Whirlwind tour of Tucson and San Diego!

Now this was a trip! We planned this last year, but airfare prices doubled in the meantime. The budget being what it was, we just threw everything in the ol' PT Cruiser and headed south. We drove for about 12 hours, stopped near Sacramento, then drove another 12 hours to Tucson. We took a quick break in Phoenix to visit with our friend Jeff Marcille and his lovely family. Yep, he's still a tech geek. Great dog too. Hopefully next time we can meet up with the rest of our old friends. We spent 3 days in Tucson visiting family, hiking the Sabino Canyon, and visiting the Desert Museum. While we were at it, we setup Carol with a Macbook so she could begin her big adventure on the web. Then, we hightailed it over to San Diego. That's a nice little trip, the scenery is nice around the dunes west of Yuma, and the rocky foothills going into California. Seaworld was cool, and the Electric Flyers of San Diego were showing off their planes at a nearby park. Very cool. Seaworld was seaworld, recommended, as was the San Diego Zoo. Next time we will plan an extra day to hit all the museums in the area around Balboa Park. So, here we are, back at home and recovering from our sunburns. Woo!

Thanksgiving 2007 in Azalea, OR

Well, it was sort of a last minute thing, but we were able to run down to visit our relatives in Azalea for Thanksgiving. I wish we could visit more often, but at least once a year isn't too bad. My aunt had some long lost relatives visiting from out of state, they hadn't seen them for over 50 years. I got to see some of my cousins, Kyle got to spend some time with his cousins, and Sharon got to visit and show off her famous cranberry sauce. The trailer towed great, but the door lock failed twice, causing some damage to the door when it opened on the highway. I was able to jam a piece of wood in the handle for the remainder of the trip. We had a comfortable night, but it was a little nippy the next morning, check out the frost!

Silver Falls state park

Well, we just got back from a trip to Silver Falls. It definitely has a few things going for it. One, it's very close to Portland, less than an hour and a half towing a trailer. Heck, I can't hardly drive across Portland in an hour and a half during rush hour. Two, you can get there without ever going on the main highways. We took 213 to to Silverton, then 214 to Silver Falls. Beautiful farming land, lots of interesting scenery. Three, very nice accomodations. We had spot #6, and it was comfortable, good shade and near the entrance. Water and electric, but no sewer, unfortunately. We found out our grey water tank is good for about 3 showers and some dishwashing. :-). Four, great hiking. The falls have some amazing scenery around them. Not a great amount of water running through in the summer, but the rock cutouts and trails under them are worth the trip. Be prepared for some elevation changes, you had better be in shape to walk 5 miles, sometimes up some serious inclines. The trails were generally wide and well manicured. We arrived around 5 PM and set up camp, which took about ten minutes with the trailer, totally awesome. Broiled some steak on the stove (eh), napped, kicked back and read books. The next morning, Phil and his son Jules (2 yr old) showed up for an afternoon visit. We took off on the short trail to see some falls around Noon, got back around 4 with some aching legs. Ate some PB&J, had some watermelon from our garden, mmm. Rested and read more books, finally got to see Napoleon Dynamite. Grilled some steak on the campfire (yum) and stayed up and watched the night sky for an hour, saw 3 shooting stars! Grilled marshmallows between chocolate cookies for desert. Slept in the next morning, ran back home by Noon. Woohoo! School starts tomorrow. Summer is over!


Silver Falls state park web page

Swift Shore Park, West Linn, OR

A few days ago we went to the local Swiftshore Park in West Linn. It's a tiny little trail that starts between two houses and goes down to one of the rivers. There is a great little swimming hole, with some scary rope swings for the really brave.
Swift Shore park google map

Lake Cushman - Hoodsport, WA

Our good friends Tim & Shannyn live year-round at Lake Cushman in Hoodsport, WA. We spent a couple of days there and got to see the Saturday fireworks show. They were a little short handed, so Tim asked me to help setup for the Hoodsport fireworks show. I said yes, and got to get closeup and dirty with some scary looking boxes of fireworks. The show was really well done, and the finale was quite spectacular. The next day we went tubing on the lake for a bit, and then made S'Mores by the campfire. Mmmm...

Fort Columbia

While driving around, we stopped at Fort Columbia on the Washington side of the mouth of the Columbia River. Very impressive for a 100 year old fort.

Independance Day!

Wow, what a day. We went out and did some shopping for a couple of books to read, stopped at a few parks in the area, then waited until sunset to wander down to the beach and enjoy the festivities. What a zoo! It was more than we expected. Hundreds if not thousands of cars and trucks on the beach for miles, and practically everyone was lighting off fireworks. We finally left 2 hours after sunset, and the show was only then starting to wind down. Wow. Best show we've seen in years.