Oregon – Jason likes to travel

2022 travel roundup

Hello there dear followers! I hope that you all had a lovely Christmas! Happy New Year too! I’m determined to get back on track with regular blogging in 2023 and what better way to start than with the annual “travel roundup” post?

I’ve managed to bash one out every year over the past few years, so if you’re interested in giving those a read I’ll link the posts below:
2017: Travel roundup
2018: A travel round-up
2019 travel roundup
2020 travel roundup
2021 travel roundup

Anyway, onwards to 2022! I actually offered a rare half-year post this year so some of you will already know what I got up to in the first six months of 2022 but for the rest of you, fear not because I’ll do a little recap right now to catch you up!

A wedding in Washington State – March & April
The first trip of the year was the big one! After postponing our September 2021 wedding we moved it to April of 2022 and so come March I was ready to head over and finally get married!

Covid restrictions added a new level of problems for travel planning over the last two years but having Covid restrictions wreak havoc with a wedding trip? Yeah, that’s stressful! I’d avoided Covid entirely for two years so I was waiting for the inevitable, something to go wrong just before I flew out to Washington.

Fortunately my immune system held out for two months and I didn’t catch Covid for another couple of months. I was good to go!

I will write about the trip in more detail at a later date but the wedding went swimmingly. It was a great day and absolutely a highlight of 2022. All the waiting and stress beforehand was worth it and as much as I’ve always loved a wedding, enjoying your own is another level of joy that I can’t really explain.

10/10 – would do again (same bride.. don’t worry, jeez.)

Honeymooning in Oregon – April
The uncertainty of Covid traveling, plus the cost of a wedding meant we only really planned a small break after the wedding. We decided we’d head from Walla Walla out to Portland for a few days and hopefully squeeze in a little time at the coast too.

Alas we made our Westbound drive and the weather took a turn. The rain was hammering down with rain on our drive to Portland and sure enough the next morning we woke up to snow – not quite what we’d planned for!

We made the best of the weather and enjoyed our first few days of married life! We extended our trip hoping to end the week with better weather and luckily it paid off – ensuring we got to enjoy a sunny day on the Oregon coast.

Again, I’ll delve in to this part of the trip in much more detail in a future blog post but it was a lovely break despite the weather and nice to experience some new things in Oregon.

Oregon Coast — Honeymooning in Lincoln City, Oregon

Idaho or no? – April
On the 9th of April myself and Haleigh finally got married in Walla Walla, Washington! On the 30th of April Haleigh’s cousin Michelle got married down in Salt Lake City (ish), Utah!

One month – two weddings – three weeks apart!

The problem for me was my intentions for our wedding was to arrive in Washington two weeks before the wedding and leave two weeks after. A second wedding so soon but not soon enough in some respects made for some tricky travel planning – keeping in mind that I was employed full-time.

Haleigh and family were planning to drive down from Washington but the timing of the Utah wedding gave me a tricky dilemma. Do I try my luck at getting five weeks off work? Do I even want five weeks off work for one trip? What about the rest of the year?

Joining Haleigh’s family for a roadtrip had its pros and cons, flying back to England only to return again so soon also had its pros and cons. Decisions, decisions..

The only certainty was that I was going to this Utah wedding. The logistics of how to do that was the only complication but one way or another I was going to Utah. In the end I decided that I’d fly home on the 23rd of April and then fly back to Utah (via Denver) on the 28th of April in time for the wedding.

Alas, come the 22nd of April I discovered that British Airways had kindly delayed my flight by 18 hours! The consequence of which meant a massive headache and the likelihood that I wouldn’t be getting back to England until the 25th. I considered my options and had a long and frustrating conversation with British Airways which went roughly along the lines of “this is your problem mate. Why are you (the customer) only letting us (the airline) know about our delayed flight at the last minute? Where’s your crystal ball?”

There aren’t enough words to describe my anger for British Airways in that moment. I can accept cancellations, delays, blah blah blah but BA’s willingness to throw the blame back upon me in addition to the lack of desire to find a solution did not sit right with me and left quite a sour taste for a while (I’m over it, honest..).

After much deliberation and back-and-forth I decided to extend my trip and stay in the USA for two further weeks (having to work Stateside) so long story short – roadtrip!

So a change of plans and an opportunity to see a new state! We broke up the drive and spent a night in Twin Falls, Idaho – a nice little town with, you guessed it, waterfalls! We obviously didn’t spend much time looking around but it seemed a nice enough town and we made sure to see Shoshone Falls before leaving too. It’s very pretty!

A wedding in Utah – April
Myself and Haleigh talked about visiting Utah a couple of times in the past. Firstly on my big 3-0 trip as we contemplated driving to San Fran via Salt Lake City. In the end we decided it was too much to do in too little time.

Two years later I met Michelle and David for the first time and we had a lovely Valentine’s Day double-date in Washington. They’re the loveliest couple and we agreed that we’d come down and see them over the 2020 Easter break. Yeah, 2020.. Needless to say, that didn’t happen either!

So third time lucky! I was excited to finally visit Utah and specifically Salt Lake City. It felt long overdue and I was particularly excited to see Michelle and David get married – our April anniversary buddies!

We weren’t in town for long and much of that was spent catching up with Haleigh’s family and then of course the wedding itself. The wedding was lovely. I’m such a fan of weddings so an outdoor wedding in a state as pretty as Utah certainly ticked the right boxes – it was a lovely day!

I have to say Salt Lake City was a nice surprise too. We were so busy with family stuff that we didn’t see much of the city or the downtown area but there was just something about it that was endearing. This was the USA in all its glory but with 360 degree mountain views. It left an impression on me and I couldn’t shake the feeling that this had the potential to be one of my favourite American cities – despite seeing so little of it. I can’t explain it! We returned to Washington at the end of the weekend but Salt Lake City and Utah had not disappointed.

Back to Washington – May
So from Utah it was back to Washington for a little longer. It was nice having that little bit more time with Haleigh, although extending my stay did mean I had to work remotely at the end of my trip – not ideal working UK time on a PST timezone!

However we made the best of the extra time. We even squeezed in an overnight trip to see our friends in Pullman which meant I swapped working in Haleigh’s kitchen for this pretty AirBnB view in Pullman – it was nice watching the sun rise in the peaceful early hours!

We headed back to Walla Walla for the final couple of days. After six weeks myself and Haleigh were finally parting! The immigration process had begun but I probably wouldn’t be returning to Washington until Thanksgiving..

Washington State, again – June
Oh.. Maybe a little sooner than Thanksgiving then. This wasn’t the plan, I hadn’t intended to come back and certainly not so soon but you can only hear “How’s married life?” so many times before wanting to rip your ears off.

That was undoubtedly the question of 2022 and it probably wasn’t helped by having as long as six weeks together but I think by the end of May I was already sick of being apart.

A lack of annual leave meant it was going to be a short and sweet visit but I decided that I’d go and surprise Haleigh and visit Walla Walla for her mid-June birthday. A wonderful idea in theory, in reality Haleigh was talking about heading out of town for the weekend and spending time with friends.

So I came clean. I didn’t really fancy a surprise trip to see my wife if my wife wasn’t actually going to be in town! The trip flew by far too quickly but it was nice getting to spend a bit more time together. I also squeezed in a few hours in Seattle which was lovely!

Hopefully the next time we’d be seeing eachother would be when that pesky visa comes through (HA!) and we’d finally be together!

Newcastle – May
Alright, let’s go back a step! In-between Washington trips I went up North for a weekend. My friend Sarah was celebrating her 30th birthday and that was a great excuse for a weekend away!

The 30th birthday celebrations were in a small town called Northallerton which I contemplated for all of five seconds before deciding it’d be better to base myself elsewhere. Excluding watching Spurs hungover at St James’ Park I’ve never really spent any time in Newcastle so decided I was going to visit the land of the Geordies for a weekend.

The birthday celebrations were wonderful. Sarah had hired an Abba tribute band to play and keep us entertained with Abba tunes all evening which was a fun way to celebrate.

Getting to explore Newcastle was an added bonus to the trip. On my first morning I met up with a fellow travel blogger – Sam – who along with her husband Adam were great hosts and it was so nice to finally meet up.

Newcastle itself is a cracking city too. I quickly fell in love with it. It’s easy romanticising anywhere on such a short visit but it instantly felt like one of those “I could live here” kind of cities. It was 100% my kind of city and that was without even really enjoying the Newcastle nightlife that its renowned for. I highly recommend a visit and it’s somewhere I’m certain to return to.

Sheffield – July
As many of you will know, football happens to be one of my biggest passions and it just so happens that this summer England were hosting the women’s European Championship.

Women’s football is rapidly growing in England and as soon as tickets went on sale I applied, blindly, to go to a couple of the games. There were two considerations for any games I wanted to apply for. Either they had to be weekend fixtures or they had to be accessible midweek games (London).

I looked at the various weekend games being played throughout the course of the tournament and contemplated which location tickled my fancy most. In the end I decided I’d go and spend a weekend up in Sheffield, visit Bramall Lane for the first time and watch teams C1 & C2.

I’d blindly booked tickets without knowing which teams were competing at the time so it was pot luck. More than anything I was keen to support the tournament and visit a new stadium in the process. As it was the game ended up being the Netherlands vs Sweden so two of the better teams in the tournament and two of the most colourful fanbases too with their orange and yellow shirts on display across the stadium.

The weekend was pretty much all focused on football and friends. Two of my friends (Hayden and Jenny) moved up from Peterborough to Sheffield a while ago and it was the perfect excuse to meet up with them. Ironically Hayden was actually down in Peterborough for the weekend but Jenny was kind enough to give me the grand tour of Sheffield on my first morning in the city. It was nice catching up and seeing a little of Sheffield in the process.

Later in the day I met up with my friend Natalie who was pretty much touring the country throughout the tournament and pretty much attending all of the games, or as many as physically possible (there were some games played at the same time). We had a few drinks and had a good catch before heading off to the ground where I reunited with Sarah and her dad.

