Our Move to Corpus (in pictures) Part 1...Days 1-3

On July 26th, we left Whidbey Island, Washington and began our move back to Corpus Christi. I guess its true that you never know what you have until its gone. Washington wasn't my favorite place, but it was a heck of a lot better than South Texas, and given the choice between here and there, I'd chose to move back to Washington in a heartbeat. I guess over the course of three years, I came to love a lot about the area, and I made some wonderful friends while I was living up there. Now its time to start all over, once again, in the place I consider to be my own personal hell on earth...welcome back to Corpus Christi, Texas!

DAY 1 - July 26, 2011

(all packed and ready to go!)

(Welcome to Oregon! For anyone who is freakishly observant [I would notice this], yes these are the same clothes that we're wearing by the "Welcome to California" sign a few pictures down. Thats because this picture was actually taken as we were leaving Oregon, not entering it. We stayed in Portland for our first night on the road, and the exit to our hotel came before the welcome sign on the interstate. When we left the hotel in the morning, we entered the interstate just past the welcome sign. It would have taken too much time to turn around and get the actual welcome sign, so we just took it on our way out of the state. For the sake of chronological order we're going to just pretend this was actually taken on our first day on the road :-).)

Day 2 - July 27, 2011

(Voodoo Donuts in Eugene, Oregon...the main location is in Portland, but the one in Eugene doesn't have a 2 hour line every day, making it much easier to access for people who don't have all day to wait in line for donuts. Check out the Food Network if you've never heard of Voodoo Donuts.)

(the signature Voodoo Donut)

(proudly displaying my box of Voodoo Donuts)

(Crater Lake National Park - Thomas loved that there was still snow on the ground in July, and I have to admit that seeing snow in the summer is something I'm going to miss in Texas [or for that matter, seeing any snow at all]!)

(Crater Lake)

(Thomas and me by Crater Lake)

DAY 3 - July 28, 2011

(Grants Pass, Oregon...we have no idea what the Intergalatic Headquarters of Bigfoot is, but since people in the Pacific Northwest are generally a little obsessed with Bigfoot, we had to add this picture to our growing collection of Bigfoot pictures from the area.)

(Great Cats World Park in Cave Junction, Oregon...We didn't know what to expect from this place since it was a last minute discovery, but it was very cool, and I highly recommend it to anyone passing through the area. Its not a zoo, and its not a sanctuary. Its a place where big cats [i.e. lions, tigers, jaguars, etc...] are raised and then trained for movies and photo shoots. Thomas thought it would be necessary to bring one of our cats into this picture with us.)

(African Wildcats, which look like regular cats, but apparently they can tear your entire body apart in minutes. The one on the right is a cloned cat, and the one on the left is her daughter. I have mixed opinions about cloning, but having never seen a cloned animal before, I thought this was kind of neat. She's 5 years old, and apparently very healthy.)

(A tiger performing for the handler and getting his reward.)

(The tiger eating his reward)

(A White Tiger)

(I think this guy was a jaguar if I remember correctly, and he's roaring on cue. All of the cats could roar, hiss, swipe [without extending their claws] and stand up on cue...they were obviously all very well trained! I can't even teach my normal house cats to keep their claws in when they swipe at things.)

(Welcome to California!)

(sunset near Crescent City, California)

More to come....!

Oregon

The first part of our 4th of July weekend trip was to Mt. St. Helens. For the second part we went to Oregon for the day. After Mr. V came wandering back into our hotel room after his completely insane 14 mile hike in the rain (if you go back to my Mt. St. Helens post you'll remember that I decided to not go on a crazy hike with him, and instead work on some random projects that I brought along to entertain myself because I knew he'd want to do something crazy), soaking wet and looking like death (and no I'm not exaggerating - it took one look at him to make me feel completely confident that I made the right choice to not go on the hike - I wish I had taken a picture of him so you could see how rough he looked), we headed out to see the fireworks in the small town of Kelso.

