We slept well on the nice soft bed and leisurely ate breakfast. We then started out at about 9:00 AM on our longest driving day ever from Portland to Logan. We planned for only one stop at Multnomah Falls. It is a beautiful site. Not much water was falling but it fell a total of over 600 feet so it was amazing to see. We quickly hiked to the bridge that spans the river just about the second fall. We got back to Logan at about 10:00 PM. Over all we drove about 2400 miles around our vacation loop. We had tons of fun and hope to do other fun trips like this in the future.

We decided to leave our tent up so it could dry and then we drove back visited the beautiful Cape Meares lighthouse. We also saw an unusual old tree called “The Octopus Tree”, for obvious reasons. Our next stop was to Cape Lookout. We took the two and a half mile hike to the point and were not disappointed with the view. There are huge cliffs along the trail that fall straight into the water. By the time we got finished with this hike we were ready for a break and for some food. We made our way to the Tillamook Cheese factory. Watching the workers make cheese was boring enough but the cheese and fudge samples were great. The ice cream also hit the spot. We went back to camp, packed up quickly, and drove on to Portand to stay at Liz’s aunt and uncles house. They were super nice and hospitable to us plus they have a beautiful house and back yard. The real bed was much appreciated.

Thursday turned out to be quite the day. We left Umpqua, and headed up to the Sea Lion Caves. It wasn’t amazing, but still cool to see all the sea lions. It was a bit of a tourist trap. The sea lions can get very loud, and they are also very huge. That stop didn’t last too long.

I wanted to see more of a rocky beach, so we made a random stop at a place called Devil’s Churn. It was this big skinny ravine that filled up with water at high tide. We went and hiked by it, and ended up getting a little too close (although we were still several feet away from the edge) and the sea water splashed us. Once just mostly Joe, and then it came up right after that and got both of us. It looked like there been some cool tide pools too, but we were there at high tide, so no luck there.

We went to the Oregon Coast Aquarium. It’s a neat aquarium, and we actually spent quite a bit of time there. Joe like the sea otters and jellyfish quite a bit. After the aquarium we went and camped at Nehalem Bay State Park. It was a cool place–the beach was a two minute walk away. I could hear the waves from our campsite. The entire drive up there, it started to get overcast and look scarily like rain, but it didn’t start until after we had dinner, put up camp, and played at the beach a little. We did end up going to bed quite early when it did start raining.

On Wednesday we left the redwoods to see what else there was to see. Once you see the huge redwoods normal trees appearso small but they are beautiful in their own right. We made our way up into Oregon stopping along the beach where we fed a few friendly squirrels and sea gulls. At one of the few lighthouses we stopped at we saw a peregrine falcon just hovering against the wind above the shore looking for lunch. The sandy beaches and rocky capes were simply beautiful. During one of our stops we followed one of the larger rivers down to where it went into the sea. It didn’t quite make it there because of a sand bar. I don’t know how that works but it was pretty cool. We eventually made it to our next camp sight, Umpaqua Lighthouse State Park, which was by one of the many lakes and near the long dunes that line a lot of the Oregon coast. We took a long romantic walk around the little lake and took pictures of the moss covered trees. This was the more relaxing day over all.

So that night we camped at Prairie Creek, which is part of the Redwood National/State Park area. This time we didn’t fall into a sleepy spell, we decided to go on an 8 mile hike starting at 7:00 pm. It went through another redwood forest–this one was a little more mossy and still amazing. It was nice hiking at low elevation; we hiked pretty quickly and got to the beach in about two hours, just in time to watch the sun set. Sitting out on the beach was probably my favorite part of the trip.

The hike back was pretty interesting. It got dark about 15 minutes after we started. We had only brought one flashlight, so we ended up hiking right next to each other so we could avoid tree roots. I discovered that hiking up-hill is a lot easier when you can’t actually see the hill. It was a little freaky hiking in the dark through these huge trees–but we made it back quickly.

The stars were out that night too–I usually sleep too much to see a lot of stars, but I like them when I do. We were sitting at the end of the hike watching the starts, and then this fog rolled in all of a sudden. Pretty cool. It was about midnight by then, so we were pretty tired, especially after the hike. No trouble sleeping that night.

I doubt I will get this all in in one blog post, and I don’t want to deal with the pictures either. So Joe and I finally went on our tripto the Redwoods and Oregon Coast. We left Sunday after church, after being a bit surprised by the announcement that they were re-aligning the ward boundaries and we were changing wards. We’ve only been in the old one for a couple months, just starting to get to know people. Luckily there are still familiar faces in the new ward, and it’s not really different.

We drove through Nevada without air conditioning. It was hot, but bearable. We drove across this two-lane highway and hardly passed anyone. Lots of desert complete with rabbit brush, sage brush, and hotness. We drove until we hated driving (Joe mostly drove–he likes it more then me). We spent the night at the Wagon Wheel Motel in Lovelock, Nevada. Kinda random–it’s where we finally gave up.

The next morning was more driving until we reached Humboldt Redwood St. Park. We set up camp, and I wanted to lay down for a second. We put the air matress on the ground outside the tent, and laid down for a second…and the next thing I know I am waking up and it’s three hours later and dark outside. Very strange–I felt like someone had put a sleeping spell on me and Joe or something.

We did eventually wake up the next morning and drove around the park. In the park there is a grove of very old and very large trees called Founder’s Grove, and it has a nice nature trail, complete with pamphlet so I can learn some stuff (I like all the interpretive signs and such). The trail also branched off, so Joe and I wandered around, occasionally getting lost in these weird loopy trails.

I’m putting in pictures now. I didn’t get a lot of good ones in the redwoods–it was really dark down at ground level, and my camera didn’t like that too much. Really–the forests are really huge and gourgeous. I loved being there.