All in all it was a fun weekend seeing a mixture of friends and enjoying a few beers along the way.

The land of dinosaurs – July-September
Well, I don’t know that this really counts as part of a travel roundup but some of you will recall I had a busy summer volunteering over at Peterborough Cathedral.

Peterborough Cathedral were hosting a T-Rex exhibit featuring many life-sized dinosaurs in their beautiful cathedral. An unusual setting to say the least and certainly raised questions about the relationship between god and dinosaurs but it was a bloody cool experience to be a part of.

I didn’t even leave my home town but mentally I was transported to another world that resembled something out of Jurassic Park with roars echoing off the cathedral walls. So many visitors came and enjoyed the exhibit and it’s one of the best things I did this year so couldn’t forego mentioning it. I blogged about it a little halfway through the experience (link above) but I loved it and I believe they have something just as exciting lined up in 2023. Watch this space!

De-Sa-lou? – October
Oh forgive the terrible pun WordPress but I could not help myself! For the most-part I’m pretty good at remembering where in the world I’ve visited but I’ve never been fully convinced on where in Spain we went to on a school trip back in 2002.

Don’t get me wrong, I remember enough about the trip that I’m 90% certain it was Salou. We visited the “famous” Portaventura theme park, we took a trip to Barcelona and saw the Camp Nou and La Sagrada Familia and a few other things. I remember wandering down to the beach from our accommodation and it being a quick and easy walk.

It was a fun week away in Spain but nevertheless I don’t exactly remember where we stayed and I’ve always been of the belief that it was Salou. All of the evidence stacks up that way anyway.

Fast forward twenty years and I was invited on a friend’s stag do away in Europe – a weekend in Salou! Instantly I had a feeling of de-ja-vu – I’ve been there before, right?

Anyway, as far as the plans were concerned.. the timing that they wanted to book the trip wasn’t the greatest – right before I was due to get married so I bowed out of a group booking and said I’d sort myself out later in the year. True to me word I did that and the result was I ended up going for a day longer than most of the group.

I’ll eventually do a trip about the post but I’m sure you have a general idea of how things went. Simplistically put it was a few days of sunshine and many beers.

I’m still none-the-wiser if Salou was where I went in 2002. I’m convinced that it was but it was unrecognisable on this trip so who knows?

Salou itself was nice. Very touristy and by touristy I mainly mean catered towards Brits who want a cheap and boozy weekend away in “Spain”. There are an endless number of English-speaking pubs and restaurants to take your pick from and I dare say we visited our fair share.

For a relaxing break / stag do it was perfect but if you’re wanting an authentic Spanish experience it’s perhaps not the top Spanish destination to visit.

Another wedding in Virginia – October
I know! A third international wedding! A third on US soil and another new state to visit! It’s a good job I love a wedding, eh?

My friend Shay invited me (and Haleigh) out to her wedding in Virginia and, again, as if I’d possibly refuse such an opportunity! I was 100% committed to going, the only uncertainty was whether we could find a way for Haleigh to join us.

Unfortunately we couldn’t make it work and Haleigh wasn’t able to attend so in the end I went anyway and rocked up solo for my third US wedding of the year!

This time the venue was a cosy house in Fincastle which coincidentally happened to be run by a fellow Brit! It was a lovely venue, wonderful to see Tony and Shay get married and also great to finally meet in person. Definitely another highlight of the year!

Roanoke – October
The wedding was in a tiny town called Fincastle. The nearest city was a place called Roanoke which I’ll admit I knew little about prior to meeting Shay. I wasn’t entirely sure where I wanted to base myself for the trip and pondered spending a bit more time in DC or elsewhere but in the end I committed to spending a few days in Roanoke and a couple of days in DC.

Roanoke was a pleasant surprise. It’s situated in a beautiful part of the state so I had mountain views from my lovely AirBnb downtown. The whole downtown area was entirely independent too. Independent shops, independent restaurants, coffee shops, bars, breweries..

No Starbucks, no McDonald’s, none of the big-name brands you know are situated anywhere within the downtown area. It was wonderful!

Again I had to work remotely a couple of days whilst I was in Roanoke which wasn’t ideal and meant that I didn’t do too much in the city but it was a great place to relax, check out a few breweries and just find joy in this adorable little city.

Washington DC – October
For this entire trip I weighed up where to base myself. I wasn’t sure if Roanoke would be interesting enough to spend my entire time, plus I couldn’t fly there directly anyway so I had to fly in to somewhere else.

DC was the city that seemed most obvious, however I’d been to DC before so had to consider whether visiting somewhere new might be more tempting. Alas DC was much cheaper to fly to and made a lot more sense logistically so I committed to a couple of nights in DC.

Fortunately I think DC is one of the most underrated cities in the US and I was keen to see a little more this time around. On my first trip I’d been sick through most of my stay and the warm weather meant I was quite keen to just do outdoorsy things on that occasion. I missed out the many museums that DC is famous for.

I already had a real fondness for DC and I think a return only really cemented those feelings further. It is a fantastic city, easily one of my favourites within the US. I visited some new neighbourhoods, ,visited some of those museums I’d missed first time around, checked out some new restaurants, met up with some friends on one of my evenings there and just loved my time in the city.

DC’s one of those places that I always thought that I probably would visit but never had any real desire to and I’m so pleased to say that I was 100% wrong to underestimate it. I fully recommend a trip and I’ve no doubt it’s somewhere I’ll go back to with Haleigh one day.

Another Thanksgiving, another Washington visit – November
and from one Washington (DC) to the other (Washington State), it was back to Washington again in November.

I love having an extra holiday to celebrate each year and escaping England in a cold, dark and dreary November is an added bonus. I don’t think I’d care for Thanksgiving so much if it was in I don’t know, let’s say July. Thanksgiving is a good mood-builder in the run up to Christmas and the festivities.

Due to visa issues, which are finally sorted!!, I hadn’t actually seen Haleigh since June. I was so short on annual leave that I couldn’t make a trip to Washington work and she wasn’t able to travel overseas due to the ongoing visa stuff so it had been a long time apart before reuniting for the holidays.

We didn’t do anything particularly special, Haleigh was sick for the first half of the week I was there and the second half of the week was occupied with family stuff for Thanksgiving but it was nice to spend some time together, eat food, catch up with family and just spend a little time in Washington.

I even managed to meet up with a friend from nearby Union Gap which was long overdue. News of my visit even made it in to local news – I’m now a Yakima / Union Gap celebrity! Maybe..

Overall it was a lovely week away. My only real gripe about the trip was that Alaska Airlines have cut their route from two services a day to one which wreaked havoc with my plans.

Firstly, I couldn’t actually get to Walla Walla on the day I arrived in Seattle which meant flying to a different airport a little further away.

I had no such trouble going the other way but they scrapped the early morning flight from Walla Walla to Seattle. Ordinarily I get half a day’s exploration in Seattle, such as I’d done in June earlier in this year but on this occasion I only had a four hour layover which wasn’t worth leaving the airport for.

I think they do intend to bring the second service back but it was bitterly disappointing to miss out on any time in Seattle on this trip. It’s part of my “heading home” routine usually and I did feel a little glum that I’d missed out on this particular trip.

2023 plans?
I hate to end any blog post on a downer so lets look ahead at what I have planned for 2023.

Honestly, not much..

I’m flying out to Washington at the end of January, Haleigh will finally be moving to England so I’m flying over there to help her move some of her things over. No more long-distance – hurrah!

I think one of Haleigh’s cousins is getting married in the summer so we’ll likely make another trip back to Washington in the summer. I also think we’ll probably make a third trip later in the year around the holidays so Washington will again likely dominate the travel plans for a lot of the year.

However beyond Washington I would honestly just want to go somewhere that isn’t the USA at this point. I love the place but it has dominated my travel a bit too much in recent years. I stretched my luck a bit this year and somehow managed to pack in nearly 10 weeks in the USA from just six weeks of annual leave (am I a magician?) but it left little time to go anywhere else. I was pleased to at least visit three new states this year (Idaho, Utah & Virginia) but I’d really like to spend some time in other parts of the world.

I don’t know that it’ll happen this year but I’m also really keen to step foot on some new continents. Africa, Asia and South America are calling my name. I’ve seen a lot of the US, a lot of Europe but the other continents continue to allude me. I’m very, very tempted to book a short trip to Morocco this year.

My final hope is to get back to Finland. I need to look in to it a little more but I’m quite keen on the idea of going there for my birthday in August. I grew up living with a Finnish grandmother who I also shared a birthday with and so it’s a day that I’ll forever think of Finland – I think to be in Finland on that day would be special but that’s just an idea at this moment in time.

Anyway, thanks for indulging me and my ramblings WordPress! I’ll write about each of these trips in more detail at some point and hopefully I’ll be a little more active in 2023.

Happy New Year!

Jason

The big 3-0: Day twenty five – the return to Moses Lake!

Welcome back my dear readers! After my much-needed rant on the football last time out on the blog, it’s back to travel and more importantly the final few days of the “big 3-0” trip.

Those following along will know that in the summer of 2018 I’d planned a trip spending 30 days in the USA which coincided with two friends getting married and also my 30th birthday.

Having run around all over the country, this was to be the last big day on the road. We were making our way back to Haleigh’s apartment in Moses Lake, with Haleigh set to go back to work and for me to see out my final few days in relatively relaxed spirits.

Before thinking about Moses Lake however, we had a full day of driving ahead of us. On the previous night we’d made a relatively unplanned stop in Klamath Fall which was our halfway point from San Francisco – a convenient place to break up two days of driving.

One of the attractions to stopping in this particular area was its proximity to Crater Lake in Oregon. We figured it would be a worthwhile stop on the way home.

I can’t really remember why we skipped it. Much of the West coast was up in smoke that summer (as it is every summer really..) so the conditions at the time weren’t the greatest. That might have been one off-putting reason to skip it but I think we were just keen to get going and get on the road early.

