Dave's PhotoJournal for June 21st

Leave Seattle, Washington, 7:56 AM. Trip: 0.0   Odometer: 51,441

Arrive Camp site near Sisters, Oregon, approx 9:00 PM. Trip: 402.1   Odometer: 51,843

Left Seattle today for my second road trip, this time with Julie. She had a week between classes, so we decided to drive down to San Francisco, and drive the Pacific coast back up to Seattle. The original plan was to head straight down there, via I-5, then back along 101 / 1, along the coast all the way. However, that plan didn't even make it 10 miles through Oregon.

We drove south through Washington on I-5, and had the wonderful idea of stopping at the Sushi Land in Clackamas, Oregon for lunch, because we could. We pulled off the highway once we got to Clackamas (a suburb of Portland), found a payphone, and looked it up in the phonebook. Turns out that the shopping center we stopped at to look at the phone book was the same shopping center that Sushi Land was in. Wow! What a coincidence.

After lunch, we decided that, instead of taking I-5 through Oregon, it would be more interesting if we headed east on Highway 26 to Mt. Hood, then headed south on the eastern side of the Oregon Cascades down to Bend, so we could visit Mt. Bachelor. That's as far as we got today.

We started looking for a place to camp when we got to Bend, but none of the RV parks seemed to be familiar with the idea of tent camping. KOA would let us use a tent, but they wanted ** 31 DOLLARS ** for a tent site!! A couple RV parks that would let us use tents tried to charge us the RV rate, which was anywhere from 20-30 dollars. We found a city park in Sisters that had a tent campground, but they wanted 10 bucks, and they had no shower. Not really worth the 10 bucks. So, we decided to pitch the tent in the national forest near Camp Sherman, right next to Black Butte in fact.

The view from the car when we were pulling out of the driveway. We were dodging rain all day. I had a fresh coat of Rain X on my windshield.

Julie and I in the car, ready to leave.

Target in Clackamas, Oregon. This is where we pulled out to look for Sushi Land in the phone book. Turns out it was at the opposite end of the same shopping center.

Sushi Land! I can't believe we're here! All those times I had looked at the back of the chopstick wrapper at the locations in Oregon, wondering what it would be like to eat there.. and here we are!

Julie and my car ready to eat at Sushi Land. Sadly, we had to leave the car outside.

Yeah, that's the same Sushi Land that we have here in Bellevue.

Julie grabbing sushi from the conveyor belt.

View of the conveyor belt from where I was sitting.

Me at sushi land.

The cute little etamame container. They don't have those at the Sushi Land in Bellevue.

Who ever dreamed that I'd be at the Sushi Land in the Clackamas Promenade...

Some of my sushi. A California roll, salmon, and spicy yellowtail.

Probably no need to stop...

Not entirely sure why I took this picture, or what it's of. But it was rainy and crappy all the way from Portland past Mt. Hood.

Driving through the rainy forest near Mt. Hood.

Flat lands past Mt. Hood. I'm fairly sure this was somewhere in the middle of the Warm Springs Indian Reservation.

Looking south/southwest at some of the storms over the mountains.

Approaching the town of Warm Springs.

Entering Warm Springs.

Got caught in more rain. I believe this was in Madras, a little ways south of Warm Springs.

I'm fairly sure this is a little north of Redmond, which is a little ways north of Bend.

Another view from nearly the same spot.

Stopped at some view point / rest area. I forgot to take a picture of the sign, so I don't remember what it was, but this is the parking lot. Looking at my atlas, it's possible that it's the Peter Skene Ogden St. Scenic Viewpoint, but who knows. It was a big gorge with a bridge over it. Nice, steep, big cliffs on either side.

Supervise children at all times

No pets allowed

Looking north at the gorge and the bridge.

Looking south at the gorge and other bridge.

Julie playing around with my camera, taking pictures of herself.

Smiley Julie.

Cool clouds near Bend, as we were looking for a camp site. We didn't find anything near Bend, so we headed toward Sisters, thinking we might find something along the way, or if nothing else, there was a KOA.

Too bad KOA wanted ** 31 DOLLARS ** !!! There was this little park just outside of Sisters that had camping, but we didn't want to pay 10 dollars if they didn't have showers for tomorrow morning. We decided to just find a spot in the forest instead.

A vulture along State Highway 126. There was a dead deer on the ground, and 5 or 6 vultures were waiting for us to leave so they could dine on it.

Julie setting up camp. I know, it looks like I made her do all the work, but in reality, she was just posing with the tent. Soon she sat down and let me do all the work. It's okay though, she never reads the journal anyway.

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