Day 3

We left Butte, MT and wanted to put some miles behind us today as we have been doing a lot of site seeing the last couple days. The Montana country side was very nice and full of many antelope. We stopped in Coeur d’Alene for lunch at a local Italian restaurant and a walk along the lake. It was a nice town in Idaho. After we left Coeur d’Alene we headed west again. We went through Washington on our way to Oregon. As we entered Oregon it began to rain and continued throughout the night. On our way to Portland we traveled the Northern border of Oregon along the Columbia River. It was very scenic with mountains and hills along each side of the river. We arrived in Portland earlier enough in the night to go out for a nice relaxing meal. We decided to travel into the heart of Portland to see what we could find. We quickly realized that Portland is hard to navigate at night with the rain coming down and the map back in the hotel room. Not to mention the hundreds of people coming out of the Rose Garden after a Trailblazers scrimmage. After we got out of the heart of the city we found a nice little local brewery called Laurelwoods to have dinner and a beer to top off a long day in the car.


Day 4

Our last day on the road was more about exploring our new state as we only had about 180 miles left to Florence. We left Portland and headed to the coast and the town of Tillamook. It was still raining as we wanted to do some hiking however Erica had no rain gear. We stopped at a local sporting goods store for her to get her first rain suit. She looks like a true Oregonian now. We toured the Tillamook Cheese Factory and had some fresh ice cream and cheese. While we were leaving the cheese factory we noticed a flyer for a Seafood festival in town. Hmmm… we thought as we hadn’t had lunch yet but already had dessert. We took the flyer and headed toward the coast to see the Ocean. We saw some great overlooks and a lighthouse, which is not in use anymore but still there. As we headed away from the coast we were brought back into Tillamook and to the Seafood Festival we went. There were many local restaurants, brewery’s and winerys that had some of there stuff for us to eat and drink. It was a good lunch as we had some Salmon Chowder and a Seafood Alfredo. Good stuff. They also had many local artists, designers and jewelry makers. We headed down the coast after lunch and just out of town we saw a herd of Elk. Really cool. As we continued down the Oregon Costal Byway, which is absolutely amazing we saw many great places we could have stopped but pressed on towards Florence. We did make a quick detour to a small sign that said Falls. It was a one lane dirt road about 3 miles straight into the forest. Then we had to walk another ½ mile to see the amazing falls. One of many I am sure.

We got to Florence about 6 pm and found our house for the next three months. Saturday night we went out to a local seafood restaurant. Some crab, shrimp and steak were good. Then we found a couple local bars to have a beer to welcome us home.