Lassen Volcanic National Park, Lake Tahoe, Reno, and the Loneliest Highway in America!

On July 22nd, we made a quick visit to Lassen Volcanic National Park then made our way to our hotel in Reno, Nevada. 

We lived in Las Vegas for the first two years of Brady's life, and Reno reminded us so much of the Summerlin area. We had a rest/non-travel day in Reno. We made a quick trip over to visit Lake Tahoe--it was gorgeous but prohibitively busy with minimal parking since it's so residential. 

Lake Tahoe was a bit of a bust for us, but all was right in our world because we got our laundry done & got to go to Cheesecake Factory for dinner!

On July 24th, we made our way out of Reno via "the loneliest highway in America" also known as Nevada Highway 50, and we can vouch that it was in fact quite lonely! We stopped in Austin, Nevada for a roadside picnic & then made our way to our hotel in Ely, Nevada for the night.

As we made our way out of Alaska and through Canada, Washington, Oregon, California, and then Nevada, not only was the landscape ever-changing but so were the road signs. We started with seeing wildlife warnings for moose, which then moved to bison, elk, deer, and cattle. I think Utah won the award for the most cattle guards on the road! We saw signs to not pass snow plows, signs for areas to pull off the road to put on/take off snow chains, signs for volcano & tsunami evacuation routes, warning signs for floods & dust storms (we actually spotted a few dust devils along the way!)...we have seen so, so much! My least favorite signs are the ones indicating curvy roads, sharp turns, falling rocks, and truck roll-over risk. It's certainly been an adventure!

Crater Lake & Redwoods National Parks

On July 20th, we visited Crater Lake National Park. It was stunning! We lucked out with the sun shining at the first part of our visit, which made the lake the most magnificent shade of blue! I've never seen anything like it. 

{we had a picnic lunch inside the park & had a cute little deer trot right past us}

{a patch of snow near our picnic spot...couldn't keep these Alaskan kids out of it!}

Then we headed to our hotel in Medford, Oregon & had dinner at Panera before calling it a night.

{elevator photo courtesy of Brady!}

The next day we headed to the Redwoods, which is home to the world's tallest trees! The magnitude of these trees was incredible. I kept thinking of our skinny little birch trees in Alaska compared to these monstrosities--so hard to believe!

While we were in the Redwoods visitor's center before entering the park, we saw it mentioned on a sign that there were banana slugs in the Redwoods. Brady said he didn't want to leave if we didn't see a banana slug...as luck would have it, he spotted this little guy on one of our hikes! Mission accomplished!

After exploring the Redwoods, we headed to our hotel in Eureka, California. 

Mount Saint Helens & Tillamook

The morning after we left Mount Rainier, we headed to Mount Saint Helens! We were shocked how quiet it was there after the crowds we experienced at Mount Rainier. Brady loved pointed things out to me at Mount Saint Helens and telling me all about the history. {In preparation of our visit to this park, Derek & Brady watched a few documentaries about the volcano's eruption in 1980, so he was full of knowledge!} He told me it was one of the best days of his life to get to go there!

And to top it all off, we got to eat dinner at Chick-fil-a--our first time upon re-entering the lower 48!

{The kids have been following our route with a National Geographic road trip atlas gifted to us before our PCS to Las Vegas in 2016 by the Goins. All these years & moves later, it's still coming in handy!}

We stayed at a hotel near Portland, Oregon that night & then headed to Tillamook the next morning--this was a highly anticipated stop for all of us, and it absolutely lived up to the hype! We ate lunch there {pizza, grilled cheese, and mac & cheese} and of course had Tillamook ice cream for dessert. I had a brownie batter milkshake, and it was everything!!

And as luck would have it, we had another gift shop run-in at Tillamook! This time it was with two people that Derek graduated from med school with. So, so crazy!

After Tillamook, we took a drive down the Oregon coastline, which was gorgeous! We even had a whale sighting at Depoe Bay.

{Devil's Churn}

Aside from Tillamook and the Oregon coast, the other highlight of our day was that our hotel in Eugene, Oregon had washers & dryers for hotel guests to use free of charge! What an unexpected delight!

We have also been fortunate to have the most amazing weather & sunshine-filled days!

Mount Rainier

Our first full day in the Lower 48 was a rest/non-travel day that we spent exploring Mount Rainier National Park. It was hot & crowded {the Alaska in us was really showing!}, but we had so much fun! We really enjoyed our experience at this park!

{everyone was delighted to find some blueberries to snack on that were growing in the park}

While we were in the visitor's center/gift shop at Mount Rainier National Park, we randomly ran into someone we graduated from high school with...it is such a small world sometimes!!

We ended our evening with spaghetti in our Airbnb {the first time we'd been able to make ourselves dinner in a kitchen in over a week!}, National Park Monopoly {it was such a treat that our Airbnb was stocked with some board games!}, and laundry! I was so thrilled to be able to do laundry. The laundry machines in Canada only took loonies {Canadian dollar coins}, and we had the hardest time finding loonies....so it was such a delight to be able to do laundry freely in our Airbnb!

{Hadley was writing post cards to her buddies while the other three were playing National Park Monopoly}

I am much better suited for napping in the passenger seat on road trips as opposed to driving long distances, so this rest day was just what I needed!