Our Oregon Trail

On Saturday evening Brad and I flew to LAX to begin our trip to Oregon to visit his parents. We decided to drive up and enjoy the scenery along the way. It was a long two-day trip of over 900 miles, but there was a lot to take in. Saturday's attractions were mostly agricultural. We saw lots of truckloads of produce, like this tomato truck.


We also saw lots of interesting plants, like these cotton flowers. (Who knew that cotton plants produce such beautiful flowers? We sure didn't.) We also saw pistachio and almond trees, flowers, grape plants, and table grapes, just to name a few. We took some smaller highways so we could stop and see the plants up close. We've both been through the San Joaquin Valley many times before, but it's always fun to see all the agriculture.


I have too many photos of too many types of plants to show you. So here's a favorite. These are almonds on the tree.


On Sunday we left out hotel in Ukiah, California (in southern Mendocino County) and drove through redwoods on US 101. These redwood forests were in far Northern California - farther north than I've ever been - and by that I mean Humboldt and Del Norte Counties. We saw a lot of huge trees and between the trees, the hills, and the ocean, we saw what seemed like endless beautiful sights all day long.


This photo was taken along a side trip we took to an area called Avenue of the Giants. We look like Lilliputians next to these trees! One particular tree we saw - not this one, but one about this size - was reputed to be 2400 years old. These were virgin forests, but we also saw a lot of redwood logging activity going on in that part of the state.


Lest you think it's just gorgeous scenery, we also saw a lot of kitsch along the way. There was a roadside stop to see Bigfoot, there were many drive-through redwood trees (and we succumbed to the first one we saw and are $5 poorer to prove it), there was an entire house carved into a redwood, a redwood tree with a hole in the top that's advertised as a "tree chimney," and a forest of life-sized dinosaur statues. We laughed at all of those, but we were absolutely AGHAST at seeing Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox at this roadside stop near the California-Oregon border. It's as though gullible tourists are supposed to believe that these two call the redwood forest their home - when everyone knows they are really from the Northwoods!


On and on we drove on Monday, and we finally made it to Oregon and specifically to Coos Bay, where Brad's parents are staying. We're here enjoying our visit and seeing some more pretty scenery, which will be the subject of my next post!