Day 24 - It's Time to Head Home!

I got up at 7:00 AM to bird in the mountains one last time.  We packed up and left the campground at 8:20. We drove down the road a ways to do one more Redwoods hike.  The Simpson-Reed Trail proved to be one of our favorites with many giant trees and downed trees. The fern undergrowth and bridges were really neat too.

Now we are on our way to Portland. The interstate through the mountains is not easy to drive. We must both have vacation letdown because we are both really tired today. 

10:05:  We are greeted by the "Welcome to Oregon" sign.  The state has pretty country with conifer-covered hills and open meadows.  Oregon does not have self-serve gas, so that is really different.

We have a nice view of Mt. Hood and Mt. Ranier from the interstate, so that is nice, but we arrived in the Portland area at the worst time! It is rush hour and the four lanes are barely moving.  We will be so glad to get out of here!  It took us 2 hours to go 20 miles.

The drive along the Columbia River went on for many, many miles. It had a couple of large powerhouses and huge barges and ships.  The landscape was beautiful! There are also vineyards and orchards along the way.  We stopped at a cherry stand and got a bucketful of Ranier Cherries for $10. They were delicious!

7:00 PM We saw the sign: "Welcome to Washington". Its 7:45 PM and we are behind schedule. The traffic in Portland really slowed us down.  It's been a long day in the car, but we are hanging in there.

It's 9:00 PM and we found a motel room in Kennewick, WA.  It's time to get out of the car as we've been on the road for almost 12 hours, but we covered some ground and saw some interesting places today.

I birded near the clear stream this morning.

Photos cannot capture the grandeur of these Redwoods.  I guess I'd say you need to plan a trip to see them.  They are breath taking!

Here's Brad by a Redwood tree.

Check out the size of that fallen Redwood on the right.

The roots of this fallen Redwood are huge too.

Mt. Hood