The Tree Hugger In Me: Eugene to the Redwoods

In two weekends of road trip extravaganzas and less than seven days, Sarah and I drove the entire state of Oregon twice – plus some if you count those wrong turns.

This past weekend to finish off the southern half of the state and check another off the Bucket List, we travel three hours south of Eugene to Ashland to visit friends. With another late start, we swerved through the curvy, valley-filled turns of I-5 South during sunset for some miraculous palate splashes against the wooded hillsides.

Line of traffic as the sun sets

Quizzing Sarah on vocab with my feet up on the dash, I made inane sentences in hope that she would remember them for her GRE test on Monday – but in reality it just made us laugh until we cried and miss our exit. Luckily we noticed just in time before crossing into California at one of those creepily pitch black turnarounds like where horror stories start.

After catching up with our friends, we hit downtown Ashland to explore and grab a drink. Stopping at one of the only open clothing stores on the way to the pub, I found an “Oregon, America’s Happy Place” shirt that I just had to have and ultimately ordered online once home. Then we continued to the Black Sheep for an authentic British beer at this English style pub. With high ceilings and long dark drapes against the memorabilia covered walls and red telephone booth in the corner, the pub added interest to the evening and a few wise-crack accents.

Yet this bar was not our only foreign trek of the weekend. Rising and shining, the next morning we set off for the wild and unknown land to our south –California!

In two hours time we crossed the border – no fruit in hand of course – and made our way into the Redwood forests.  In the land of the giants we exploded these towering limbs that burst from the ground at Jedediah Smith State Park. Filled with dense undercover of ferns, the whole forest circled upward in a gradient of green and brown to the sun break branches. Here I found out that I truly am a tree hugger!

Sarah and I LOVE TREES!

After enough bug bitten time in the forests we spent the remainder of the afternoon playing in the river, jumping off roads and hiking up the beautiful shallow stream.

Here are more photos from the trip:

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