Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah

It drizzled as we drove south to the North Cascades and it rained all night while we slept in the visitor center parking lot. In the morning, we drove farther into the park and did a couple of short hikes to take advantage of the sunshine for the day. We hiked up to a waterfall and along a nature trail that described and identified the huge trees that grew in the area.

We then drove towards Seattle and stopped to get the oil changed. While they worked on the Jeep, we watched a dumb game show in the waiting room of Big O. Our eyes were glued to the TV, it could have been Jersey Shores for all we cared, we had not watched TV since we left. It was then that we first learned about the flooding in Colorado. Crazy! It took us six and half hours to reach Bend, Oregon where we met Lauren's parents! Family, sleeper sofa, shower, and a free breakfast! What more could you ask for! It was good to have familiar company again. Tuesday morning we went mountain biking with Da(vi)d. It was a blast! There was a downhill track, named Whoops, that was awesome. It was so much fun that we had to bike back up and do it again! That evening we did laundry and ate at a Mexican restaurant.

Wednesday, the four of us hiked up Tumalo Mountain and discovered quite a bit of snow at the summit and good views of Bend and the surrounding valleys. We hiked back down and headed to the Tumalo River to try our hand at stand-up paddle boarding. To our surprise, all four of us picked it up quickly and had a lot of fun! Our only regret was that our lesson was too short.

That night we walked around downtown Bend and explored the little shops and a farmers market there. We had dinner at 10 Barrel Brewery. The pizza and beer there was delicious! Lauren experienced this first hand for the first time in 2.5 years and she never got sick! Hooray! Thursday, apart from being a pretty drive, it was pretty uneventful. We drove to the coast through an expanse of lava fields with beautiful views of the Sisters Mountains, saw some abnormally large wildlife, had a peaceful picnic, and toured one of the most iconic west coast lighthouses at Heceta Point. We then headed to our hotel in Newport. We had a lot of fun taking pictures, probably too many, on the beach as the sun went down.

The next morning we again went out to play on the beach and then began our trek towards Astoria. On the way we stopped at a beach that had some terrific views, rocks, and caves. We arrived to Astoria in the evening and ate delicious clam chowder at the Silver Salmon Grille. Nothing like clam chowder on a cold, rainy evening on the west coast!

 Saturday we started the day by climbing the stairs to the top of the Astoria Column. We then headed to Fort Clatsop, which Lewis and Clark set up when they wintered near the mouth of the Columbia River on the brink of the Pacific Ocean. After we toured the visitor center at Fort Clatsop and learned all about the voyage that Lewis and Clark made and the trials they endured along the way, we headed to Fort Stevens. This fort, as were many like it along the coast, was set up by the U.S. government to keep an eye on the Japanese expansion in the Pacific. It was a concrete bunker equipped with two cannon pits to house massive guns, rooms for the officers and soldiers, storage chambers for the gun powder and ammunition. It was shelled once during WWII, but soon after fell into disuse and was retired. Astoria is full of history. We got to see the Goonies house, some sea lions making a ruckus in the harbor, and the remains of the Peter Iredale, an English ship that had sunk off the coast of Astoria and washed ashore.

 We ate a late lunch at the Fort George Brewery and headed back to the hotel for some down time. In the evening we went to explore another beach that had more incredible views. Sunday morning, we ate breakfast (and got more than our moneys worth of food...our food supply had gone up exponentially in  yogurts, bananas, and instant oats) and said goodbye to Lauren's parents. We did not enjoy that at all, but we are very grateful for the time we got to spend with them and thankful for their generosity that whole week! We did another load of laundry at the hotel and stayed until the last possible minute. We went to a book store to trade in our read books and pick out new ones. We also went to the Maritime Museum and toured a 1950's lightship. We were stunned to learn how many ship had sunk in the sandbars around this area. There was so many that it was deemed the "Graveyard of the Pacific". We headed to Washington and towards Olympic National Park.