weeks for various reasons…school, work, celebrations, smoke, heat… but we enjoyed the slower pace after four weeks of non-stop going.

See y’all down the road!

#westernloop2018