Day 3: We woke up in beautiful Portland. Did I mention that it was not cloudy at all while we were in Oregon? We totally lucked out. When we woke up we headed straight for the food carts down the street. If you’ve been to Portland, you know what food carts are. We are obsessed and must have fit at least four or five food cart meals into our two days in Portland. Blaine got a breakfast burrito and I got a salad roll with peanut sauce.
Our plan for the day was the Tilamook Cheese Factory and the northern Oregon coast. We ventured towards the coast and got to Tilamook, OR. The cheese factory was huge and much more crowded than I expected it to be! We read up on facts about dairy cows and farmers, sampled various cheeses and watched in the windows as blocks of cheese were sorted, packaged and sealed. After that Blaine picked out a few cheeses to bring home and I got some butter pecan ice cream for the road.
We didn’t have any plans except to see the coast. We drove north, made a stop at Hug Point and just enjoyed the scenery. Then we ventured up to Astoria which is beyond beautiful. If it weren’t for being completely surrounded by water, I would totally live there. Can you tell that the ocean scares me, yet? After that we went back to Portland, grabbed food at a food cart and stayed in for the rest of the night. Honestly, I don’t have a lot of photos from our time in Portland. We basically spent our time eating and taking cat naps. I get so lazy when hotel beds are involved!
Day 4: Our mission for the day was to go to Multnomah Falls and hike to the top. It was breaktakingly beautiful, but oh boy, the hike. I believe it was about 2.5 miles round trip, but what we didn’t realize is that it was such a steep grade all the way up. Now that I think about it, it’s to the top of a waterfall. Of course it’s steep! Blaine and I both spent our childhoods going on trips with our families and have been on tons of hikes. But this kicked our asses. There was a lot of stopping and feeling really terrible. Especially when we ran into an adorable white haired couple that had to have been in their 70’s, using canes on their way up. Sure, they were stopping, but the fact that they were making it up there made us realize how badly out of shape we were for being in our 20’s! We decided to go hiking more.
After our hike we drove around a bit, visited Horsetail falls and then went back to Portland. Of course, stopped at more food trucks where Blaine got a fish burrito and I got curry. Then we booked and checked into a hotel and hung out there for a few hours to recover. That night we ended up seeing Meggie, a friend of mine from middle school, who I haven’t seen in at least 3 years! We spent the night taking way too long to make portobello burgers while reminiscing about the past and ended up not leaving until past midnight.
Day 5: We woke up late due to staying out until almost 1am and decided to go to Pine State Biscuits for breakfast after Meggie recommended it. Oh. My-God. Blaine got the biscuits and shiitake mushroom gravy and I got the biscuits, stewed apples and whipped cream. We almost, almost ordered more. Then we realized how cute that part of town was and spent an hour or so walking around, not wanting to ever leave Portland. We picked up some dog biscuits at a cute little pet store and window shopped.
After that we practically had to drag ourselves to the car to leave and head down to Bend, OR. The drive seemed forever long and looked just like Tehachapi, not the lush green Oregon we had fallen in love with. So I basically slept while Blaine drove. When we got there we went down to the shops and ate, had some ice cream and then went to our hotel room where we hung out. We love just hanging in hotel rooms, but the down side is we miss out on adventuring. Around 9pm we decided we were hungry and spent 30 minutes driving around town trying to find food that sounded good before picking up pizza and eating it back at the hotel, in bed.
Day 6: We left bend and made our way to Crater Lake. When we got to the entrance we were aiming for, it was closed. The government shut down had just ended that morning (or the day before?) and Crater Lake is a national park so I’m assuming that’s why. We then drove really far off of our route to get in the south entrance which the website said was open. There was snow on the ground when we got there, but when we got there I kept insisting it wasn’t real. It’s that beautiful. I took a million pictures, we bought a post card in the gift shop and then we made our way to Lake Tahoe where we had booked at hotel for two nights.
We got in pretty late so we walked to get sushi for dinner. It was freezing, but it was nice to get out of the car and walk somewhere so I had no problem with it. The sushi was beyond delicious and afterwards we walked back to the hotel and turned in for the night.
Day 7: We had the whole day in Tahoe, no travel involved, which was the first time the whole trip. So naturally… we got in the car and drove around. Blaine’s step brother lives in Tahoe, but we had no idea where so we stealthly tried to find out his address so we could find him. Turns out he was in the middle of moving to Reno so we went back to our hotel for a while. We got sushi at the same place for happy hour. So yummy. Then we met up with Blaine’s step brother who was back to pick up a load to bring to his new apartment. We hung out with him, played some Cards Against Humanity and then called it a night around 11pm. Picked up some pie and french fries at Dennys (so random) and went back to the hotel.
Day 8: Since we spent almost a year living in Sacramento, we wanted to visit and reminisce. We left Tahoe and headed to Sacramento to visit a few of our favorite places. Beach Hut Deli, my favorite thrift store when we lived there and we drove by our first apartment together. We drove around and talked about how much we loved living there. We went to a few model homes, a weirdly fun pass time of ours, and then started our drive back home. At first our plan was to stay the night, but by this point we were wanting our own beds and figured we’d save a little money by skipping a night in Sacramento.
How insane is it that I only took ONE photo the entire time we were in Tahoe. It was a crappy photo of Blaine and his step brother that I texted to his mom. I must have totally spaced because I didn’t take my camera out even once.
We drove over 2,000 miles on our trip and while that was slightly exhausting, I loved every minute of it. We drive for fun anyway. There’s something about just the two of us and the possibility of going anywhere we want.
P.S. We may or may not have made a 3 year plan to move to Oregon. That gives me some time to talk myself into moving away from family.
Breathtaking photos. So so dreamy.
Thank you! I’m kind of an awful photographer, so that just shows how beautiful everything really was 😉