Roadtrip life: Crater Lake National Park, Redwood National Park

Follow the adventure of your dreams!

We started our journey in Western Canada, crossed the border to the US, travelled the Pacific Northwest, and yes, finally, we've made it down to Cali! Both of us have been California dreaming for like 9 months (that this visit needs to happen was planned well ahead) and we were so close now! But first, we did a little detour to visit our first American National Park (NP), Crater Lake NP! Being fed up with cities already, we very much welcomed this adventure into nature. It was like a 600km detour, so this better be good! 

Crater Lake

And WOW.

No dissappointment here. So pretty. So incredibly pretty!! A former volcano, and in its old crater a lake has formed. The color was the bluest of blue and you can drive all around this beauty (about 67km).
Obviously we were sharing this pretty view with an incredible amount of tourists, something that took some time getting used to. In the end, we were tourists as well, but you can be a tourist, or you can try a little more and don't act like stupid dumbasses from backcountry wherever. A little respect, everyone!

The Pinnacles

We took another detour to see the Pinnacles which where advertised in the brochure you get when entering the NP. Some more evidence that this, indeed has been an active volcano at some point. Very impressive, and for me, who never has been close to any volvano, active or not, specifically awe-inspiring.

And then: CALIFORNIA!!

Just entering California coming down Highway 101 from the North, you are going to drive through the Redwood forest. Redwood trees, giants of the nature!
For those who don't know: I studied Biology (and Krissy as well) and although I am not particularly interested in botany, this was great. We talked about these wonders of the nature in lectures but it's different to finally see the real thing!

Huge, huge, HUGE

You could literally hide IN the tree.

And you just find again how small and insiginifcant you actually are

There's trees growing on trees. How cool is that?

You drive right through this dense forrest. We stopped a couple of times and did a little exploring. Climbing onto those huge trunks can be a little mission! There's alway time to fool around a little ;D The inner child will never die... ALSO we found a (cheap!) campsite in the Redwood Forrest. It was an amazing experience to camp underneath the gentle giants. Furthermore, our campground neighbours were a friendly couple traveling on motorcycles from no other place then Calgary, Alberta, Canada. What a small world. We enjoyed great conversations with these lovely people! (You can't say that about a lot of campgrounds we stayed on)

First glimpses of California beaches :)

Why this place was called Elk Meadows... I don't know ;)

Unforutnately I can't remember the name of this tiny town, but it did have a very pretty view!

 The next night in California we spent in Eureka, a bit of a bigger beach town because we were hoping to find a garage. By this time, our car was making very weird squeeching (whatever the proper word for that is). And yes, we did forget that it was actually Sunday. Even in America no auto garage is open Sundays. So we had to take the risk and drive some more the next day as we had an Airb'n'b booked in San Francisco. We had to be there in 2 days time and it was still quite a drive.

Dead on Sundays...

... we took a littel stroll around anyway.

Roadtrip life: Crossing the border and exploring part of the Northwestern US

This time, I'd like to start with a little quote.
"See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made of paid for in factories" said  Ray Bradbury. Very true I find. I hope reading this makes you want to go and explore by yourself for a little as well!

Back in July, I started writing about Krissy's and mine roadtrip through Western Canada and the US. If you haven't read the first article yet, you can click here to catch up on the first stops of our adventure :)

We said goodbye to Thea in Victoria on Vancouver Island and now it was just Krissy and me traveling by ourselves. We crossed over by ferry from Vancouver Island back to the mainland and drove the last couple of kilometers down to the border. Where, of course, our car got searched and we had to wait for quite some time. Bureauocracy (if this is how your write it... but you get what I mean) is a slow b***h. BUT everything was fine and we were 'mildly' excited (means we actually freaked out a little). Just before Seattle, we hit some outlets and did some shopping already. Of course. And we purchased our most loved pieces of clothing for the whole roadtrip (it'll become obvious to you guys as well which ones it is ;D).

The first night in the car was... interesting. Not yet professionals in finding the best spots, we parked on a Walmart parking lot. It was bright and noisy and we just did not sleep well. Later on we found that it just needs practice to find a good spot and, also, that the best one's are definitely not on a Walmart parking lot, but it was a good learning experience. 

Sunny Seattle

The next day, we hit downtown Seattle and went to see the Pike Place Market, the first Starbucks store and the Space Needle and a couple of other things. Krissy had a friend in Seattle whom we met in the afternoon and who kindly offered a place to stay for the night. After being on the road for a while already, having a real bed in a real house was just HEAVEN.

The first Starbucks on Pike Place

Seattle skies

NEXT STOP: Seaside, Oregon! And what a pretty little town! We overestimated the summer in the Pacific Northwest a little, so it turned out to look super nice, but still only be like 20°C... Well. No one and nothing was keeping us from going to the beach for a little while! Also, it turned out to be way easier to find somewhere to sleep in the car in small towns. We found the most awesome spot and finally had a calm night in the car.

Empty beaches

Setting up our camp: Always taking a little Canada with us

Cute promenade

We left early in the morning to drive into Portland and spent a day in this city. By that time we were already a bit fed up with visiting cities, but Portland turned out to be very refreshing and for an American city unusually pretty. There is a huge park right by downtown where we spent a lazy afternoon. It was about 30°C that day and just too hot to get super crazy with sightseeing. We made plans for having a drink in one of the countless microbreweries, but got super lost in all the one-way streets and I got so annoyed that we just drove out of town again. But nevertheless, one of the very few American cities where I think I could possibly live in.

Kids playing in the fountain

Oregon sunsets

We did a little googleing and mapping by ourselves and decided we were going to a place called Newport, Oregon next. Turned out to not have a real plan and do a day-to-day assessment of the situation worked best for us. It is kind of liberating not have to be anywhere at a specific time! After a beautiful sunset and another calm night in the car in Oregon country (yes, we were getting better at this) we made our way to this tiny town. I think this was as close as it gets to an 'old town' in the US. We spent some time at the pretty beach and ended our visit with a coffee (HOW ELSE??? P.S. WE <3 COFFEE)

Beautiful, windy and empty beaches.

The town center: Welcome to Nye Beach! (Nye Beach is the old name for the town)

The next day we did a must-stop: The famous Oregon dunes! This was very fascinating. You would think you were in the middle of the desert - well, turns out the ocean was a 5 minute walk away and this sandy landscape seemed a bit random. Pictures say more than words, so just take in this view. You can see that we were literally the only people by foot around there. Everyone was going at it in Quads and beach buggies which looked like a whole hell of a lot of fun. Well, as we were traveling on a budget we had to pass on that one, but nevertheless, this was awesome!

People on quads going at it

Just our footsteps in the endless sand

Found the ocean!

Concquered the dune...

... and down again!

This is it for now, but I am going to take you to California and a lot more beautiful places in the upcoming weeks! Stay tuned ;)