In hindsight perhaps we should have just committed to it regardless of how terrible the conditions were. That said, there’s no doubt that much of our future will be spent visiting the West Coast so it’s hard to imagine us not having an opportunity to return in the coming years.

So skipping Crater Lake, we drove onwards and soon enough found ourselves arriving in a city called Bend. Before knowing what the school schedule looked like we had contemplated staying in Bend for a couple of nights and meeting up with Haleigh’s best friend. In the end it didn’t materialise but Bend still seemed like it would be a good place for us to grab some brunch and we found ourselves a little pancake place on the outskirts of the city.

After fuller stomachs we hit the road again and around half an hour later Haleigh spotted a “must stop” roadside attraction – an alpaca farm with baby alpacas!

Haleigh insisted that we stop so we pulled over and headed in to this little gift shop to pick up a bag of food to feed them.

It’s a funny feeling having alpacas eating out of your hand. It was a first-time experience for me, I’m not sure what I was really expecting. I liked it initially but I think the second or third alpaca I fed was so slobbery that I left Haleigh to it after that. Haleigh laughed at my reaction so it felt like some sweet form of justice when she was getting slobbered on by the same alpaca a minute later.

Alpaca Stare — “Why are you taking photos and not feeding us?”

We did a full lap of the farm with Haleigh continuing to feed the many alpacas we met whilst I stuck to taking photos. They’re so cute! Although some of them didn’t seem too impressed that I was wasting my time taking photos when I could have been feeding them instead!

Aside from Haleigh getting sneezed on, it was a fun little stop and I’m glad that we’d pulled over. Sadly we couldn’t stay there all day and had to hit the road again.

The rest of the car journey was pretty uneventful. In parts we could really see how devastating of an effect the forest fires had had on the West Coast with burnt out trees becoming quite a regular sight. It wasn’t really until we hit the Colombia river that the scenery started picking up again.

Oregon Views — Back to the Columbia River!

Soon enough we were crossing back over the river and crossing the Oregon / Washington border for the umpteenth time on this trip. Back in to Washington we knew it wasn’t too much further to go but the long drives of the past two days were taking its toll on Haleigh and that final stretch probably felt much longer than it actually was.

Good music kept us going for that final stretch before we’d eventually arrived back in Moses Lake after another long day of driving. We’d been away for the past few weeks so had no food in the apartment. Additionally we didn’t feel like heading back out for dinner so in the end we settled for ordering a pizza and finishing off our night by enjoying some Netflix.

Again, it hadn’t been a hugely eventful day with the alpacas being an unexpected bonus! However it was just nice to be back in familiar surroundings and sleeping in a familiar bed again after three weeks of sleeping in various hostels, hotels and AirBnB’s.

The last few days would be spent trying to make the most of the little time we had left together in Washington before I’d have to head home.

Stay tuned for more on that!

Jason

P.S – if you want to read about other days of this trip, see below!
Day one – Chicago bound
Day two – exploring Chicago
Day three – Minneapolis
Day four – Why I visited Minneapolis!
Day five – New Orleans!
Day six – The real New Orleans!
Day seven – Goodbye New Orleans, Hello Washington
Day eight – Exploring Poulsbo!
Day nine – Wedding day!
Day ten – To Portland!
Day eleven – the actual 3-0!
Day twelve – Oregon City and Portland
Day thirteen – Walla Walla bound!
Day fourteen – Walla Walla
Day fifteen – The family BBQ!
Day sixteen – the Vegas finale!
Day seventeen – Back to Oregon!
Day eighteen – Exploring Oregon’s coast!
Day nineteen – California pit stop!
Day twenty – San Francisco bound!
Day twenty one – San Francisco begins!
Day twenty two – San Fran continued!
Day twenty three – Alcatraz!
Day twenty four – Where to?

The big 3-0: Day twenty four – Where to?

Welcome back dear readers! Time for yet another day of this 30 day trip! You’ll be pleased to hear (or maybe not?) that we’re near the end now!

Those of you following along will know I was enjoying a 30 day trip in the USA to coincide with my 30th birthday in the summer of 2018! The trip spanned six states, several cities and I cherish so many moments and memories from this trip but the reality is things were starting to wind down from here on out.

Whether that will make for interesting reading, who knows.. I guess I’ll let you be the judges of that but we woke up on Monday morning and it was time to say our goodbyes to San Francisco and head back to familiar surroundings in Washington State.

I wasn’t flying home until Sunday so in an ideal world we would have squeezed in some more adventure but Haleigh teaches and unfortunately, with no consideration for my trip, they set their first day back at school on the Thursday! A sodding Thursday! I’m sure that was a productive first two day week back at school!

So with school in mind we hit the road, not that we really knew where we were going. We’d half hoped the school might be a little flexible and Haleigh might be able to miss the first couple of days and start on Monday instead. Of course it didn’t pan out that way but that slim hope meant we held off making concrete plans or booking any accommodation so as the trip got closer and closer we just decided to wing it.

We’d looked at a few possible options before setting off but were mostly in the mindset of “we’ll see where we end up..” and just find somewhere to stay once we’d decided where to stop.

Interstate Photo — Where to? Somewhere North..

For the most part it was a fairly uneventful drive. Unlike our drive down the coast, we headed back to Washington further inland which wasn’t quite as scenic as our journey down – although the company more than made up for the less aesthetic scenery!

That’s not to say that parts of the drive weren’t pretty because they were. However with forest fires ravaging Northern California and Oregon it seemed that the further North we got, the sky would get hazier and hazier. The blue skies in San Francisco seemed a distant memory.

We made a couple of stops along the way to break up the drive and get some food but nothing noteworthy until we started getting closer to Mount Shasta. Shasta seemed largely unaffected by the fires; things had started brightening up and the blue skies had returned which provided a great opportunity to get some photos as we drove along.

Highway Photo — Snapping photos on the road

Klamath Falls Sign — Central Weed or Klamath Falls?

Eventually we arrived at a city in Oregon called Klamath Falls which seemed like a good halfway point to stop for the night. We did debate driving on to Bend but as that was another two hours away we sensibly decided that was a bit too far to go after already having spent the bulk of the day on the road.

Our first task in Klamath Falls was trying to find somewhere to stay. The first hotel we stumbled across had some pretty off-putting reviews so we decided to give it a miss and configured our SatNav to take us to another hotel nearby.

A short drive away we soon “arrived” at our alternative hotel option only to find nothing more than rubble and an empty carpark. The SatNav hadn’t been updated in a while and it seemed our hotel no longer existed!

Hoping it would be third time lucky our next hotel was unfortunately fully booked before we finally managed to book a room in the hotel next door – who knew finding somewhere to stay in Klamath Falls would be so difficult!?

To our delight our fourth choice hotel was actually quite nice. We checked in to our room for the evening only to find an in-room jacuzzi which was an unexpected surprise and something we definitely intended to make use of before leaving.

However the first priority was to go and find some food. We dropped off our things and visited a nearby Chinese restaurant which had some decent reviews. Much like the Chinese we’d had in San Francisco, the food was excellent but there was just so so much of it. We ended up giving our leftovers to a couple of guys embarking on a roadtrip we got talking to in a neighbouring booth as they had a van and the means to heat something up on the road.

If we’d been in town earlier I think there’s probably a bit to do in Klamath Falls, most notably seeing the nearby falls of the same name, but in the evening there didn’t seem to be much going on. It’s a sleepy little city with a population of little more than 20,000.

In the end we found ourselves a local bowling alley which was near empty and we played a couple of rounds. I maintained my success over Haleigh which felt just revenge for the constant Mario Kart beatings Haleigh served me on my first trip to Washington!

After a couple of games we returned to the hotel and put our jacuzzi to good use for the evening – definitely a nice little bonus to our stay in Klamath Falls. It was by no means the most exciting day on this trip but we’d anticipated as much, knowing it would mostly be a day of driving.

Sadly tomorrow would be more of the same but we did make one fun roadside stop that I think you’ll enjoy seeing photos of! Stay tuned for more on that!

Jason

P.S – if you want to read previous days from the trip, see below!
Day one – Chicago bound
Day two – exploring Chicago
Day three – Minneapolis
Day four – Why I visited Minneapolis!
Day five – New Orleans!
Day six – The real New Orleans!
Day seven – Goodbye New Orleans, Hello Washington
Day eight – Exploring Poulsbo!
Day nine – Wedding day!
Day ten – To Portland!
Day eleven – the actual 3-0!
Day twelve – Oregon City and Portland
Day thirteen – Walla Walla bound!
Day fourteen – Walla Walla
Day fifteen – The family BBQ!
Day sixteen – the Vegas finale!
Day seventeen – Back to Oregon!
Day eighteen – Exploring Oregon’s coast!
Day nineteen – California pit stop!
Day twenty – San Francisco bound!
Day twenty one – San Francisco begins!
Day twenty two – San Fran continued!
Day twenty three – Alcatraz!

The big 3-0: Day nineteen – California pit stop!

Welcome back my dear readers! Thanks to those of you that played along with my recent photo challenge. It was a bit of fun that has helped get me back in to some sort of blogging groove. We’ll see how things go but I’m going to attempt to try and squeeze out two posts a week going forward – certainly whilst we’re in this lockdown era!

Anyway, it’s back to the “big 3-0” trip this time round. Those who have been following this 30 day trip will know that myself and Haleigh were slowly making our way from Washington State down to San Francisco, California!

After a couple of nights based in Lincoln City on Oregon’s coast it was time for us to hit the road again. We still had another 650 miles ahead of us before we’d reach San Francisco so whilst there was still some distance to go, we were inching ever closer!

We effortlessly checked out of our AirBnB in the morning and as a first-time AirBnB experience it had been a positive one. I’d always been a little hesitant to use AirBnB but I’d been somewhat converted – somewhat because I can’t say I’ve used AirBnB since this trip but I’m more open to doing so for future travels.

