Day 20 - Redwoods National Park

We finally made it to the Pacific. We sepnt the morning driving down the foggy California coast. The redwoods are amazing, they are so big and so tall. It's strange to be standing in front of something that's maybe 1000 years old. After the redwoods we decided we were tired and had seen enough so we filled up the car and drove home.

Day 19 - Crater Lake

Spent the day at Crater lake then drove down to the California coast. You can't believe how dark blue the lake is.

Day 18 - Hood River board sports.

Hood River is world famous for it's wind related board sports, it was wind surfing and now it's kite boarding. The Columbia River Gorge acts like a big wind tunnel. It was fun to watch but I can't imagine doing it, I remember trying wind surfing in Hawaii 20+ years ago and it didn't go well, to say the least.

Day 18 - Columbia River Gorge

If you've been reading this blog you've probably figured out that I love taking pictures of moving water, fountains, rivers, waterfalls, etc... Today I was in heaven, we drove east from Portland on the Columbia River Highway, along the Columbia River Gorge. Every mile or so there is another beautiful waterfall. Of course almost all of them have a short hike, all uphill, to really get a good view of them. By the afternoon we stopped for lunch in Hood River and spent some time watching people windsurf and kiteboard. Then we turned south, drove around Mt Hood, across some plains and ended up in Bend, Oregon for the evening.

Columbia River Gorge.

Columbia River Gorge.

Latourell Falls.

Sheppards Dell.

Bridal Veil Falls.

Wahkeena Falls.

Multnomah Falls.

Horsetail Falls.

Mt. Hood (unlike my previous bad artist's rendition of Mt. Rainier, this is an actual photo of Mt. Hood).

Some random horses, the plains south of Mt Hood were strangely yellow and brown, except for some green trees and bushes.

Day 17 - drive - no pics

We drove from Vancouver to Portland today. It started mostly sunny and we had hope of actually seeing Mt Rainier, but by the time we hit the US border it was overcast and grey and stayed mostly like that all the way.
I'll admit we were a little nervous crossing the border after the issues we had with Canadian customs, but it was smooth sailing, I guess I'm only on the Candian "list" and not somebody's "list" here. After we found a hotel in the little town of Troutdale, just east of Portland, we spent the rest of the day relaxing and doing errands, laundry and getting the oil changed on the car. No pics today.

Day 16 - Whistler, part 3

After walking around Whistler village for a while, we had some time to kill before we got back on the train so I shot some pics for MTB, I think he'll enjoy these.

Day 16 - sea to sky, part 2