Aw man! The trip had to come to an end eventually :( In Bend, we started out day out getting breakfast at The Sparrow Bakery Northwest. The original location apparently had a lot of sparrows flying around, hence the name. The Ocean Roll is a famous type of pastry with cardamom and vanilla. I didn’t really like it that much because cardamom is weird in my opinion. I did get a lox bagel and a mocha and was overall impressed with the pastries though.

There’s a cafe in Mitchell called Bridge Creek Cafe. Accordingly, we walked across a bridge that went over a creek to get to it. It’s a small operation. I got eggs and bacon and coffee and was a happy camper. There was a pamphlet in our room talking about the scenic drive for John Day Fossil Bed National Monument. We had already done a portion of it the day before on our way to Mitchell.

Today we planned to head east out of Portland through the Columbia River Gorge. I think I mentioned before that this was the thesis of this whole roadtrip. I was determined, but also nervous because of how much it rained the night before. For breakfast, we decided to try a new cafe. This time we went to Coffee Time. Compared to yesterday, this place was much more interesting. It had dim lighting and interesting decor.

I had decided when I invited my boyfriend to join the second half of the trip that we should stay an extra night in Portland so he could actually explore it. I’m really glad we did. We started the day off with a coffee and pastry at Barista. I didn’t notice anything particularly noteworthy about my mocha or almond croissant but my boyfriend mentioned they hadn’t properly frothed the almond milk.

I woke up bright and early today to go down to breakfast at 7 AM (totally unnecessary it turns out, it goes on until 9 AM). I had my coffee and food and hung out downstairs briefly. It was pretty simple fair, like continental but a little extra effort in the hot food. I was very preoccupied with running late. I had about an hour and a half drive to Portland and I wanted to be on time to pick up my boyfriend from the airport at noon.

By today I was falling asleep in my car much, much faster. And I even got to sleep in a bit! I probably didn’t get out of the campsite until 10 AM. My first stop I actually had to backtrack a bit by 15 minutes to Thor’s Well. It was raining pretty hard for the fifteen or so minutes I was there so it was a little hard to look at.

I wish I hadn’t planned a 3 hour drive with multiple stops after a 6 mile hike! But alas, 50 minutes after Boyscout Tree Trail, I found myself at Samuel H Boardman State Scenic Corridor. This is one of those things I wish I had done my own research on a bit more before putting it on my to-do list. In the sense that it was a coworker recommendation with a few of the destinations pointed out.

Today was my Redwoods National Park hiking day. Planning this is kind of challenging because the park is actually a bunch of state parks bundled together and some of the hikes are about an hour apart from each other. For instance, I was actually already camping in Redwoods National Park by camping at Prairie Creek. To start, I packed up camp and drove back up the 5 mile dirt road from the night before.

It was a quick drive to my first hiking destination – Russian Gulch State Park. It’s been on my list for a year or two. I picked out the waterfall trail called Fern Canyon trail which is 5.4 - 6.3 miles depending on the route you take. The barebones route is on a pretty smooth path, nearly a fire road. You can definitely take bicicyles on it, you just can’t go all the way up to the waterfall with a bike.

As soon as I bought my car I knew I wanted to go on a road trip. One thing still hung over my head was the the Colombia River Gorge in Oregon. When I went in 2017 it was snowing so badly we couldn’t really see anything. Originally I planned to leave Sunday and just drive a lot on the first day. I think my intention was to use the entire day Saturday to prepare for my trip.

I thought it might be nice to include a bulleted list of destinations and resources so that if you’re planning your own trip, you can just grab information from here without having to dig through all my journals. Of course, I still recommend looking through the rest of the blog posts to see detailed advice and thoughts plus pictures! Coming up the California coast to Oregon, here’s what I did and where I stayed.

I thought it might be nice to include a bulleted list of destinations and resources so that if you’re planning your own trip, you can just grab information from here without having to dig through all my journals. Of course, I still recommend looking through the rest of the blog posts to see detailed advice and thoughts plus pictures! Driving through Oregon, here’s what I did and where I stayed.