Sonya's Blog - Days 295 & 296 - Portland and Driving

Sonya’s Blog - Days 295 & 296 - April 12th & 13th - Last day in Portland and Driving Day

Day 295:

It was a rainy day, so we didn’t have too many plans. We had some errands to get done, so we thought today would be a good day to do that. As a result, not a very exciting day to write about. The best thing that happened was we found a Russian Bakery, called Babushka’s. It was, really, more of a general store that carried Russian products, with a bakery and deli. There was lots of great stuff and we had fun looking around. Couldn’t tell you what everything was, as some jars were exclusively in Russian. We bought some perogies and cabbage rolls, as well us Lamb dumplings. We also bought some slices of cakes, names of which I do not remember. There were ice cream bars, so we bought some of those to try and right before we left I bought a little doughy thing that was stuffed with cabbage and mushrooms, as I hadn’t had lunch. It was served warm and was super tasty, the dough was very unique.

We all did our own thing for the rest of the day. I finished my book, called Lost Canyon by Nina Revoyr. It is about 4 LA urbanites who head into the Sierra Mountains for a backpacking adventure. Each chapter is told from one of the characters perspectives, so you get a different view on what is happening as the story moves along. Things start to go terribly wrong, as the trip progresses. The book kept me interested all the way through and there were some good plot twists, right up until the end. You have to suspend disbelief about how they ended up on their eventual trail and it gets a little whacky at the end, but I still kept reading it to see how it would wrap up. It was easy to read and an interesting story. We are heading to Yosemite National Park, which is in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Hopefully our trip will not end up as badly as the characters in Lost Canyon.

Day 296:

We are driving to Shasta-Trinity-Whiskeytown National Recreation area. We are camping just outside of Redding, California for the 3 nights that we are in the area. It is going to take us all day to get there, it is about a 6 1/2 hour drive. Super excited for another long drive:)

Nothing exciting happened, but did you know they have a border crossing at the state line between California and Oregon? Well they do. We had no idea it was coming up or what it was, I thought it was a toll road. The guy asked us if we had any firewood, we said no, and we were on our way. Since we left Calgary, we have not been to one campground that allows fires. It is actually less common to have a fire-pit, I would bet that a majority of the campgrounds we have stayed in do not allow fires. This is why Blake gets so excited when we find a campground that allows them. I am pretty sure we will be out of luck in California, considering they are 4 years into a severe drought. Now the El Nino rains helped out this year, but they are not out of drought conditions. Northern California has seen it’s lakes and rivers somewhat replenished, but Central and Southern California did not receive nearly as much rainfall and are still suffering. I think this will translate into a full fire ban, even if there are fire-pits.

Bridge crossing Shasta Lake, popular house boating lake:

After hours and hours of being on the road, we finally got to our campground. It is not very far off of the Interstate, so that is not ideal. Hopefully it is not too noisy.

Sonya