Day 8

Saturday, April 2, 2011

I had worn sunscreen the past 2 days at the Grand Canyon and on the California coast, but did not put any on in San Francisco. We both got a little sunburnt on the 80 degree day.

We ate breakfast at the La Quinta in Davis. We continued up I-5 for Eugene, Oregon. I slept through the beginning portion of Northern California, but didn’t seem to miss much.

Mount Shasta in northern California was gorgeous. Snow-capped, large and majestic. It is the second tallest mountain in the Cascades.

We thought about stopping in Redding for lunch since it was the last bigger city for a few hours, but neither of us where hungry enough yet so we hoped we’d find something in a small town. I kinda wanted to stop in Weed, California just to stay we did. I just seems fitting that there is a town of this name in bear state.

We stopped in Yreka (pronounced why-reka), California for lunch. It was a small, cute abandoned mining town. We ate a Caesar salad and split a small sausage pizza. The weather had changed so much here in the mountains. So much for 80 degrees in the Bay area to 40 degrees in the Cascades.

After lunch, I took over driving. Soon we passed the Oregon border, but Joe was already napping and couldn’t take a picture. We saw a large beautiful blue lake (Emigrant Lake) outside of Ashland, OR.

The drive through, up and over the Cascades was not the easiest drive to say the least. One second it would be sunny, the next it would be downpouring for a few seconds. Then others it was rainy and sunny at the same time. When we were at the top of a large peak it was even snowing!

We drove past the Rogue River basin and afterwards realized that the brewery of such namesake was probably in the vicinity.

We drove into Eugene, OR around 4pm. We looked at the University of Oregon campus and drove by the Ducks football stadium. We then went to downtown to find a place to grab a small bite to eat and a few beers. We stopped at Rogue Track Town Brewery. They happened to be having a garage sale and Joe picked up a nice new t-shirt. We tried samples of the double mocha porter, which was really good. Joe had an Imperial IPA and I had a Dead Guy Ale since they were out of the seasonal I wanted while nibbling on some hummus, watching the final minutes of the VCU/Butler Final Four basketball game. We acquired some great souvenirs from here.

We then drove an hour north to Salem to a cheaper and closer to home La Quinta to watch the remaining Final Four game. On the way we saw a full rainbow out in a field but it was so close I couldn’t get a full picture of it.

We picked up some quick food to eat back at the hotel. I wasn’t feeling well so I didn’t get around to publishing this post until now. We were very happy that this was our last night in a hotel bed. We were ready to be home.