Washington and Oregon

As most of you know, we went on vacation for almost two weeks. We missed so much while we were gone, and I am sure that my mom, sisters, and newly returned brother, Janson, are all mad at me for leaving and missing the airport return and the homecoming. I am sad that I missed it, but we really needed to get away. Everything that we do just seemed to crash around us all at once, and we were kicking and screaming to get out of the deep end.

So in response to all the craziness, we ran away to the Pacific Ocean. We started out driving up to Seattle. We stayed with Jeff and Janelle, Todd's cousins. They toured us around downtown Seattle and let us stay with them for the weekend.

As most of you know, this is Pike's Market. We walked around the market looking for good things to eat and fun things to buy. I ate my first crab at the market. We found a shop that steamed, cracked, and served the crab for us. It was so good.

We also rode a ferry boat across the sound to Bainbridge Island. It was raining on and off, but it is Seattle. I would have been disappointed if it hadn't rained. (That is Jeff off to the side of the picture there--he cracks me up). From Seattle we drove into Oregon. As we did that we went through Astoria, the place where everyone told me to go, also the place where Goonies was filmed. There was a street fair in Astoria that day, so we stopped and had lunch and bought some goodies for the trek down the coast.

This is the Astoria column and the view from the column of Astoria. It was such a cool town. That night we drove into Seaside, OR. We were expecting and old fishing town. We were plesantly suprised with a beautiful beach and great food.

The next day we started our drive down the beautiful coast of Oregon. We drove through Cannon Beach and went to the Tillamook Cheese factory. We also saw our first two lighthouses. As we drove the coast we stopped and saw as many lighthouses as we could. They were really cool.

We arrived in Newport that night. Newport was probably my favorite city. It was so pretty and had a large bridge in the middle of it. I have always loved bridges, and this trip only made that obsession stronger. In Newport we went on a boat tour and saw one of the coolest things I have ever seen--tidepools. Just a few stairs down from the Yaquina Head Lighthouse are the tidepools. If the tide is low there is a large amount of sea life to see. I took some of my favorite pictures there.

After we left Newport, we drove pretty far down to Gold Beach. The drive from Newport to Gold Beach we saw probaby six lighthouses. It was fun to see how different some of them are. We only toured through two of them, but I made sure to take pictures of all of them.

Well, that is a few of them. In Gold Beach we took a jet boat tour up the Rogue River. We saw some beautiful wildlife and waterfalls and trees and water.From there we drove into California, and we stayed in Klamath. From Klamath we drove down Highway 101 into San Francisco.

Oregon is the most beautiful state I have ever seen. I was just amazed by all the trees and ferns and moss and flowers and beaches and rocks and rivers and bridges and wildlife and seafood. Oregon is one of those places I would like to retire to. I will be doing another post with all the pictures from San Francisco later. Remind me if I forget to do it, because I have some really cool pictures from the Golden Gate Bridge and other great places.

Thank you and good night.