Category: Travels

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Northern California Side Trips

We try to get out for a small adventure every day after Dale gets off work at 3pm. The whole time we’ve been on Pacific Time, he has maintained Central Time hours, so he works from 6-3! This isn’t easy but it does give us extra time in the afternoon....

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A Full Day of Redwoods

Saturdays are big days for us. Dale works all week and we attend a local church on Sundays, so I usually plan our biggest adventures for Saturday. This past weekend we walked close to 10 miles, mainly on two trails – The Boy Scout Tree Trail and the Grove of...

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QuikTrip: Trillium Falls Trail

Our first Thursday in McKinleyville, California we headed a half hour away to hike the Trillium Falls Trail. It was the perfect choice for our first deep dive into a Redwood Forest. Not only was it extremely beautiful, it was easy to access and had plenty of parking (which is...

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From Bend to McKinleyville

A Chronicle of our Drive to Northern California It’s a nine hour drive from Bend, Oregon to McKinleyville, California (our current location) if you go directly west to Florence, then hit the 101 headed south. That’s totally doable in one day. But why rush? Plus, my beloved likes to shoot...

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Fort Rock State Park

While many people headed to the lake or river, Dale and I spent Independence Day in the Desert! We visited Fort Rock State Park, which looks huge in the barren, immense flatness of Oregon’s high desert. It resembles a fort, but it’s actually an old shield volcano set in what...

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QuikTrip: Hidden Treasure Near Mount Bachelor

Mount Bachelor looms large in the distance almost everywhere you go in Bend, so Dale and I agreed we should check it out, even though it is primarily used for winter skiing. When we arrived we found a hive of mountain bikers buzzing around the parking lot and trails. There...

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The Deepest Lake in the United States

We started out the month of July with one of our most awe-inspiring trips yet – a visit to Crater Lake National Park. The sheer beauty of the crystal-clear, intensely blue waters is a sight that must be seen to be believed. When we finally got through the entrance gate...

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Falling for Oregon

It seems that many of our trips include waterfalls, which I love, and can’t get enough of. However, I understand that it may be a bit repetitive since they all look very similar, so I thought I’d put two waterfall trips into this one post. Tumalo Falls We visited Tumalo...

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Enough Lava to Make Me Quake!

Knowing what I know now, it’s embarrassing to say that we stumbled upon a lava field and cinder cone by accident. We thought we were going for a sweet little hike about 12 miles outside of Bend, but ended up on top of Lava Butte (yes, Dale and I made...

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Smith Rock State Park

On our third Saturday in Bend we headed about an hour north, near Terrebonne, to explore a very unique state park called Smith Rock. I think it is unique because of the extreme focus on it has on rock climbing. There are several thousand climbs in the park, including more...