The Oregon Trail

Just two days after getting back from Virginia I was off on a girls weekend all the way to Oregon! It was Natalie, Tracey, and me just like when we traveled to Spain back in 2000 and the Bahamas in 2005. 

Tracey and I joked that this trip was us on the Oregon Trail... like the game we played in elementary school. And even though it had been a while since we had all been together, we had so much fun!

We drove over 800 miles from Friday morning until Sunday night. We started off from Tray's place in Portland and headed to Astoria where we saw the Goonies house (still don't quite get that but I didn't see the movie until I was 16), and of course we had to cross over to Washington State when we saw the signs for Cape Disappointment. 

Next was a trip down the coast where we planned to hit up some wineries and enjoy the sunshine on Cannon Beach. Unfortunately our Washington State detour took too long, the wineries were closed and a large cloud covered the beachfront. What was supposed to look like this...

was completely covered in the mist and we saw nothing but a faint outline of the water unfortunately.

After sticking our toes in the sand we headed onward to Springfield where we had dinner at Outback and crashed from jet lag and Tracey's marathon training. The next morning we drove through University of Oregon and stopped at a cute mountain village on our way to...

Crater Lake! We arrived in the early afternoon and it was BEAUTIFUL!

After lunch we took a short drive up to Sunriver and stayed with some of Tracey's west coast friends in a lovely cabin in the woods. Our last night was relaxing with wine, games, and a dinner prepared by our hosts.

On our last day we made the trek back to Portland. Off to Bend where we shopped, nearly attended a rubber duck race, and finally found an open winery on the way to Mt. Hood.

We made it back to Portland with just enough time for dinner before Natalie and I took the red eye back to the East Coast/Midwest. It was a fantastic Oregon Trail adventure!!