We said our goodbyes to Lincoln City and started heading South – next stop California!!

California.. I feel like I perhaps do this too often already but I’ve not yet reached that point where the travel opportunities I’ve had don’t still blow my mind a little. In all honesty, I hope I never get to the point where it’s something I take for granted.

My parents did a lot for us growing up and we got fortunate to visit places like Orlando, Florida as kids which not everyone gets to do but I’m very much from a working-class background. A holiday like that took years of savings and sacrifice to make happen.

I digress a little but my point being that if I have a habit of romanticising places a bit too much it’s because deep down, I don’t know that I thought I’d ever visit these places. California always had this allure about it when I was growing up. It was some faraway land that epitomised what I considered to be cool and the pictures of it just looked sensational. To think I’d ever get there in my lifetime was some pipe-dream.

and yet, here we were. In the car and driving South, inching closer and closer to “the golden state”. Ugh even that sounds incredible, doesn’t it?

The drive down was stunning. Winding lanes along the coast offering sea views and a wealth of scenery that is just a dream as a passenger. There’s a ruggedness to the landscape and the fog just added to the atmosphere as we drove along – I truly felt a million miles away from home. I have so many photos on this drive that I couldn’t even tell you where we were but the scenery just left me in total admiration for the West coast.

West Coast — Don’t mind me, just admiring the view

Highway101 — Somewhere along Highway 101

The perk of driving of course was that we could stop as and when we wanted to. We wouldn’t be in San Francisco until tomorrow so we were in no big rush and could stop for the numerous quirky roadside attractions that the US is famous for.

The first instance of this were some 20-30 foot roadside dinosaurs that immediately caught our eye. We quickly pulled over for a closer look and made sure to grab some photos. The dinosaurs were part of the Prehistoric gardens attraction in Oregon. We didn’t check out the entire area but checked out the gift shop and managed to grab a few cool photos before hitting the road again.

We continued our journey South along highway 101 which took us through a host of cute cities and towns. I think my favourite we passed through was Coos Bay.

We stopped for lunch somewhere along the way, however we didn’t want to slow the journey down too much so stopped off at McDonald’s for something pretty quick.

Now, having become quite accustomed to temperatures between 30-45C (85-115 F) all summer, we were quite unprepared for our brief stop at the Antarctic! I don’t think I’ve ever walked in to a colder restaurant / bar! I’d love to visit London’s ice bar for some comparison, although I suspect it’s a few degrees warmer than this McDonald’s was! Even anticipating a quick stop, Haleigh ran back to the car to grab herself a jacket! I decided to brave the arctic conditions but was hoping McDonald’s would live up to its reputation as “fast food”.

With fuller stomachs it was back on the road but more importantly, back out in to warmer climates! The scenery continued to impress and soon enough we were approaching the state line – I had to get a photo!

Welcome to California — Oregon – California state line

Admittedly it’s not the greatest effort but in a moving car I thought it came out well enough. It was a landmark moment! State number 3 with Haleigh, state number 6 of this trip and my 12th visited state in total! 12!!

The latter sounds so weird to me, three years prior the only state I’d been to was Florida and now I’d been to twelve!? That doesn’t include the likes of Wisconsin, Arkansas or Maryland either which I’ve only really traveled through rather than stopping anywhere. How have I been to twelve states!?

Anyway, we were here! We were actually in California! We wouldn’t be in San Francisco itself until tomorrow but only had another 25 or so miles until we were in our stop for the night – Crescent City.

It wasn’t a city I knew anything about but it was a good resting place between Lincoln City and San Francisco. Soon enough we’d arrived at our home for the night – again opting to stay in an AirBnB.

After checking in and dropping our things off we took a little drive to see what was in the city itself. We parked up down by the pier and admired the views but there wasn’t too much in the area – other than a fun-looking children’s park which had a few kids playing.

We popped in to the nearby visitor’s centre but it was fairly late in the afternoon by the time that we’d arrived so whilst there’s probably a lot more to do in Crescent City if you have a full day in the city, there wasn’t a huge deal open at that time of the day to make it worthwhile visiting.

The big attraction of Crescent City was its proximity to the Redwoods which we knew we’d be passing through on our drive tomorrow so in the end our only takeaway from the visitors centre was having overheard discussions about some food options for the evening.

We decided to grab dinner at some brewery called Seaquake. The food wasn’t anything special but I was pretty pleased with the beer selection and particularly intrigued by the ‘Citra’ as I often drink a beer of the same name at my favourite pub back home.

After dinner and a couple of drinks we contemplated what else to do with our evening in this sleepy city. We remembered that we’d passed a bowling alley earlier which was close to our AirBnB and felt like that could be a fun way to spend our evening. Sadly it wasn’t actually open for whatever reason so slightly scuppered our plans.

In the end we decided we’d just head back to our AirBnB for a relaxing evening. It’s not like we’d come to Crescent City for something in particular, it had just been a convenient stopping point for the night so an evening relaxing seemed pretty appealing.

Our AirBnB was nice too. We had a decent sized space to ourselves and found some rubbish TV to watch in-between all of the commercials. It was a nice evening and set us up perfectly for another South-bound journey tomorrow – San Francisco via the Redwoods!

Stay tuned for more on that!

Jason

P.S – if you want to catch up on previous days of this trip, you can do so below!
Day one – Chicago bound
Day two – exploring Chicago
Day three – Minneapolis
Day four – Why I visited Minneapolis!
Day five – New Orleans!
Day six – The real New Orleans!
Day seven – Goodbye New Orleans, Hello Washington
Day eight – Exploring Poulsbo!
Day nine – Wedding day!
Day ten – To Portland!
Day eleven – the actual 3-0!
Day twelve – Oregon City and Portland
Day thirteen – Walla Walla bound!
Day fourteen – Walla Walla
Day fifteen – The family BBQ!
Day sixteen – the Vegas finale!
Day seventeen – Back to Oregon!
Day eighteen – Exploring Oregon’s coast!

The big 3-0: Day eighteen – Exploring Oregon’s coast!

Welcome back dear readers! Last time out on the blog I hinted at getting back in to the groove and therefore the posts would start coming thick and fast!

Consequently, you’re getting no big introduction this time! If you don’t know what happened in the first 17 days of this trip you’ll just have to go back and find out, won’t you?

On the previous evening myself and Haleigh had arrived in Lincoln City on Oregon’s coast and we were ready to explore! Other than go for dinner we hadn’t really done anything since arriving on the coast so it was our first opportunity to see what there was to do locally.

Or my first opportunity anyway. Haleigh had been to Oregon’s coast a few times on family holidays growing up but for me, this was my first trip where I’d really been able to see any of Oregon. With Haleigh’s knowledge of the area a little better than mine we hopped in the car and drove up to a little place called ‘Tillamook’.

Tillamook is a small ‘city’ with a population of 5,000. I don’t know what rules there are that determines city status but a lot of places I’d consider towns in the UK refer to themselves as cities over there – who am I to argue?

Anyway the main attraction of Tillamook, and the reason we were visiting, is the “Tillamook Creamery” which is open to the public. As we began approaching the site it was clear it had changed quite a lot since Haleigh’s previous visit. I’m guessing they’d expanded to some capacity but it was much bigger than Haleigh remembered.

In what was quite a busy car park we eventually found a spot to park up and then made the walk in to the heart of the creamery. It’s free to visit which was a nice little bonus.

The building is split in to three main sections. The first area we visited was the more educational part of the place. Having been in business for more than 100 years you get the opportunity to see and learn about the various processes that help create their products with a little behind-the-scenes look at the production line. It’s not a particularly big area but it was interesting nonetheless.

The next main area and undoubtedly its most popular is its cafeteria type room. Specialising in cheese and all things dairy, it’s perhaps unsurprising that the big attraction is to “sample the goods”. With a range of lunch options to tempt us we decided we’d both get something to eat.

As a fussy child I grew up “not liking” cheese. I’m much less fussy now and I’ve no doubt that I would eat some cheeses today but it’s generally a habit that has stuck with one exception – pizza of course!

Fun fact – I was horrified when we made pizza at school one time and discovered we were using cheese to make it!

“Mum..? The pizzas we eat don’t have cheese do they?” – shockingly they did!

Anyway, I digress! The point being is that I’ve never been too cheese-adventurous so whilst Haleigh’s lunch options were a bit more vast, I played safe and ordered their cheese-inclusive-pizza.

I can’t remember what Haleigh opted for but we both enjoyed our lunch choice. The last area to take a quick look at was its gift shop. Neither of us ended up buying anything but it was nice to have a look around and see what they had on offer.

Before making our getaway we returned to the “other side” of the restaurant area where they specialise in another dairy product – ice cream! We couldn’t leave Tillamook’s creamery without seeing how their ice cream held up against their other products so we joined the queue and licked our lips at all of the different flavours on offer.

Haleigh, again, had much more difficulty deciding which flavour she wanted with all of the options on display. Ordinarily I’d go straight for the strawberry but I thought I’d mix things up (like the crazy kid I am, right?) and opted for their huckleberry ice cream – a wise decision! Although I’m sure I’d have enjoyed their strawberry too!

With much fuller stomachs we said our goodbyes to Tillamook and its wonderful food and hit the road! It’s probably not going to prove a hugely popular attraction for the vegetarians and vegans but we’d enjoyed our visits.

We made our way back to Lincoln City, zigzagging through the one lane roads surrounded by greenery and had soon arrived back to familiar surroundings on the coast. Pondering what to do next we had a little look around before Haleigh suggested we visit Lincoln City’s ‘famous’ Christmas Cottage.

Unbelievably it was August and I found myself visiting my third Christmas store of this trip! Myself and Haleigh had already been to one in Oregon City a week earlier, meanwhile myself and Crystal had also popped in to one down in New Orleans in the first week of my trip! Would I be all Christmas’d out by the end of this trip? It’s not even Halloween yet!

