Trip Through Columbia River Gorge

For Day 2 of our road trip to Glacier National Park we traveled North to Portland, Oregon to visit some friends for a short stop. We had an amazing brunch at Rae's Lakeside where we enjoyed French Toast with fresh blackberry sauce and creme and Ben enjoyed Dungeness Crab Florentine. Everything was mouthwatering good! We then drove about 30 minutes East to Gresham to catch up with some family friends. The Portland area was beautiful with forested green hills everywhere. We were told that Portland has the largest rainforest within a city limit in the U.S. 

We then continued East along the Columbia River through a luscious green gorge with high mountain sides along either side of the wide river. We caught glimpses of cascading waterfalls along the sides of the gorge. Some day we'd like to return to the area to explore the many hiking trails. As we continued East along the river, the land became more flat and brown, but we passed a few days, such as The Dalles, which was massive. We didn't see many boats out on the water, but there were a bunch a windsurfers along the river.

Eventually, we continued North through Spokane, Washington with the sun setting on the mountains turning them into true Purple Mountain Majesties! Our stop for the night is just over the border in Post Falls, Idaho. We'll be arriving in Glacier National Park tomorrow!

Day One of our One-year Anniversary Trip to Glacier National Park

How do we celebrate our first 365 days of marriage?? Take a much needed road trip to one of America's beautiful National Parks: Glacier National Park in northern Montana! For our first day of driving we did a straight shot up Interstate 5 from the San Francisco Bay Area to Eugene, Oregon. We stopped at the rest area at Lake Shasta- a beautiful stop- but were disappointed to see how truly low the water level was (see picture above).

Traveling into Oregon proved to be a windy adventure with rolling green hills - a stark contrast from central California's flat, dried grassy plains. Our stop for the evening is in Eugene, Oregon at the Valley River Inn. Since we are celebrating our One-year Anniversary, we upgraded to a river room where we have a beautiful view of the Willamette River that runs through Eugene. We had an awesome dinner riverside at the restaurant here where Ben enjoyed fresh Halibut and I tried Rack of Elk, which were both delicious! We topped off our day with a nice walk along the river.