Oregon and Northern Cali - Oct '09

Greg had the great opportunity to go to Portland for a geological conference. The conference was a few days long and we figured that if we're going to drive out there then we'd make it a trip! So I got a week off of work, cleaned the house, put up Halloween, and got in the car for a 10 hour drive up to Oregon.
Greg was presenting a "poster" at the conference of the work he has been doing on his dissertation. He was excited to share his work with others that actually understand what he's talking about, where as I just give him a blank stare and shake my head yes and tell him that's so awesome, keep up the good work ;-) haha, jk, I understand the simplified version of it, but not what he was saying to all those other geologist. He really enjoyed the conference though, he went to alot of really interesting talks and was able to meet up with a bunch of his old classmates from BYU who we went to dinner with.



While he was at the conference I went and walked around Portland. It is a beautiful city, trees everywhere. We were there right in the middle of fall so the trees were absolutely beautiful with all the colors. The city is nice too, lots of thing to go see, fun restaurants, and easy to get around.





This is the conference center where Greg had all his meetings.



Greg and his poster... this is technically a big kid science fair! He went to a lot of work to put this together and did a great job.





One afternoon we took off to go up to Mt. Hood, which is right outside of Portland. We drove up to the Timberline Lodge and started hiking up the mtn. It was good to get out of the city and get some fresh air and space. The whole area was amazing, mt hood is a dormant volcano that is waiting to erupt again.





This is about as high as we got till we had to turn around, Greg and I were both fighting colds and found it very hard to breathe as we were trekking up there.





The view towards the south. Another two volcanoes rising in the distance. There is a whole chain of these volcanoes more or less in a straight line running from Northern Cali to Washington. From Mt. Lassen, Mt. Shasta, Mt Hood, Mt. St. Helens, and Mt. Rainier. Pretty sweet pic though ;-)



From Portland we took off to the coast! The Oregon coast is one of the most amazing and beautiful coasts I have ever seen. I loved all the rocks, cliffs and vegetation. So worth the drive.







After the conference Greg and I took off to the coast and down, then cut off the took off east so we could see Crater Lake. On the way there we stopped at a lot of really cool places. This one was a little hike we did up to a waterfall. The vegetation was so thick and green it felt like we were in a rain forest.



This is an attempt gone wrong to take a panoramic picture, but I actually really thought it was cool and different



The waterfall



Another stop put us at some hot pots that we hiked to get to that overlooked a river below.



They were cascading, so there were about 7 different pools you could go into. It was really an amazing place.



We had to cross the river to get to the trail up to the hot pots. Not gonna lie, I was a little nervous to go over this!



Mt Thielsen. This was a stop at night to camp. After Portland, to help the funds, we camped. We found campsites, and lucky for us they were already closed for the season... meaning they were free! But I'm so glad we did, because you get to see so much more when your not stuck in a hotel room.



Good thing my civic is so little!!!



Greg and I hanging out in the tent!!! Temps were a little chilly, but really not to bad for the 23rd of Oct.



Unfortunately, for us Crater Lake was covered in a cloud and visibility was, well, not too great. The clouds did part for a second though and we were able to see some water and the island ;-)
Also in the pic below you can see just how steep and fast the land drops off to the lake. The lake it self is about 1,900 ft. deep! Incredible.





This was a fun waterfall that we stopped at. The man fishing there on the cliff had a rough day, but he did say he's caught "mighty big fish outta that 'em hole."



If you look close you can see me trying to size myself up to this giant sequoia. It was a Gi-normous! Couldn't even fit the whole tree in the pic.


These next pictures are one's that I thought were beautiful and we were just having fun with the camera and taking random pics.




























So these are a little out of order. This is the Oregon coast again. We were driving and saw a couple of road bikers stopped on the side of the road looking down the cliff with their cameras out. Like we would do in Yellowstone, we pulled off to see what was up. I'm so glad we did, because as soon as we opened the doors all we could hear is barking, hundreds of voices barking. What we found were about a thousand sea lions! There were all either lying on the rocks up against the cliffs or swimming in the water.





This picture alone you can see well over 500 sea lions up against the cliffs! They were so loud too!!!






Yes, this is a real billboard!!! And of course we had to stop and get some!
The town is called Weed and they definitely sold some pretty sweet t-shirts. By now we were in Northern Cali and gas had just jumped up about 30 cents a gallon. We stopped in Weed and ate lunch at a Italian place that wasn't too great, took some pictures of Mt. Shasta and then had to move on to make make it to our next camp spot.







Our last stop was Mt Lassen Nat. Park. This one actually erupted in the early 1900's.






We went on a hike that morning and got this picture. The hike was way fun and a nice break to get out of the car and stretch our legs. It was a 10 mile loop where we went past a bunch of lakes, kind of like the uintas.



Our last stop was this waterfall in Cali. It was a perfect ending to a great trip. We had tons of fun and saw so many amazing things. Oregon is a beautiful state, the east and west side, and I never knew that Northern Cali was so green and lush. It has such a different feel then Southern Cali and I loved it. A lot more laid back and the traffic is so much better!
It was great to get away, great to see new things and new places, great to sleep on the ground, great to cook meals outside and eat them by the fire.