On the Oregon Trail

We have a weak connection right now, so I won't be able to post photos until tomorrow, but tonight we're staying in a yurt in Champoeg (sham-pwee) State Park, about 30 miles outside of Portland. We're thinking about going in to explore the city tonight. (Update: we are waiting until tomorrow...the yurt is very comfy).

After Tahoe on Saturday, we headed north to Crescent City to Redwoods National Park. We stayed in a campground on Smith River Saturday night, where we went for a morning dip in 60 degree water that was as clear as Tahoe. It was refreshing, and the photos are hilarious. Then we had a huge breakfast at the Good Harvest Cafe, and tooled around Redwoods for the rest of the day until we got to Bullards Beach, where we camped and had dinner on the beach Sunday night. For the sake of brevity, here is a list of what we saw yesterday:

2 horses being ridden on the beach at sunset

1 "paddle-out," a surfer's memorial service

10000 Redwood trees

500 sea lions

3 lizards

1 lady dancing beside her car while Dire Straits played on the stereo and her husband sat in the driver's seat waiting on her to finish her dance

1 sunset

1000 lighthouses

1000 beaches

100000000 state parks (you literally cannot drive two miles up the OR coast without passing a state park)

A billion dogs and kids celebrating the holiday weekend with their parents

The car-dancing lady took the cake, really.

Then today we got up and had strawberries and hot chocolate for breakfast, clam chowder for lunch at Mo's in Newport (just up the street from the Rogue Ale Brewery), and made our way to this dreamy yurt. Can't wait to check out Portland or to post the photos we took yesterday! Love to all in the meantime.

Sunset over the Pacific

Using the iLevel to figure out which direction to sleep

Dinner on the beach

Posing on Highway 101 in Oregon

One of the million lighthouses we saw in OR

The stunning clarity of Smith River

The stunning coldness of Smith River