Oregon Trails!

Ciao tutti! Thought I would post an update from mine and Kenny's trip to Oregon to visit my brother, his girlfriend, and my nephew. After driving 4 hours to Charlotte, spending the night, waking up at 3am to catch 3 different planes, my parents and I finally arrived in Portland where we met Kenny and had to drive another 3 hours to Bend, OR. The first night was pretty fun just sitting on the back porch catching up with the brother and gf. By the time Kenny and I went to bed, I'd been up for 24 hrs and wasn't sure if I was deliriously tired or feeling the box of wine my mom bought us. The next day we went out to Tumalo Falls, this really pretty waterfall in the Cascade mountains:
We tried to go see some of the Cascade lakes after this but got rained out by a thunderstorm. Monday we drove 4ish hours to the Oregon Coast to a small little town called Waldport. Our beach house was straight out of the 60s, but had a great view of the ocean:

Unfortunately, the weather was pretty dreary all 3 days we were there and really foggy in some of the scenic areas we tried to visit. We spent 2 days driving up and down the coast stopping at all the little towns and scenic spots, including Sea Lion Caves where we saw a ton of giant wild sea lions, Sand Dunes that were incredibly steep to climb, the town of Florence that had "Nationally Acclaimed Clam Chowder" (it was pretty delicious), Newport where Rogue Beer is locally brewed, Otter Rock - which unfortunately is no longer home to wild sea otters, Seal Rock, and various coves and trails down to different beaches surrounded by cliffs making one feel very tiny. On the last night, despite the cloudy weather, we finally got a really pretty sunset over the ocean:

My brother build a really nice bonfire on the beach the 2nd two nights and it was fun to just sit out and listen to the ocean and talk all night. So thursday we packed up and went back to Bend but stopped at this town called Sisters on the way there. The Sisters are 3 different, very active, volcanoes that are about 40 miles from the town of Bend and there is a little western looking town at the base of the volcanoes that we stopped at. Friday was our last day in Bend and we spent the day driving through the Cascades trying to visit some of the lakes. Coltus lake, the first one we went to was incredibly windy and cold, but still very scenic even with the dreary weather (which was a theme of the entire week). Sparks lake is this really pretty, crystal clear lake that I had visited last time i went to Oregon but the road that lead to the lake was flooded because of all the melting snow from Mt. Bachelor, bummer. So instead we went to Lava Butte, a very large mound (butte) of lava rock that accumulated from a nearby volcano repeatedly erupting a long time ago. The last day we stopped off at Smith Rock on our way to Mt. Hood - the tallest mountain in Oregon and the location of the hotel filmed in The Shining. All throughout the week it was just fun to catch up with my brother and Jenny and hang out with Cameron, my nephew, who I'd never met before. Kenny and Cameron hit it off from the beginning, mostly because Kenny has the ability to be entertained by the same nonsense as a two year old so they were able to entertain one another. It was pretty funny to watch them keep each other company haha. Anyway, sorry for such a ridiculously long post, pictures will be up on facebook shortly if anyone is interested. Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying summer, miss you all!!