Mike and Sandy did another road trip in August 2009, covering Oregon and Washington and a little bit of the far northern coast of California. The first stop was Ashland, Oregon, for, of course, a play at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival theater.
Next stop was a cute B&B in Fort Klamath, our base for a visit to Crater Lake National Park (and the bald eagle that was nesting on a power pole behind the B&B). We have a picture at home of Sandy at Vidae Falls as a teenager, and the lake itself from the crater rim was truly beautiful!
East of Portland is McMinnville, where Howard Hughes' "Spruce Goose" (and lots of other planes, etc) are on display in a new museum, and there are a surprising number of wineries nearby (who knew!).
On to the coast and Tillamook, where we visited the world's largest wooden structure (like the one at Moffett Field in Sunnyvale, only bigger). This WWII-era poster shows 8 blimps inside. And of course no visit to Tillamook would be complete without a stop at the cheese factory.
Heading up the Oregon coast, we decided the nicest place to stay, should one be in the mood for the beach, would be Cannon Beach, roughly opposite Portland. As we drove, we were amazed at damage to trees from hurricanes which hit the coastal areas years ago.
You can admire the unusual statue up on the hilltop in the old town of Astoria, Oregon, before you cross into Washington State on a huge bridge spanning the huge Columbia River.
Our stay at Lake Quinault Lodge in the Olympia National Forest was rather magical. This is a 1930's era "giant log cabin," much like the Ahwahnee at Yosemite. President Roosevelt once stayed there, and the dining room is named in his honor.
After all this natural beauty, we thought we'd look on the dark side of Mother Nature with a visit to Mount St. Helens. Wow, what an amazing demonstration of raw power! We went up to the ridge closest to the mountain, which turns out to be what deflected much of the avalance of earth and debris down the river.
On our arrival in the Seattle area, we had dinner at a marina on the shore of Lake Washington in suburban Kirkland (can anyone say "Costco headquarters?"). The next day it was off to Pike Place Market, and up to the top of the Space Needle for brunch and nice views of the city, and then a boat ride on Lake Union, where we saw the houseboat made notorious in the movie "Sleepless in Seattle" and the water-side studios of famous glass artist Dale Chihuly.
The tour at the Boeing plant in Everett starts off quietly enough, with a stop at their museum. From the roof-top observatory, you can see it - the largest building in the world by volume. And when you get inside, it is absolutely breath taking! This is the 747 assembly line, and on the other side of the building, a similar layout is where the 777's and the new 787, which hasn't flown yet, are built.
Now we headed east to Wenatchee, Washington, where friends the Karneys have moved. Of course there were dinners on the lawn at wineries overlooking a local lake, and we toured an apple packing plant. One day we saw the cute Arabian horses raised by a relative of our hosts, and also drove by Dry Falls (bigger than Niagra, only hardly any water), carved by massive floods thousands of years ago, on our way to tour the power plant at Grand Coulee Dam (the largest hydro power plant in the United States). And of course we visited a lot.
Heading back south from our visit with the Karneys, we stopped at an old mansion on the mountain side overlooking the city of Portland, and then went to the famous Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, where a nephew of Sandy's (they haven't seen each other in 30 years) is now working. Lots of catching up !
Now in the home stretch, we did some sightseeing along the southern Oregon coast, and then among the giant redwood trees near Eureka in northern California. We didn't let the persistent coastal fog bother us, and threw in a quick visit to the charming totally Victorian town of Ferndale.