New Orleans may be known for constant partying and hurricanes (the drink and the storm), but they apparently don't have normal fireworks displays that the whole town comes out to see. We set up camp on the side of a lake in town, and while I had never been to Kelso before, it looked just like any other fireworks set up I've ever seen - lots of people out to see a 20 minute show. Simple right? Well, Mr. V was in awe because he had never been to something like this. He couldn't believe how many people had showed up and that people actually came out in large groups like this to watch fireworks. I was pretty amused by that because it never occurred to me that he had never done something that seemed so normal to me. The differences between the way the 2 of us grew up never cease to amaze me.

The next day we went about an hour south to the Washington/Oregon border. I had never been to Oregon before and I still have my goal of wanting to see all 50 states before I turn 30 (though with 14 states left, and a little over 9 months until I turn 30, I am sad to say that I don't see myself accomplishing that goal.) There's stuff to do in Oregon but we were already 5 hours away from Whidbey Island, and we had to get back that night, so we were limited to doing stuff along the border, just so we could get back before 3am. I didn't care though. There are a few things that I'd like to see in Oregon one day, but for this trip I was perfectly content to just cross the border, see something, regardless of what it was, come home, and color in Oregon on my map of states that I have visited.

What I didn't know, is that the border of Washington and Oregon is quite possibly one of the most beautiful places in this country (I should just admit by now that even after 2 years of living here, I still know next to nothing about the Pacific Northwest). The Columbia River runs along the border of the 2 states and the Columbia River Gorge is absolutely beautiful. I had heard people talk about the gorge before, but I never gave it much thought. It just sounded like a river and mountains to me, and while thats pretty, it didn't seem like anything remarkable.

First, the history nerd in me was fascinated by the fact that this is the river that Lewis and Clark traveled on to reach the Pacific Ocean (the place where they finished their adventure is one of the places that I still want to see in Oregon). Second, its absolutely beautiful!! The area outside of Portland is the area we explored, and neither one of us wanted to leave.

(As a side note, I also had no idea that Portland sat literally right on the border of Washington and Oregon, and I'm usually pretty good at geography so I have no idea how I missed that small fact.)

We initially decided to visit this area because 1 - it was in Oregon and I wanted to see Oregon, and 2 - there is a waterfall there that was used for a second or 2 in the movie Twilight, and yes I'm a huge nerd, but I love the Twilight movies and I love seeing places where movies were filmed.

I've seen a lot of waterfalls so I wasn't expecting much, but Multnomah Falls can now be added to the list of "prettiest waterfalls I've ever seen". Its also a huge tourist area which I was kind of surprised about. The entire Columbia River Gorge is a tourist area, but there are lots of places all along the river, so I was slightly surprised to see that the majority of the people visiting the area seemed to be congregating at Multnomah Falls. I felt like the only person around who had never even heard of this waterfall before. So we spent some time there, ate dinner in the restaurant at the base of the falls, then watched the sunset over the gorge and headed back home.

We finally made it home around 2:00 in the morning, and while Mr. V was exhausted when he had to get up for work the next morning, all in all, we both agree that it was a fun vacation. I know that I personally got more out of it than I expected because I saw a new place that I never knew of before and it was much more beautiful than I ever imagined. Now I want to head back to the same area to explore more of the gorge when we aren't rushing around to make it back home that same day. There are waterfalls all along the river, plus overlook points and other things that look interesting to see. So hopefully we'll make it back there sometime soon!

(I always take a picture of the welcome sign when I visit new states but that's hard to do when there isn't a place to pull over and stop)

(another attempt at a "Welcome to Oregon" sign)

(The Columbia River - traveled by Lewis and Clark to the Pacific Ocean)

(Latourell Falls - just one of the many waterfalls along the Columbia River Gorge)

(These are the falls that appear for a brief second in Twilight, and also one of the most beautiful waterfalls I've ever seen)

(Multnomah Falls)

(at the bottom of the falls)

(on the bridge by the upper falls)

(just me :-))

(so beautiful!)

(view from the falls - looking towards the Columbia River Gorge)

(rainbow!)

(this is my favorite picture of the waterfall)

(restaurant and visitor's center with the waterfall behind it)

(sunset over the Columbia River Gorge)

(Columbia River Gorge)

(The View Point Inn - used to film the prom scene in Twilight)

(The View Point Inn - used to film the prom scene in Twilight, and it also has a beautiful view of the Columbia River Gorge...the sunset was beautiful from here)