Bandon to Boardman to Grants Pass

Other than an amazing Italian restaurant, there was not a ton in Bandon. It is now home to a famous golf course, but we weren't aware of that until we'd left town- ha! We left our hotel (the only non- Holiday Inn Express that we stayed in the entire trip simply because there was not one nearby!) without breakfast because theirs was lame. We thought we'd see something along the way to our morning's hike. We were wrong. I made a 71.5 year old woman hike over 3 miles without feeding her!!! Whoops! Ok, fine, I did give her a Kind bar so she wasn't just starved! 

I kept seeing posts about Samuel Boardman State Park on Instagram and it did not disappoint. It is right along the 101 and just amazing.

Arch Rock

Samuel H. Boardman State Park is GORGEOUS

No words.

Susan ready to hike

The steep drop off

A walk through the woods...

The view

A clearing

Finishing the last climb

Feeling victorious after a 3 mile hike

We intended to do a further hike, but the trail got really steep and jagged and we didn't want to risk injury so we turned back. I also think we might have been hungry and we hadn't seen a single other hiker which was both cool and a little worrisome -ha!

We finished visiting the 12 mile park by pulling off at each viewing point and walking around. It was a beautiful day!

Whale Rock

Room for Jackson in this selfie
:(

One of the pull-offs had beach access so we helped ourselves!

Beach walk

Such a pretty beach

After all of that I did finally feed Susan. McDonald's. True. Story.

From there we followed the 101 to the California state line. We decided to explore the Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park in Crescent City, CA since our morning hike was cut short. If you're a loyal blog reader you know that I love trees. You also know that we've seen giant sequoia trees so I thought my days of being impressed by a tree's size were over. I was wrong! In case you wanted to know the difference between the two kinds of trees it comes down to this: the giant sequoia is the largest tree in the world in volume and has an immense trunk with very slight taper; the redwood is the world's tallest tree and has a slender trunk. Now you know.

REDWOODS

Susan taking a quick break

Did it make a sound when it fell?!

A LARGE log

Susan dwarfed by the tree!

We left the woods and headed back into Oregon to go North this time to make our way to Portland for the wedding. We drove through the mountains with the windows down letting the 102 degree air whip us around like clothes in a drier. It was awesome!

View from the room--not bad!

We stayed for the evening in Grants Pass, OR. We had a nice view of the Cascade Mountains from our room.

Smelling her wine

Oregon is actually known for its wine (you know, like Northern California since they're neighbors and all) so Susan wanted to try some out. Good thing she had a DD available!

Bread and water for me

The wine bar we went to was so fancy that I couldn't find anything on their menu to eat. True story. Susan tasted her pinot noir wine flight, bought a bottle and we headed out for Mexican food. Win!