Road Trip!

Friday Fave Fives for a catch up of Willow's Wanderings.

We were road tripping for two weeks, so I didn't add any posts here at Willow's Cottage.  Now it's time to catch up!  We did so much!  Celebrating with my brother and sister-in-law.  We share our wedding anniversary, so if we are together on that day, we celebrate!  We hiked.  We reconnected with other family and friends.

1.  Yes, we were in Portland, Oregon, my hometown.

The Willamette River flows through all of my memories.  Crossing the river every day to attend high school.  Riding over the new bridge in my brother's black convertible with the top down when I was sixteen.  This time, we walked the new walking bridge, Tilikum Crossing, over the Willamette and then crossed again on one of the other bridges.  Downtown Portland is ideally designed with walking paths on both sides of the river and the bridges connecting east and west sides.

2.  We also hiked in Forest Park, the eight square mile park in the Tualatin Mountains west of downtown.  I love hiking among the fir trees of my childhood.

3.  On our way back home, we drove through coastal southern Oregon which is where my father was born and lived his childhood.  I still have family there and we enjoyed a short visit with a cousin.  The drive along the Umpqua River and the Pacific Ocean brought back so many memories.

4.  The Professor and I both have roots in Northern Coastal California.  He attended high school in Humboldt County, so of course we stopped there overnight.  And of course we had to hike around the Redwoods Park in Arcata.

5.  On our trip we visited three national parks.  I mentioned Mt. Lassen earlier, but we added Redwood National Park/Forest and Pinnacles National Park to our list of 'parks visited'.  We drove up a narrow windy road to one of the Pacific Ocean view points in the Redwood National Forest thinking we would have a stunning view.  Although it was not what we expected, it was still spectacular.  White cloud bank covering the entire ocean and sweeping up to the tops of the coastal cliffs.

Pinnacles:  very hot and dry in the summer!

But there's no place like home!  A familiar view of the Pacific Ocean along Highway 101 in our county.