Welcome to my blog. I document my adventures in travel, style, and food. Hope you have a nice stay!
All in Oregon
On our last full day of the trip, we drove back south a bit to hike the Trail of Ten Falls. We knew that the water flow in the summer would be low, but it still seemed worthwhile for most of the waterfalls.
This was a travel day for us, going from Ashland to Portland. When we arrived, we dropped by to see the troll at Nordic Northwest, then went to a few places we frequent in Portland.
For our last full day in Ashland, we walked around more of Lithia Park and went to the Japanese garden. For dinner, we went to Medford to visit high school friends of mine.
We did a hike where we got a view of Mt. Shasta, then spent the afternoon in Downtown Ashland.
A short drive north got us into Oregon and our destination, Ashland. We walked around the town a bit and saw a musical at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
We continued working our way south along the Oregon Coast. We saw sea lions, sand dunes, and a lot of sea stacks. After that, we made it into California and met up with a lot of other group members who took the direct route rather than the meandering down the coast that we did.
We worked our way down the Oregon coast, stopping in Seaside, Cannon Beach, Tillamook, and ended the day in Newport. Along the way we went to an aquarium, a couple of beaches, and went to a cheese store. Oh, and we found a piano that we could play.
Melody and I started off on a road trip down to California, which will last three weeks. The first half of the trip will be with the hiking group, spending a couple of nights in Oregon, then going to two National Parks in California: Redwood and Lassen Volcanic. For the first day, we met a few people in Astoria, OR, to explore the city during the afternoon.
Most of our hikes in May were during our trip through the Columbia River Gorge, but we did sneak a hike early in the month to Wallace Falls. We intended for that early hike to get us used to elevation gain (knowing we would have 2,500+ ft gain hikes), but it also ended up being very long. And the last hike was snuck in before several busy upcoming weeks.
Spring is a good time to go looking for wildflowers, so we did that in the Columbia River Gorge. We did a bunch of hiking and a little bit of playing tourist. The weather was mixed, but the worst we had was a little rain, a little hail, and big winds. Yes, we did see lots of wildflowers, as well as a lot of views of the Columbia River.
The only thing we planned for Saturday was a hike up Neahkahnie Mountain. That took most of the day, and the great weather yielded lots of views.
We went a bit south to Tillamook County to a couple capes. And since we were in the area, we stopped by the Tillamook Creamery.
We decided to take a long weekend to go to the north part of the Oregon Coast before the crowds start to show up, so we packed up the car and headed south. We looked at a shipwreck near Astoria, visited Fort Clatsop National Preserve, and walked a bit along the Seaside Promenade.
