Landing in Kauai
We were invited to join my extended family for a trip to Hawaii. We don't fly a lot but obviously going to Hawaii was going to involve a few planes. You can't fly directly from Ohio to Hawaii, you have to change planes somewhere on the west coast. And it was going to cost the same to fly from Ohio to Oregon to Hawaii in a single day as it would to fly from Ohio to Oregon, hang around Oregon for a few days and then fly to Hawaii, so staying in Portland for a few days would be like getting a free trip! Of course we'd have to pay for our lodging, food, and car rental, but other than than, it's free!
Scott and Todd checking out some public art in Portland
So we chose our flights based on where we wanted to had those two extra trips. Portland was an obvious choice because we have a friend who lives there and we enjoyed visiting the city the last time we went.
Us at the Chandelier Drive Thru Tree
The second choice was a little tougher. LA? San Diego? San Francisco? Seattle? Las Vegas? There were many options but when we thought about where we really wanted to go back to, the redwoods and Trees of Mystery were at the top of my list. Unfortunately there isn't a big town near the redwoods to fly to, so we ended up flying to San Francisco, renting a car, and driving up to Trinidad, CA. In hindsight, perhaps we should have flown to Sacramento and driven up from there. It would have been about the same distance but we were flying in on a Friday and worried about the San Francisco weekend traffic. Turns out it was fine, and we had a great time in the redwoods and Trees of Mystery.
Because I already blogged about the redwoods and Portland when we were there in 2010, I didn't write additional blog posts about them, I just added to the existing posts: California Coast Attractions, the California Coast Lodging & Dining and Portland Lodging & Dining
One of the things we did encounter, at least on the CA and OR coast, were Paul Bunyan statues. Here's me with four of them, in the order we encountered them.
1: Willits, CA, in front of the Lumberjack restaurant. Might not actually be a Paul.
2: Klamath, CA, at Trees of Mystery. The tallest and my favorite. I'm on his boot.
3. Seaside, OR, on US 26 going from Portland to Cannon Beach. Oney's Roadhouse is closed.
4. Portland, OR, in the Kenton neighborhood. Currently being fixed and repainted. I'm in the bottom right of the photo.
Click on the photos to see them larger.
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