After some more Christmas-browsing we hopped back in the car and decided to make the short drive down to Depoe Bay – supposedly home to the world’s smallest harbour!

I don’t know how accurate that statement is but Depoe Bay is certainly a small little place. We parked up on the main street and then wandered towards the harbour Depoe Bay is ‘famous’ for.

It’s a pretty little place but I can’t say there was a huge amount to it. It’s apparently the whale watching capital of Oregon but I can’t say that we saw any whales either. We spent the bulk of our time browsing the small little independent stores lined along the main street. Haleigh made sure to pick up some treats to take home with her too including some saltwater taffy – America’s answer to a stick of rock I suppose.

Content we’d explored all there was to do here, we snapped a few more photos and then made the short walk back to the car with the intention of returning to Lincoln City. It’s a nice drive, particularly with both Depoe Bay and Lincoln City being coastal cities. It wasn’t long before we’d found our way back and popped in to our AirBnB for a little relaxation before dinner.

Although Lincoln City has plenty of restaurants and places to eat, as we were only in town for two nights we decided to return to Mo’s. I decided I’d get a different main on this occasion (still seafood) with some chowder on the side which went down as well as it had the previous evening.

Mo's, Lincoln City — Mo’s in Lincoln City, Oregon

A relaxing night followed on from dinner which rounded off our time on the Oregon coast perfectly. Oddly enough we hadn’t actually spent much time in Lincoln City itself but it had been the perfect base for us to explore locally.

Whilst very different from British seaside towns, Lincoln City still had that charm and it’s a place that I’d like to return to. I could see why it had proven to be a family-favourite destination for Haleigh and her family.

In the morning we’d be saying farewell to Lincoln City and heading further South. Next up we’d be crossing the border and heading in to California! Stay tuned for more on that!

Jason

P.S – if you want to catch up on previous days of this trip, see the links below!

Day one – Chicago bound
Day two – exploring Chicago
Day three – Minneapolis
Day four – Why I visited Minneapolis!
Day five – New Orleans!
Day six – The real New Orleans!
Day seven – Goodbye New Orleans, Hello Washington
Day eight – Exploring Poulsbo!
Day nine – Wedding day!
Day ten – To Portland!
Day eleven – the actual 3-0!
Day 12 – Oregon City and Portland
Day thirteen – Walla Walla bound!
Day fourteen – Walla Walla
Day fifteen – The family BBQ!
Day sixteen – the Vegas finale!
Day seventeen – Back to Oregon!

The big 3-0: Day seventeen – Back to Oregon!

Welcome back dear readers! After slacking off a bit in 2020, I’m trying to get back in to the blogging groove this year. Consequently posts for the rest of this trip should start coming thick and fast!

I feel like I need a Netflix-style recap option on WordPress and similarly a “skip recap” option for those of you bored of the story but for any newcomers to this story (go back to day one!) then let me catch you up for the umpteenth time!

Two friends were getting married in Washington State just days before my 30th birthday in the summer of 2018. With two reasons to celebrate and a big birthday, I wanted to celebrate big! So I planned and mapped out a 30 day adventure in the USA! This was going to be by far the biggest adventure I’d ever taken and proof of that is this story!

I say that because we’re only just passing the halfway point in this adventure and yet I felt like I’d done and seen SO much already. Arriving in Chicago on day one seemed such a long time ago – “that was on this trip? Wow..”

After running around five different states in the first couple of weeks, last time out on the blog I’d actually managed to slow down a bit! Myself and Haleigh had spent a long weekend in her hometown of Walla Walla, Washington.

The halfway point on this trip just so happened to coincide with Haleigh’s family’s annual BBQ – a perfect opportunity to slow down, enjoy the company, get to know Haleigh’s family a bit better and just spend some time in one place with very few plans.

So after a relatively laid-back weekend, I woke up on Monday morning feeling recharged and ready to go! We’d had a nice weekend but it was time to get back on the road and back to adventuring!

When this trip first came up I anticipated that it would be my first trip and possibly even only trip (HA!) to Washington and the West Coast so I was adamant that other than the wedding, the one place I HAD to visit was San Francisco. I couldn’t go all the way to the West Coast and not visit San Francisco.

As it turned out, this ended up being my third trip to Washington but nevertheless that thought-process remained. I had no idea who I’d be spending this trip with, I had no idea where else I wanted to visit on this trip but San Francisco was non-negotiable. Fortunately Haleigh was more than OK with that plan and so a roadtrip was formed.

We said our goodbyes to Walla Walla and hit the road – San Francisco, here we come!

San Francisco Road Sign — San Francisco – here we come!

Well, in a few days anyway. Walla Walla is up in central-ish Washington and San Francisco was more than 750 miles away so we had a long way to go. Worse yet, I don’t drive so I’m a pretty useless roadtrip companion. With multiple drivers doing the journey in shifts it might have been doable in a day but with just Haleigh at the wheel it made sense for us to make it a relatively slow drive and to stop off at various points along the way.

Today we were heading for Oregon’s coast. Oddly enough it had only been a week earlier where we’d done a similar journey. Somehow on consecutive Monday’s we found ourselves leaving Washington State in the direction of Oregon.

A week ago the wedding festivities were over with so we said goodbye to Poulsbo, Washington in search of Portland, Oregon. After a few days in Portland we came back to Washington for the family BBQ and then after a few days in Walla Walla it was back to Oregon.

Admittedly the back-and-forth was a little inconvenient but we wanted to make the best use of our spare days between the two events. In an ideal world they’d have either been closer together (back-to-back) or further apart so we could have traveled more inbetween.

On the plus side, we were really getting to see a lot of the two states! Usually when I leave Walla Walla it’s to return to Moses Lake or to head further West and on to Seattle which is a particularly scenic drive as you pass through the mountains. Those drives usually take you North out of Walla Walla, this time we’d be heading South and across the border.

The scenery in this part of Washington is really unlike the Western side of the state. It’s desert-like and long-time readers might recall my fascination at the deadly tumbleweed on a trip here six months earlier. There’s no sign of the “Evergreen state” in these parts so in addition to enjoying Haleigh’s company, I spent a good chunk of our drives snapping photos.

IMAG1671 — Wait, this is the evergreen state?!

Soon enough we were back in the Dalles, we’d stopped off here for lunch on day 13 and taking essentially the reverse journey back to Oregon it made sense to stop off here again. We returned to the family-favourite restaurant, Cousins, and enjoyed a decent lunch before getting back on the road.

Those of you that read day 13’s post might recall our disappointment that we’d not been able to stop off at Multnomah Falls as the carpark had been full. Well luckily our back-and-forth itinerary meant we were presented with a second chance and this time we were in luck!

I don’t know if it makes a difference what direction you’re heading, what day of the week it is, what time you arrive but traveling from Portland to Multnomah Falls on a Thursday morning had proven unsuccessful. Traveling from The Dalles to Multnomah around Monday lunchtime had proven a little more successful so my advice would be..

I don’t know. Travel East to West maybe? I imagine most of Multnomah’s visitors are coming from Portland so perhaps the carpark stays open going the other way?

It certainly wasn’t any less busy in the carpark. It’s probably one of Oregon’s better known sights and its proximity to Portland makes it a particularly popular one. We could already see it from the carpark but obviously we wanted to get closer to see it in all its glory.

It is stunning! It was busy, probably inevitably so in August, but it is definitely worth paying a visit to if you’re in the Portland area. I think forest fires, among other things, mean some of the trails are no longer accessible but even those of limited mobility can get close enough to get some decent photos and enjoy it up close. I got a fair few, including probably one of my favourites of the entire trip.

We didn’t hang around for too long. There’s a little gift shop and I think cafe that you can stop at if you’re feeling peckish. I picked up a couple of postcards but we didn’t stick around too much longer as we were hopeful of trying to beat the Portland rush hour traffic.

Surprisingly I didn’t think Portland itself was too bad but we started hitting traffic once we’d got to the South side of the city. Even once you start getting away from the Portland traffic and on to the highway, we seemed to hit a traffic light what felt like every 100 yards and you could be damn sure they were red on every single occasion.

I was feeling sympathetic towards Haleigh as we’d already been on the road a while by this point. Between the excessive number of traffic lights and the constantly changing speed limits we didn’t really seem to be getting anywhere – there can’t be many slower highways around!

Slowly but surely we were creeping towards Lincoln City and the scenery was getting prettier by the minute. Much like Washington, Oregon is bloody gorgeous! So green too! I was selfishly quite pleased that I can’t drive and that I could just sit back and admire my surroundings.

Oregon greenery — It’s so green and pretty in Oregon!

Once I saw a sign for the infamous Mo’s restaurant I knew we couldn’t be too far from Lincoln City and so it proved to be! Soon enough we were driving through this pretty coastal town with shops, restaurants and hotels lined up along the main street of this small little place.

Our trusty friend Karen (our Satnav) guided us to our AirBnB and we were quickly being greeted by our host for the next couple of nights. Despite all of my travels I’d never actually stayed in an AirBnB before. I’ve always been a little bit sceptical and I’ve heard enough horror stories, including from people I personally know, to steer clear.

That said I’ve obviously heard plenty of good stories too and if they were that bad, AirBnB wouldn’t have had the success they had. Whilst I’ve always been a hotel or hostel traveler, AirBnB was a good option for Lincoln City so I was just hoping for a good first experience. The fact our hostess was home to show us around was a good start at least!

It was a nice place, close to the actual coast and with an outdoor patio with sea views! After dropping off our things in our room we stepped outside to enjoy those views.

It was early evening by the time we’d arrived so we didn’t really plan on doing much. Haleigh had obviously had a fairly lengthy drive so we both just wanted a relaxing evening. Our only plan was to go out for dinner and experience Mo’s “famous” clam chowder!

