N46° 11.705′ W 123° 46.496'
Those coordinates mark the northernmost point of our trip to Oregon, in Astoria where the state meets the Columbia River, with Washington state on the other bank.
We also reached into West 124° at my in-law’s place, something we don’t do all that often. In California, to get that far west you have to go up to around N40° to have any land to stand upon.
Our annual holiday trip to Oregon this year brought us 1,871 miles of driving and we spent at least 4 (and usually much more) hours in the car on 6 of the 7 days, which was a bit much even for me. By the end of the week I was also sick of the road trip meals of burgers, fries, and other heavy staples, and for the next week all I could think of were salads.
Despite those symptoms of road fatigue, is was a really good trip and visit with Carrie’s numerous relatives who live up there. I even managed 90 minutes of free personal time on the day after Thanksgiving and promptly racked up eight geocache fins around Lincoln City, after exploring a couple of the back roads and trails north of Devil’s Lake.
The weather was surprisingly good for our visit. It was cold in the mornings and evenings (30-40F, with overnights lower) and the 25th was overcast with some light sprinkles, but overall things were sunnier than usual.
Oregon has some great small cities, like Salem and Astoria, and small towns like Silverton and so many others. After having explored the reaches of the San Francisco bay area for so many years, it’s daunting to think of how much time it would take to even scratch the surface of an entire state like Oregon. I kept thinking that it was an injustice not to be able to write long posts on so many of the charming towns and areas there.
We took our usual route, from San Jose up through the east bay, east towards Sacramento, then north on 505 to 5 which we take all the way up to Salem before finally heading west to the Oregon coast. For me, the best scenery starts around Redding, so there’s a very long stretch between there and San Jose that’s not so great.
The rest of the trip though has plenty of pleasant areas to gaze upon and explore as we have time do do so. Unfortunately, on these trips time is at a premium and exploring the backroads and unique locations isn’t my main focus. That said, we saw plenty of interesting sites, more than enough to fill up a new photo gallery. Be sure to check out the captions below most of the pictures.
All in all, a fine Thanksgiving week.