Oregon Adventure

I'm still coming off the high from our fantastic trip to Oregon last week. Having only visited the Pacific Northwest for the first time in the fall (to Seattle/Tacoma), I'm so glad we had the chance to head out there again to do a bit more exploring!

Here are some of my favorite photos from throughout our journey.

Here's a pretty gorge we passed on the drive from Portland to Sunriver. I also love how the suspended bridge looks like it's sitting right beneath the mountains.

Although the subject matter isn't funny, K and I had a good laugh over this sign's image.

We stayed in a house with K's entire immediate family, so there were 11 of us total, including her five-week-old niece. Here's an early morning shot of our backyard. It's one of my faves from this trip.

We also had a nice little view of Mt. Bachelor in the distance and were only a few minutes away from the Deschutes River. One day, K's sister and brother-in-law went into town and got cheap inflatable tubes and we spent the better part of the afternoon floating down the river. It was heavenly. We also got to raft and canoe on other parts of the river during the week!

This is the photo from the top of Lava Butte, which is a cinder cone and part of the Newberry National Volcanic Monument. This is the crater at the top, and you can see where the lava descended into the forest below. We had several mini panic attacks here, trying to make sure K's three-year-old nephew didn't fall into the crater while running around!

Here's a pretty shot from our day trip to Sisters, a small town northwest of Bend. As someone who was obsessed with Oregon Trail growing up and is still interested in pioneer history, it was really cool to see details like this throughout our trip. Some of my highlights were driving and rafting past parts of the original Oregon Trail, since you can still see some of the tracks from the wagon wheels.

Me, in my traveling clothes, in front of the Three Sisters mountains. From left to right are South Sister, Middle Sister, and North Sister, also referred to as Charity, Hope, and Faith. Although they don't look like a whole lot here, they're the third through fifth tallest peaks in Oregon.

On our way back to the airport in Portland, we swung through Salem to visit Willamette University, K's alma mater. Don't you wish your campus had a pretty river running through it?

Our final stop before catching our flights was the Portland Rose Garden, which I'll be dedicating a separate post to sometime soon. For now, a shot of some of the prettiest flowers I saw there.

So, there's the recap of our trip in nine photos. I'm already wishing we had more time there to explore Portland, Eugene, and the coast. I definitely have plans for us to return eventually! What about you- have you ever been to Oregon? What are some of your Pacific Northwest must-sees?