I’d never had clam chowder before but I’d heard enough about Mo’s to suggest this was the place to have it. Whilst it was my first time in Lincoln City, Haleigh had come here on many occasions for holidays at the Oregon coast with her family and Mo’s was a particular favourite so had acquired somewhat of a legendary reputation!

We made the short drive from where we were staying and found the queue leading out of the front door! We had a bit of a wait but it was a pretty good sign that Mo’s reputation was justified. If nothing else, it was situated in a stunning location overlooking the beach and the sea.

Mo's Restaurant — The view from Mo’s, Lincoln City

Mo’s is a fairly decent sized restaurant so the queue moved pretty quickly and we were soon seated. We both went for the clam chowder, I was intrigued to see what all of the fuss was about.

It was pretty good and I’d certainly recommend stopping off at Mo’s if you’re ever in Lincoln City or passing through. As ever, I don’t think my reaction at the time gave any impression I’d actually enjoyed it. Haleigh was unconvinced I’d liked the chowder but I’m just really bad at portraying my enthusiasm I suppose haha, I insisted I had!

So the clam chowder had won my seal of approval, even if it hadn’t looked particularly clear that was the case. Although even as a new chowder fan, I don’t think it’ll be replacing fish and chips on the menu back home any time soon.

Still, it had been a good start to our time at the coast and I’d finally experienced the legendary Mo’s! After finishing our food we headed back to our AirBnB and just wound down by watching some Netflix which was definitely a perk of staying here rather than a hotel.

Every time that I’d been to Washington up to now I’ve tried to impose some British comedies on to Haleigh. Having successfully converted her as a fan of a few different shows, such as Black Books, I was intrigued to see what else we could find to watch.

I think in the end we settled on Fawlty Towers which I’d not actually seen myself. We watched a couple of episodes which kept us a little amused before we turned our attention to making a plan for tomorrow. We were both excited for the fun to start but you’ll have to wait for the next chapter of the story.

Stay tuned,

Jason

P.S – if you want to catch up on previous posts in this series, see the links below!

Day one – Chicago bound
Day two – exploring Chicago
Day three – Minneapolis
Day four – Why I visited Minneapolis!
Day five – New Orleans!
Day six – The real New Orleans!
Day seven – Goodbye New Orleans, Hello Washington
Day eight – Exploring Poulsbo!
Day nine – Wedding day!
Day ten – To Portland!
Day eleven – the actual 3-0!
Day twelve – Oregon City and Portland
Day thirteen – Walla Walla bound!
Day fourteen – Walla Walla
Day fifteen – The family BBQ!
Day sixteen – the Vegas finale!

The big 3-0: Day thirteen – Walla Walla bound!

Welcome back dear folks! For those of you who haven’t been following along with the “big 3-0” trip, I’ll leave links to all of the previous posts at the bottom of the post. However for those of you who have been reading, you’ll recall last time out I was rounding up mine and Haleigh’s time in Portland.

We woke up on the Thursday morning, gathered our bits and pieces together and were saying our temporary goodbye’s to Haleigh’s Aunt Gina and Uncle Rob who’d kindly put us up for a few days. It had been great having somewhere to stay whilst in Portland and it was also lovely meeting more of the family ahead of the weekend shenanigans.

On Saturday would be the “famous” annual family BBQ in Walla Walla so whilst we were heading ‘home’ on Thursday, Gina and Rob would be driving over on Friday after work to join us in Walla Walla.

So we said our temporary goodbyes and then began our journey to Walla Walla. Walla Walla is over on the East side of Washington State so we had a bit of a drive ahead of us. We wanted to make an early start as we were keen to stop off at Multnomah Falls along the way. I’d seen a few photos online and it looked breathtaking so we were both hoping to see it.

Multnomah isn’t too far from Portland so it’s easy to link in with a trip to Portland. Unfortunately the car park for it was closed / full and we’d already passed the earlier exits where you can get a shuttle. It didn’t seem worthwhile turning back and we knew we’d be back in Oregon later in the trip so were hopeful we’d get another opportunity to visit.

We were still keen to stop somewhere and a little further along we started seeing signs for Bonneville Dam which seemed like a good alternative to our original plans. The Bonneville Dam was a huge project on the Colombia River that seperates Washington and Oregon. It not only helped flood-control in the area but it created a huge number of jobs in America through the ‘Great Depression’.

Bonnevilla Dam Panorama — Bonneville Dam, Oregon State

It was a cool place to stop at and the visitor centre had plenty of information on how it had shaped American history, plus the benefits for the cities and states that sit along the river. One of the cooler things you can witness is the ‘fish ladder’ that was built that allows various fish to pass on through the dam.

After a little time at the dam and a few photos we got back on the road. We were feeling a little bit peckish so started thinking about grabbing lunch somewhere. We stumbled upon a town called ‘Cascade Locks’. We stopped at the first road-side restaurant we came to. However it wasn’t really what we were looking for and had more of a cafeteria / buffet type feel to it where you picked up a tray and queued so we passed on this place and moved onwards.

Bridge of the Gods, Oregon State – August 2018

Before getting back in the car I couldn’t help but grab a quick photo of this cool bridge. I didn’t know this at the time but a Google search tells me that this is called ‘The Bridge of the Gods’. I’m not sure what the significance of the name is but it looked cool.

We hopped back in the car and quickly found another restaurant which looked to be linked to some hotel and thought we’d take a look. It had an absolutely awful stench as we walked in and unsurprisingly the place was empty. There were also no staff to greet us as we entered which wasn’t too encouraging. Even on a relatively busy highway they clearly weren’t anticipating any custom so we skipped out on eating here too.

Deciding this town was a bit of a dud we just hit the road and decided lunch would wait until we arrived in ‘The Dalles’. We ended up visiting a place called ‘Cousins’ which Haleigh had visited on previous family trips to the Oregon Coast. It was a nice little family-friendly place offering the typical American favourites and the food was decent too.

The weather was scorching though and a sign of things to come in Eastern Washington. We stepped out of this nicely air-conditioned restaurant and the heat hit me instantly smack in the face. Temperatures were in to the low 40’s (celsius obviously) so it was just ridiculously warm. Fortunately we were quickly back on the road and in a lovely air-conditioned car. I remember checking the temperature at one point and well, see for yourself! Welcome to a summer in the Pacific North West!

The rest of the drive back to Walla Walla was pretty uneventful. We got stuck behind some slow-moving vehicles, typically on single-lane roads, that slowed us down a little bit but soon enough we were crossing the Colombia River and heading back to the familiarity of Washington State.

I’d only been to Walla Walla once at this point, for a few days back in February, and the one thing that had blown me away on the approach was seeing the mountains as you drive in to the city.

“Oh.. we’re THIS close to the mountains?” – on that February trip we were staying with Haleigh’s grandparents and you could see the mountains from their yard or kitchen window or whatever.

I was looking forward to the weekend as a whole but I was also looking forward to that approach back in to Walla Walla. It never gets old seeing that view and it is the one that makes you think.. yeah, I’m home now. I do have a real soft spot for this piece of Washington.

WallaWallaMountains — Walla Walla Mountains – Feb 2018

Sadly on this particular trip nature had other ideas and denied me the luxury of that view. I’d been daydreaming about that view for weeks, if not months, but Washington, Oregon and California had spent much of the summer on fire. I hadn’t really experienced the effect of that so far on my trip but from here on out I was going to have to get used to hazy skies.

Disappointingly there was no sign of the mountains as we arrived in to Walla Walla. It was still warm but the views were lacking, haze was the only word on the weather report. The sun was somewhere up there but who knew where.

Anyway, Halegh had soon parked up the car outside of her family home where we dropped off our things and swiftly headed back out of the door. We went and paid a visit to the first set of grandparents we’d be seeing over the next few days. It was nice to see them again and hear how’d they been.

A little while later me and Haleigh headed out for dinner with Haleigh’s mum and brother. We returned to what is a popular restaurant in town called ‘Clarettes’ which I’d visited previously. Again, it was a nice family-friendly place with good American dining options on the menu.

The rest of the evening was pretty relaxed. We didn’t do anything particularly noteworthy and just crawled in to bed ahead of another day in the familiarity of Walla Walla. More on that next time!

Stay tuned!

Jason

P.S – You can read previous posts on this trip below
The big 3-0: Day one – Chicago bound
The big 3-0: Day two – exploring Chicago
The big 3-0: Day three – Minneapolis
The big 3-0: Day four – Why I visited Minneapolis!
The big 3-0: Day five – New Orleans!
The big 3-0: Day six – The real New Orleans!
The big 3-0: Day seven – Goodbye New Orleans, Hello Washington
The big 3-0: Day eight – Exploring Poulsbo!
The big 3-0: Day nine – Wedding day!
The big 3-0: Day ten – To Portland!
The big 3-0: Day eleven – the actual 3-0!
The big 3-0: Day 12 – Oregon City and Portland

The big 3-0: Day 12 – Oregon City and Portland

Welcome back to another post in the “big 3-0” series. Last time out on the blog I talked about the start to my time in Oregon. Myself and Haleigh had had the opportunity to see a little of Portland but were looking forward to exploring properly on day 12.

I promised that day 12 would be a little more eventful, so much so that we actually split our time in two different cities! We’d spent day 11 with Haleigh’s aunt and uncle but with working life resumed, me and Haleigh were left to explore by ourselves. Rather than head in to Portland we actually decided to kick off our Wednesday morning by making the short drive over to Oregon City.

Oregon City’s only around 10-15 miles away from Portland so it wasn’t too far for us to go. Oregon City was the first city in the state of Oregon and subsequently was the capital of the territory of Oregon at one point.

Home of Oregon City — Oregon City – Oregon’s Hometown

It’s a little hard to believe when you get there because it’s a pretty small city – not much larger than your average town if I’m being honest. The population is less than 40,000 and it felt very compact, particularly coming from the Portland area.

