Marked off my 48th state Capitol buildingyesterday. With just Texas and Louisiana remaining, I’m closing in on finishing this quest in 2027.
Welp, it’s apparently set to rain all week during our camping at Olympic National Park, which is a bummer.
After some consideration at a local brewery, we’ve shifted plans somewhat and will salvage some daytrips into the park without having to sequester ourselves in our wet tent each evening.
There’s a bunch of street art in Aberdeen, but I especially enjoyed this postcard piece and how this old building had been utilized.
Enjoyed a quick coffee with Brian Davis this morning. Always fun meeting up with social media friends in person! Forgot to snag a quick photo though
Spent the evening with our friends Carrie and Matt at a brewpub and stayed at their house outside Portland. Had an excellent time, though only grabbed this quick shot with Carrie right as we both left. Hoping we get to travel with them next year.
Stopped by Kurt Cobain’s childhood home in Aberdeen, WA. Couldn’t find the huge mural in town that I had come across online, but it appears to have been replaced by a larger installment (which seemed closed). We also passed by a memorial park, but decided not to stop.
We also had a leisurely lunch in Cascade Locks, pulled in by a well-targeted sign and the prospect of enjoying a rooftop view in gorge-ous weather.
With our extra time yesterday, we snuck in some stops along the Columbia River Gorge. We didn’t get to all the waterfalls we had hoped to, but at least marked off Multnomah, which Jen had never stopped at. We also spent some time at Vista House.
Not much nightlife here
We managed to get almost an entire day ahead of schedule and ended at Corvalis last night. Had dinner and drinks at Block 15 Brewing and enjoyed a nice riverside hotel night.
Well, that’s the closest I’ve been to running out of gas in many, many years.
Finally managed a stop at the venerable Sierra Nevada Brewing mothership in Chico. I’m not a big Sierra Nevada fan, but appreciate the role they played in the early craft beer scene.
Fun time stopping in Springfield, Oregon to see the Simpsons murals. There are so many around downtown! We didn’t have enough time to stop and get photos of them all, so we decided we’d need to make a small quest out of seeing them all during a future trip.
This is Little Glass Mountain, which is basically one huge ass pile of obsidian.
It’s located in Sátíttla Highlands National Monument (designated by Biden in 2025), which protects the landscape around Medicine Lake—by far the largest volcano in the Cascades by volume (10x the size of Mt St Helens).
Medicine Lake, as the day dips towards night.
Twilight views along the Modoc Volcanic Scenic Byway last night.
Habitat “restoration”
One of the best things about being in a remote national monument, well outside of cell coverage: no new messages.
I asked for some ketchup for my single order of fries and got 33 packets. If you find yourself at a Wendy’s drive-thru in Klamath Falls this week, don’t order fries because they’re certainly all out of ketchup packets.
Well played, slow driver. Well played.
