Tuesday July 8th – Mary hill, Washington to Crescent City, California

We woke up early this morning, along with the sun – up and on the road by 9am! Fuelled up and drove along the interstate (back in Oregon, just south of the Columbia River) toward Portland. We saw some impressive scenery along the way, many steep cliffs – can hardly imagine what the Grand Canyon would look like! Saw The Dalles Dam in The Dalles. Stopped in Hood River to grab a quick breakfast – found Hood River Bagel Co in the downtown area. It just happened to have free wifi in the café, so I was able to post Monday’s update! A neat little town – apparently Hood River is popular for wind surfing. There were little surf shops all over.

Made a quick stop at Multnomah Falls – they are either second or third tallest in the world. I believe some falls in Venezuela are the tallest.

Arrived in Portland and took about a half hour to check out the downtown area. We ended up grabbing a Starbuck’s while there and tried to check out their wireless café to no avail. Turns out we needed to sign up for an account with a provider.

Decided we’d spent enough time there so we continued on our way, both mildly disappointed that we had not yet found any outlet malls. Our previously mapped out route had us continuing to Crescent City via Lincoln City. This is where we found the outlet shopping last year. But we determined that the interstate would be the quickest route. So we head south.

Driving along we saw a mall and wondered if maybe it was an outlet mall. After getting to Salem, we confirmed it was and decided to turn around and check it out. So back 27 km to do some shopping! We spent about 2 ½ hours checking out all the deals.

Grabbed a quick bite to eat at Arby’s and continued on toward Grant’s Pass. Fuelled up and switched drivers at Roseburg. Pushed through Grant’s Pass to Crescent City – only 1 ½ hours. This stretch was through the mountains and no longer interstate highway, so 1 lane of oncoming traffic along the winding roads hugging the cliffs. And just when we’d gotten use to 3 lanes divided!

Arrived in Crescent City around 10:30 and found a really nice room at the Lighthouse Inn – right off highway 101, just across the street from the marina. http://www.crescentcitylighthouseinn.com/
This is also near the Battery Point Lighthouse which we checked out last year.