We parked up on one of the streets in the downtown area and thought we’d go find somewhere for some breakfast. However not much seemed to be happening in this sleepy little city, we walked along Main Street and there didn’t seem to be many options for breakfast and the few that were hadn’t opened their doors yet.

In the end we settled for grabbing something from a Dutch Bros whilst walking along the Willamette River which runs through the heart of the city and alongside Main Street.

One of the cooler landmarks, if you can call it that, in Oregon City is the ‘Municipal Elevator’ which connects Main Street and the downtown area with the higher areas of the city. The elevator is free to ride so we took a journey up. It’s mostly a residential area but there’s a pathway that you can walk along that offers some pretty cool views of the city and Willamette Falls in the distance.

The pathway stretches for a few blocks so we decided to walk along and take in the views, plus get a few photos. However it’s a narrow pathway and we weren’t quite prepared for the unavoidable sprinklers. We ended up getting a little wet whilst walking along. The path goes so far but is essentially a dead end so we had to turn back for round two of a sprinkler-soaking but fortunately it was a warm day and didn’t take long for us to dry off. It was worth it for the views.

We took the elevator back down to street level and had a wander through the small downtown area of Oregon City. Haleigh suggested we popped in to some Christmas shop, oddly enough this was the second Christmas store I’d visited on this summer trip – having had Crystal take me in to one in New Orleans too!

Oregon seem to have timed parking zones so although we were able to park for free, we were only allowed to park where we were for two hours. Feeling a little time-conscious and having seen much of the downtown area we decided to move the car and find somewhere to get some lunch.

Oddly enough there was a Scottish pub in town which caught our eye and offered the usual British pub favourites along with some American classics. It seemed like a good place to grab food and I was instantly drawn towards the meat pies – craving a good steak and ale pie which are severely lacking stateside.

Oregon City Pub Food — Enjoying some good pub food!

Haleigh opted for the Mac and Cheese but I made sure she sampled a bit of my pie (which she enjoyed) and also introduced her to the concept of “chips and gravy” – the only thing missing were some mushy peas!

In addition to the food I was intrigued to see what beers they had on the menu and was initially delighted to see Scottish craft-beer favourites ‘Brewdog’ were on the menu. The $13 dollar price tag on a bottle of their Punk IPA quickly put me off though!

Brewdog have quickly grown throughout the UK and are seemingly trying to break in to the international market with branches opening across the world and even a beer hotel on the horizon (it might be open by now) but I’m not sure how they’ll ever conquer the US if they’re charging $13 a bottle in a country that has no shortage of good craft beers available. Admittedly in this instance I’m aware the pub itself have priced it up and probably have the added novelty of proclaiming themselves a Scottish pub to try and justify it but it was a little mind-blowing – $13!! Hopefully that’s a one off and not a price you’ll find for Brewdog beers elsewhere in the US.

As it was I don’t think I opted for a beer anyway, I was just curious about the menu. We enjoyed a good lunch and then Haleigh started looking at dessert options, I asked if “Sticky Toffee Pudding” was a common dessert in the US before pointing her in that direction. It went down well so in addition to the pie tasting the British food was leaving a good impression on Haleigh!

Oregon History Photo — Me and Haleigh in Oregon City, Oregon

Opposite the pub was another viewpoint of the Willamette Falls and river so we took a quick look. Also here was a statue of John McLoughlin (the “Father of Oregon”) and also a sign of Oregon City detailing the history of the area. We grabbed some photos and then pondered where next? We’d seen most of Oregon City already but thought we’d make one final stop at the Museum of Oregon Territory.

Unfortunately there were roadworks and seemingly nowhere to actually park within the vicinity of the museum. Our only option was to park miles away so we cut our losses and made our way out of this small little piece of Oregon and made our way in to Portland for the afternoon.

We really wanted to visit ‘OMSI’, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, which is home to various exhibits, a planetarium and even a submarine that sits on the river!

You have to buy tickets to enter and have a choice of a variety of package options ranging from single-attraction options to an “all in-one” ticket. We wanted to visit both the planetarium and the submarine so bought ourselves a ticket that covered those two options.

We started with the guided tour of the ‘USS Blueback Submarine’. Like many people I suppose, it was my first time on a submarine so I found it really interesting and tried to imagine how difficult it must be spending so much time confined to the limited space in a submarine. You learn quite a bit about the history of this specific submarine and I thought it was definitely a worthwhile tour doing. We both left with it being a highlight of our time in Portland.

Next up was the planetarium show which was also something I’d never done before. Our particular show focused on seeing the various stars and planets over the Portland area which was really cool. It went by really quickly though, I think it was around 30 minutes in length but I think myself and Haleigh both would have been happy sat there for much longer. It’s definitely something I’d do again and ‘OMSI’ had a number of different shows on that you could pick between so you could easily squeeze in a couple in to one day at ‘OMSI’.

We didn’t see everything at ‘OMSI’, there was definitely stuff left to check out on a future visit but I’d thoroughly recommend a visit. Having spent our morning in Oregon City and our afternoon at OMSI our attention switched to evening plans!

A friend of mine (Ryan) lives in Portland and I knew whenever I finally got around to visiting we’d have to try and meet up. Ideally I figured it’d be for a Portland Timbers (men’s football) or Thorns (women’s football) match but neither schedule overlapped with my time in the city so instead we arranged to grab dinner and some drinks with Ryan and his husband (David).

I think we left OMSI at around 4-4:30 and were meeting up at 6 so we had a bit of time to kill but not enough to really go and do too much. I think there was a feeling that with the drive over and rush-hour that it’d take us a bit longer to get across town but that wasn’t the case at all. We left OMSI and were in what felt like this relatively hip neighbourhood not much later.

There was definitely a buzz about the place with a number of independent shops, restaurants and bars lining this long street (SE Division). Our only real problem was trying to find somewhere to park, it probably took us a good 10 minutes going up and down the street and circling blocks before finally pinching a parking spot. We lucked out as it just happened to be right outside of where we were eating.

We were still far too early so decided we’d take a bit of a wander and popped our heads in to a couple of shops. Next to our restaurant was a shop called ‘Citizen Ruth’ which felt reflective of the area (and Portland as a whole really) and had a number of liberal and feminist-inspired products on sale. The guy manning the store was really friendly and Haleigh picked up a book and a couple of bits to make it a worthwhile visit.

Further up the street I’d noticed we’d driven past an ice-cream stop that I’d heard plenty of buzz about and was seemingly pretty popular in Portland amongst the Instagrammers, bloggers and travelers of the world. I hadn’t actually intended to visit on this trip at all so this really came about by chance more than anything. However as it was within walking distance of where we were we decided to check out ‘Salt and Straw’ and see what all the fuss was about.

They had a good range of unusual flavoured ice creams on the menu so we were pondering which flavours we should try. The woman behind the counter piped up and seemed content in handing us a number of free tasters which were delicious and was sufficient in offering us our fix of ice cream. Had it not been right before dinner we’d definitely have bought something but as they were open pretty late we suggested we’d return after dinner (we didn’t!).

Soon enough it was time to meet up with Ryan. Unfortunately David was running a little late so was going to skip out on dinner and catch up with us for some beers but managed to catch up with us whilst we were still eating our tacos before ordering his own.

It was really cool to finally meet Ryan in person after a number of years chatting online. It was also nice having both of our significant others to keep the conversation flowing nicely – a fun little double date!

Following on from dinner we moved over to a bar down the street, Haleigh wasn’t drinking but they had some good beer options which kept me happy and we spent the next hour or two just chatting away. It was a really nice evening. We’d all had a good time and it was definitely a highlight of my time in Portland and indeed the trip.

It didn’t end up being too late a night, we called it quits after 2-3 beers as the guys had work the next day and this was our last night in Oregon so we wanted to make an early enough getaway in the morning.

It had been a great way to end our time in Portland, tomorrow we’d be heading back to Washington! Stay tuned for more on that!

Jason

P.S – if you want to catch up on previous posts on this trip you can do so below!
Day one – Chicago bound
Day two – exploring Chicago
Day three – Minneapolis
Day four – Why I visited Minneapolis!
Day five – New Orleans!
Day six – The real New Orleans!
Day seven – Goodbye New Orleans, Hello Washington
Day eight – Exploring Poulsbo!
Day nine – Wedding day!
Day ten – To Portland!
Day eleven – the actual 3-0!

The big 3-0: Day eleven – the actual 3-0!

Hello my dear readers! I am well and truly back in to the swing of things now so I thought I’d get back to “the big 3-0” series. For those of you that missed the start of the series I’ll leave links at the bottom for you to go back and read but I’ll quickly catch you up!

In August 2018 I was invited to a wedding out in Washington State, two days before my 30th birthday. A wedding in another country and a big birthday left me with a huge temptation to celebrate BIG. So I planned a 30 day trip exploring various parts of the US.

Day 10 had seen me and my girlfriend (now fiance!) Haleigh arrive in Portland after a drive down from Washington. We hadn’t really done much other than settle in for the evening. We were staying with Haleigh’s Uncle Rob and Aunt Gina so it had just been a night of good food, good company and playing some games.

So day 11 was going to give us our first proper glimpse of the Portland area. As it was, day 11 happened to be the actual day of the big 3-0! In all honesty I felt like the trip as a whole all just blurred in to one celebration. I didn’t feel like today was any more special than any of the other 29 days in the US. I’m not really one to make a huge fuss about my birthday but nevertheless, I’d arrived in Portland a 29 year old and woken up as a 30 year old.

It ended up being a relatively chilled start to the day in truth. Rob and Gina both had the day off work so we’d agreed to spend the day together. However they’d got up early to pop out and look at buying a new RV which left me and Haleigh to have a slow start to the day which was nice.

I’d say it was a quiet start to the day but we were keeping one eye on our four-legged company, or perhaps it was the other way around as they were still pretty bark-happy. Particular Buster who’d set off again any time I moved, almost as if he’d temporarily forget I was in his company and indeed his home.

“Wait.. you’re still here!?”

