Vannah Rucker Blog: Oregon 2014

I use this blog not only to inundate my very few readers, thanks mom, with the work I'm proud to publish as my own but to also highlight some of the things I do in my life. So, as you likely guessed it by my very blatant title, this posting is from our trip back in May of 2014 to Oregon. Hubbs and I love the Pacific NW and hope to find ourselves re-located here one day, but until then we visit annually and rekindle the love that we have long forgotten of one of our favorite places. We are not your typical travelers, no! We are very much a fly by the seat of your pants, lets drive everywhere, and do entirely too much whilst on vacation, kind of travelers.

This trip we had 6 days and in those 6 days we drove 2217 miles (not kidding), dined at 9 fine establishments 2 really superb establishments and 3 terrible establishments, had several coffees from those little coffee shacks we love so much in the PNW, dined with old friends and met new ones, ran into a gentleman at the grocery store in PORTLAND that knows people we know in our little town of Pahrump, listened to techno music in our rented Kia whose commercial contains giant gerbils driving the car listening to techno (YESSS!), toured the OR and WA countryside, watched 1 very terrible movie, fed 3 homeless dudes Subway, saw one of the greatest creations of mankind - the Spruce Goose (ok, I'm flying my nerd flag here, we LOVE aviation museums!), saw 7 absolutely gorgeous waterfalls, visited Crater Lake, toured the Columbia Gorge, was nearly killed by Gandolph on our way home on a lonely pitch black road at 3am, and did even more nerdy ridiculously touristy things than I have mentioned. All in all a fabulous-wouldn't take it back for $1 million bucks-kind of trip... well maybe for a million bucks:)

Now that my words have explained our hell-of-a-trip here are the visuals:

One of the random antique stores I found myself visitng, this one in Camas, WA.

Columbia Gorge day, and it was amazing.

The Spruce Goose! HUGE!!

The first plane to fly from Portland to NYC, it took several DAYS! Imagine being in this plane, for DAYS. No, no thank you.

Inside the Spruce Goose, it holds 6 military tanks, lots of troops, and tons of equipment. Howard Hughes designed the plane and had the wings filled with those beach balls to help keep the plane buoyant, and wouldn't you know it 60 years later the beach balls still hold air? In recent years the air museum tasked several toy makers to replicate these beach balls and most of the balls that were made lost their air within 2 days not even coming close to these original balls. Also, in recent years the plane was put through a series of tests by aeronautical engineers from England to see if this beast of a plane would fly, and per their results this plane would have been able to complete flights to and from the war zone of WWII with no issue!! Its made of WOOD, not metal. Crazy. Absolutely crazy.

Each Japanese flad on this plane indicates the number of kills this fighter pilot had.

Yes, hubbs found a flight game and a really cool old dude to hang out with:)

Why yes, I'm pointing to where we are on the road with my licorice.

Dont mind the weird stance, I was slipping in my BOAT shoes in the snow. Ridiculous. Snow in May? Wow, I planned terribly.

Gosh this guy is good looking:)

Crater Lake, one of the deepest lakes on the continent at 1700+ feet deep. The park is only open 5 months of the year with boating and touring only 3 months of the year, due to its high elevation snow sticks through much of the year and makes most activities impossible 9 months of the year.