Bend

Like I mentioned, the areas immediately before and after Bend felt very similar to certain parts of northern Arizona.

We got to Bend, and it was another cool city.  I think I'd like to live there too, but only if Eugene and Corvallis didn't work out.  ;) 

This time we stayed in a little old house downtown, that had been basically converted into a few studio apartments.

 Jess did a great job planning our trip, we only had a couple of hours of driving each day, but managed to make a good distance, and usually it was timed well so that  Reed slept during a lot of the driving.  This was the first day Reed started to seem a little tired of the car, so we hung out in the house a while so Reed could stretch his legs and play, before exploring.

 It was getting chilly in the late afternoon, so we got sweatshirts on and went for a walk downtown.  

 

There were a lot of cute shops.  We even ran into Totoro in front of a little Japanese shop, which ended up being where we got the kids some little gifts to bring home to them.

 

We walked around Mirror Lake, 

and headed back for the house, just as it started sprinkling.  We got in the car and went driving in search of food.  There was an asian/mexican fusion place we wanted to try, but the line was ridiculous, even after we drove around a while, and eventually we gave up on that.  We couldn't find anything different to try, and pretty soon it was getting late and Reed was cranky about the driving, so we gave up and got takeout from Olive Garden.  Ha!

In the morning we walked around downtown a bit more, drove around Bend a little, and then headed out of town.

Then we drove through some mountains, where there was even a decent amount of snow still, in places.

 

As we came down the mountain we could see Mount Hood in the distance, and everything got greener in the valley.

This place was flatter but so pretty, and would a great place to live too, although I got the feeling it would require some serious money.  There were apple orchards and vineyards every minute or two. 

Pretty soon we reached a turnoff, where the road would start following the Columbia River, and saw this restaurant:  China Gorge.  Ha.  We got a picture of the pandas for Cason.

Soon, we saw a little rest stop, and Reed was ready for a break, so we pulled over.  

 

There were picnic tables and even a random little swingset in the middle of a field, which Reed approved of.

After a nice break, we continued the drive.  The river was on our right, and is by far the biggest river I can remember seeing.  Not that you can tell from these pictures.  :)

 Pretty soon we pulled over to hike near Horsetail Falls.  There are quite a few pictures, so I'll save that for the next post.

Oregon Part 3: The McKenzie River

As we left Eugene, we seemed to follow the McKenzie River for quite a while.  It would be flowing next to more dream houses on our right, then suddenly be gone, only to reappear on our left a while later.  

 

Eventually we saw a spot to pull over, and it turned out be a little trail through the trees next to the river.  We got out and walked down to get a closer look at the water.

 

It was so pretty.  The water was so clean looking, and the current was pretty strong, so it was nice to listen to the sound of it rushing by.

There were cute cabins on the other side of the water, that you didn't notice right away because they were hiding in the trees.  Some had little decks or balconies.  I was imagining sitting out there drinking coffee and watching the river. 

We went for a little hike on the trail. 

 

Reed rode for a bit...

 

...and then walked.

I mentioned Eugene being my favorite city we visited, but this was my favorite place, the whole trip.  It felt like we were walking in the setting of a fairy tale.

The pictures don't do it justice.  So much prettier, and the moss(I know I can't stop talking about all the moss) made the ground feel like walking on soft carpet. 

 

 

 

I LOVED finding this tree.  

Reed was nervous about getting in with me so he wasn't as happy for this picture as I was.  :)

 

 I could write about this place all day, but I won't.  I'll just say it's where our dream cabin might just have to go one day.  :)

Eventually we dragged ourselves back to the car and continued our drive to Bend.  The river disappeared, and the trees got really close and dense for a while.

 Gradually they started to thin, and change to the type we are used to seeing in the Hualapais or near Flag.  

I knew Bend was the high desert, but the closer we got I was pretty amazed at how similar it looked to our drive to Flagstaff.  I'll post about Bend soon. 