A little while later Rob and Gina had returned, unfortunately following an unsuccessful purchase, and quickly freshened up before the four of us headed out together. We kicked things off by finding a place for lunch. We ended up visiting some local Hawaiian place which was really nice. They had some cool artwork up on the walls that I think we’d all have been happy taking home with us but we settled for just enjoying the food haha. Haleigh kindly treated me to lunch by way of celebrating the birthday which was also nice!

As I said above, I’m not one to make a huge fuss about my birthday but continuing with the theme of the day we thought we’d go do something a little more fun that all four of us could enjoy. Within close vicinity of the restaurant was a bowling alley so we decided to have a couple of rounds of bowling.

The bowling ended up being perhaps the part I remember most from this day. With bowling balls and shoes at the ready, the local (Rob) was far better prepared than Haleigh or myself for this little outing and gave the impression that this was “serious business”.

With that in mind I was keen to give a good account of myself on the lanes and see how I could fare against the pro! I was expecting Rob to cruise to victory but things didn’t quite go to script!

Employees of the bowling alley had recently oiled the lane in an effort to sabotage Rob’s game and disrupt his bowling rhythm! Those of you less inclined to believe in conspiracy theories might suggest it was coincidental rather than personal. Additionally some may argue that we were all subject to the same bowling conditions but the slippery lanes took its toll on Rob as he shared his frustration with anyone willing to hear it.

I have to say, I found it quite hysterical. Rob was NOT happy and I was struggling to contain how amusing I found the situation. I grew up watching my parents participate in a weekly bowling league so I appreciate the technique and routine that goes in to bowling but Rob was struggling to adapt to the conditions and his competitive nature meant he was pretty miserable. From a personal viewpoint, I think watching someone so competitive have such a miserable game is inevitably uplifting haha.

The conditions had leveled the playing field and culminated in a birthday victory in the first game! Rob’s fortunes picked up in the second game and as a result he ended up cruising to a pretty comfortable win in the end but I was content to have won one game at least.

The win perked Rob up a little bit but we didn’t stick around for a third game and decided to head in to the downtown area of Portland. One place that has to be visited in Portland, particularly for someone as book-obsessed as Haleigh, is the famous Powell’s Books! It’s a huge bookstore in Portland and was somewhere we were both keen to visit whilst in town.

Powell’s Books lived up to its reputation as a dream for any book-lover. There are an endless number of books to browse through and I’ve no doubt it’s somewhere you could spend hours in if you wanted to. We split up in to two pairs and wandered around for a while – Haleigh trying to resist the urge to buy every book in the store! She did a pretty good job and made it out without bruising the bank balance too badly. We did stop off at the in-store cafe though and all had something to drink – tea for myself obviously.

We didn’t do too much else after leaving Powell’s Books, we had a little browse through Portland before turning our attention to dinner. We ended up visiting some quirky bar which I think was part of the McMenamins chain. It was a nice way to round off the day, I tried a couple of beers and then just enjoyed the good food and good company.

We headed back to the house and finished the evening by watching a movie – The Big Lebowski. Whilst bowling it had been mentioned and had caused shock that neither myself nor Haleigh had seen this “classic” movie.

It’s an odd film. I don’t know how myself and Haleigh found ourselves watching it alone but we stuck with it until the end. Not that I could really tell you what the plot of it is, to the point that the film largely revolves around a bowling tournament that they don’t even reveal if they won it or not!

It was a bizarre end to the day but rounded off a nice birthday which was pretty relaxed and spent with good company. We hadn’t done a huge amount thus far in Portland but we packed plenty in to day 12 so stay tuned for that!

Jason

P.S – you can catch up on previous entries for this trip below!
The big 3-0: Day one – Chicago bound
The big 3-0: Day two – exploring Chicago
The big 3-0: Day three – Minneapolis
The big 3-0: Day four – Why I visited Minneapolis!
The big 3-0: Day five – New Orleans!
The big 3-0: Day six – The real New Orleans!
The big 3-0: Day seven – Goodbye New Orleans, Hello Washington
The big 3-0: Day eight – Exploring Poulsbo!
The big 3-0: Day nine – Wedding day!
The big 3-0: Day ten – To Portland!

The big 3-0: Day ten – To Portland!

Welcome back to yet another post in the “big 3-0” series. Can you believe we’re at day ten already! I feel like I packed so much in to the start of this trip and covered a lot of miles in a little over a week.

For those of you who haven’t been following the adventure, it was the summer of 2018 and I was celebrating my 30th birthday by spending 30 days in the USA!

On the previous day I’d attended the wedding of the year in Washington State. It was a wonderful day but that was the last of the fun in Washington for the timebeing, it was time to move on to yet another state on this trip!

From here on out my adventures would be accompanied by Haleigh, my girlfriend, as we explored the West Coast. We woke up in the small town of Poulsbo on Monday morning with the intention of reaching Portland before the end of the day.

Poulsbo was adorable, I’d really liked the area and I’m glad a wedding had brought us here. I don’t think I’d have visited for any other reason, I’d not even heard of it prior to planning this trip.

Haleigh hadn’t really seen any of it because of wedding duties so we had talked about possibly going “down town” and exploring before heading out but for whatever reason it didn’t really materialise. So it was a sweet and short goodbye to Poulsbo but a place I left with really fond memories of.

JasonPortlandBound — A selfie for the road!

We hit the road and I was pretty excited. I had the inkling that Portland was going to be my kind of city. As soon as this trip came to fruition I knew it’d be on my list of places to visit so I was excited to see what the fuss was about.

I was also excited at having mine and Haleigh’s first real adventure together. It was my third time on the West Coast but this was going to be the longest amount of time we’d continuously spent together and we were visiting a number of new places over the course of the next three weeks so there was plenty to look forward to

Anyway, back to day ten! We left Poulsbo behind and started our drive down to Oregon. Before we’d got too far we decided it’d probably be a good idea to get some breakfast, it may even have been closer to brunch, and found ourselves a Denny’s just off of the i5 (highway / interstate).

Some of you might recall my Moses Lake post which dashed my childhood illusions of a “magical” Denny’s experience and wasn’t quite as spectacular as I remembered it being on family trips to Florida. Fortunately this experience was better and restored its reputation a little! More importantly it had served as a good place to fill our stomachs before getting back on the i5 and heading South.

Portland Roadtrip — On the road somewhere between Seattle and Portland

Unfortunately there isn’t much to tell you about the next few hours. Both Washington and Oregon are beautiful states full of greenery and scenic views but it was something like a four hour drive to Portland with little to tell.

We admired the scenery, we spent time chatting, we sang along to music but it probably sounds a pretty boring day to the outsider (you!). On a personal note it was thoroughly enjoyable and I couldn’t have been happier with the company I had for the adventure but it doesn’t make for great story-telling. The reality is that it was an afternoon spent in the car.

A few hours later we arrived on the outskirts of the big city and what I could only think of as Portland’s own “Spaghetti junction”. The heavy traffic was moving in various directions with bridges and exits everywhere you looked. I don’t drive so maybe it looks more complex than it actually is but I don’t think Portland is a city I’d enjoy driving in to and I’d inevitably get lost along the way!

Portland Spaghetti Junction — It looks a lot calmer here than it felt!

Fortunately we were following directions from what would become a familiar friend in ‘Karen’ (aka the Satnav!) over the next three weeks and she made sure we escaped the madness leading in to Portland.

We were actually staying in a place called ‘Milwaukie’ on the outskirts of Portland, effectively Portland in my eyes however I don’t want to upset the natives so I’ll stick with the idea that it is NOT Portland and a small little place just to the South of it.

We were staying with Haleigh’s Aunt Gina and Uncle Rob who’d kindly offered to put us up for a few nights. It was mid-afternoon by the time we’d arrived but fortunately Gina was working from home and ready to greet us after we’d parked up.

IMAG1592 — Jeeves on the left, Buster on the right

Inside were two other ‘greeters’ – Buster and Jeeves! Two little dogs that were instantly barking away and seemed to consider it a ‘hobby’ over the next few days. Jeeves settled quicker but Buster did not seem to want to be new best friends any time soon!

We brought our things inside and put them away in our room for the next few nights. We decided we’d quickly pop out for a store-run to pick up a couple of things before Rob came home.

It was then a pretty chilled first evening in Oregon. Every so often Buster would suddenly remember I was here and start yapping away at me to remind me he was still displeased with my company but it otherwise ended up being a nice evening.

We had dinner at ‘home’ with Gina and Rob and then after dinner we played some games which made for an enjoyable evening and it was a good opportunity for me to get to know Gina and Rob a little better as I’d not previously met them.

Eventually we called an end to the fun and made our way to bed. It had been a lovely first evening in Oregon, although things were soon to become a little more uncomfortable for us both!

I can’t recall what the exact temperature was but it was summertime here on the West Coast and that meant it was a typically warm day in August and an equally humid night in ~~Portland~~ Milwaukie.

Air conditioned homes are actually pretty rare in England so it’s a luxury I can live without. Most of the year it’s an unnecessary luxury too, there’s no real need for houses back home to have air-conditioning. You have to suffer the odd uncomfortable sleepless night but ultimately it’s a luxury I could live without.

However having had a week of air-conditioned hostels and hotels, that were perhaps even a little too cold on occasions, it’s surprising how quickly you grow to miss it when you’ve become accustomed to it.

Sadly we didn’t have the luxury of air-conditioning whilst we stayed here and it was certainly noticeable. We experienced warmer temperatures throughout the summer than we did in Portland but even with a small fan going and the windows open the heat was relentless.

Nevertheless, beggars can’t be choosers and it was free accommodation so despite the initial struggles getting to sleep it was something we lived with. Soon enough we’d both nodded off (I think, I certainly had) and were dreaming about the delights of Portland awaiting us.

More on that to come next time! Stay tuned!

Jason

P.S – if you’ve missed the other posts on this adventure, you can catch up below!