Last Day in Oregon

Today marks our last full day in the great state of Oregon.  Although we have concentrated our exploring to the western portion, we feel like we have broadened our appreciation and understanding of the state since our arrival here on June 20th.  We have visited two of the four National Park units (Fort Clatsop and Crater Lake), toured the capitol building, and hiked on the highest peak.  We have spent some time in the states largest city and driven all but about 80 miles of its coastline, what many would say is its most remarkable feature.  Certainly, there is more of Oregon out there that we haven’t seen than what we have, but that only means we’ll have to come back some day.

Gene and I have a habit at the end of the day of asking each other “what was your favorite part of today”.  We got started doing this in 2003 when we did our first long distance hike on the Appalachian Trail.  It is a simple question, but it requires us to reflect on our day and focus on the positive parts rather than the negative.  We have continued that practice and always, without exception, our favorite moments are those we share with friends.  We have been blessed during the past 5 weeks of having the opportunity of visiting with 2 different full-timing couples and meeting and making friends with several others.

Since we are practically in Washington already (if the trees weren’t so tall in the campground, we could see it from here), we have only a short distance to travel tomorrow to put us in the vicinity of Mt Rainier.  We don’t plan a crack of dawn departure.  However, Washington has been in our scopes for 3 years and we are anxious to get there.  I doubt we linger here long tomorrow.

We are going to a campground that does not have cable TV and does not have WiFi.  If you don’t hear from me tomorrow, it will be because they also don’t have a Verizon signal for my air card.

So long Oregon, it’s been great.