Oregon Trip: Part 2

I feel like I haven't come close to doing justice to our time at the coast, but I'm not sure how without the pictures.  I'm really SO disappointed at losing those.  :(  It was so pretty, and the sound of the ocean right there was crazy.  Mossy rocks everywhere, weird looking plants and ferns I've never seen.  The rain was nice and cool, and we just had such a good time hiking around there.  After leaving the coast, we drove through the mountains a bit, and rain was still falling.  As we got higher, it got mistier and mistier until Jess pulled over to look out from a cliff and the fog was too thick to even see the ocean he knew was right there.

Then we drove toward Eugene, where we'd be staying the second night.  

 

We knew we'd have a lot of driving, so we brought the Kindle with a few new episodes of shows Reed likes-Tumble Leaf, Yo Gabba Gabba, Daniel Tiger, and Curious George.  We ended up stopping to buy duct tape, and rigged the Kindle up to the headrest on Reed's seat, so he could watch his shows, but not reach the screen and keep pausing his show which made him angry.  Ha!  This worked really well, because we drove a couple of hours each day, and he either napped or (mostly) happily watched a show.  I'd also packed new toys and things but those never entertained him for TOO long in the car.  

The drive to Eugene was just getting even more beautiful.  

There wasn't a single drive during our trip that wasn't, but this was crazy.  The sides of the hills were hugging closer and closer to the road, and the trees were getting denser and mossier.  I loved it.  

We saw houses between towns that were perfect for us.  :)  I always hear people comment on how hard it would be to live outside of a town like that, but I'm always thinking how that's my paradise.  Within 20 or so minutes of a town, but off on our own.  Especially when I saw these houses, river and hilly forest on one side, and a grassy field on the other.  

I do think I'll have to stick with living in or near a town while the kids are little, and until we can build our dream cabin home.  :)

When we got to Eugene, I quickly decided it was my favorite Oregon city(of the ones we got to explore anyway).  We went right to the little bungalow we were renting for the night.  It was such a cute place, I wish we could go again with all the kids and stay longer.  There was a little "room" upstairs with a couple of beds, 

and the backyard had a cute treehouse(well platform house really, since no tree was involved), and a rope swing.  

We let Reed stretch his legs for a while in the house and yard...

 

...and then searched for food.  Jess looked up a thai place that was supposed to be good.  Reed and I loved ours, and Jess would have liked his more but it was CRAZY spicy.  Reed was so cute watching his show as he ate.

 

When we finished, there was still an hour or two of daylight left, so we drove around town.  I loved everything I saw.  

 There was the BEST neighborhood up on a hillside looking down on the town, but only minutes from the middle of everything.  The houses had a nice amount of space between them, so you could kind of feel like you weren't in the middle of everything.  We saw a deer walking through one of the front yards.

As it started getting darker we searched for coffee or dessert, and head back to the house to relax and get ready for bed.

In the morning Jess took us downtown to Studio 1 Cafe, which was PACKED, but the service was still good.  We found out why it was so busy-our food was great.  Jess was gross and got a salmon scramble and I had a farmers market eggs benedict.

Reed shared.

When we got done with breakfast we had a nice little walk downtown.

We found a cute little park for Reed to run around.

Also a slug to take a picture of and send to the kids.  

We stopped for cupcakes before leaving Eugene.  Mine was glittery and strawberry, and very good.

When we were walking to the car we saw a sign that we also needed a picture of for the kids. 

 

One of Reed's silly nicknames we've given him is Smeed.  Paige especially likes to call him that.

We left, and headed for Bend.  We had a couple of hours of driving to get there.  That first hour or so outside of Eugene was the most beautiful place.  Yes-even prettier than everything I'd seen before.  It started out looking like this:

As we drove, the trees hugged closer and closer to the road, were COVERED in moss, and the river was visible every so often.  

Eventually we found a place to pull over, where a little trail followed the river.  Since this was the most beautiful place on Earth, I have a lot of pictures from here, so I'll save it for part 3.