After Medford

Jonathan and I traveled back up to Bend this last Saturday. We are kind of waiting for good snow before we visit all of our snowboarding spots, so we decided to stay here for a bit. It's been cool, seeing a bunch of friends, and relaxing. Like we don't ever do that. :) We also did some finishing touches to the van. Thank you to Janet/Mom for the pockets and help with the sleeping bags. Now we have more storage for smaller misc. items. I also have a book pocket with a tab for my glasses, it's awesome!

Table Rock, OR

Time for another hike! 

This time we picked up our nephew Tucker, and hiked upper Table rock. This is a 2.8 mile round trip hike. It was pretty muddy and we were concerned it was going to rain. Lucky for us, we hiked at the perfect time of the day, it was sunny!

Mid-way picture opportunity

We made it to the top! Awesome!

It's a long way down

If you are interested in learning more about Table rock and it's history here is a link with some pretty cool info.

http://www.oregon.com/Hike_Table_Rocks

Wine Tasting!

While staying in Medford, we have had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with family. On one evening we decided to go wine tasting. Applegate valley has a large array of wineries, so off we went...

We started at Red Lily Vineyards, they specialize in tempranillo. We had a dry and sweet flight, I enjoyed this place very much. 

http://www.redlilyvineyards.com/

 We then made our way to Schmidt Family Vineyards, where we met up with Jonathan's cousin Andy. He has a lot of knowledge in the wine department. He also gets all the good discounts, due to his wife running one of the vineyards.

http://sfvineyards.com/

 What a lovely bunch! From right: Andy, Mike, Holly, Steelie, and Jonathan.

Now onto Serra Vineyards. The view from here is beautiful! 

http://www.serravineyards.com/

After this we did a quick stop at Rosella's vineyard, they has spretzles!

 http://www.rosellasvineyard.com/

Now my personal favorite was Wooldrige Creek Winerey, the atmosphere was comfortable and the wine was delicious! Thanks to Andy for the bottle of Malbec.

http://www.wcwinery.com/

We finished the tour at Troon Vineyards. This is where Andy's wife, Tiffany works. The wine was wonderful and the company was also great. I am holding my niece Steelie and my new found friend Owen here. 

http://www.troonvineyard.com/

Off to dinner at Andy and Tiffany's house. They live in a home on the vineyard, it was very cozy. We then had a delicious dinner and some time to chat. 

We are very happy to have the opportunity to spend time with loved ones.

What a fun night! 

Happy New Years!

We traveled to Portland for New Years this year, it was a wonderful time! We started the night with my brother Paul and his wifey Kim, with dinner. Then we went to our friends Grant and Robs house for a rigorous game of Cards Against Humanity. This game is not appropriate for the faint of heart. :) Sorry no pictures, they would have been good too!

Around 11:00 we headed downtown to join the festivities. 

This is where we danced the night away!

Here is Grant and Jonathan

Sean and Jonathan

 Rob, a random guy, and me

More dancing! That's Harmony in the back.

Happy New Year to all of you! Hope it's the best yet!

Detroit Lake, OR

On our way back to bend to adjust our supplies, we passed Detroit Lake. This lake is usually full and gorgeous. We have never seen it this way, and have driven past it several times. It was almost dry, just a trickle of a stream down the center. With no water in it, you could really see all the stumps. 

Forks, Wa

After Striped Peak we drove down to Forks, WA. The sky was awesome, it was nice to not be driving in fog, as we had been seeing a lot of it. 

Forks, WA is where the movie Twilight was filmed. So being the dork I am, I wanted to see the minimal sites offered. This is just down the street where Bella, a character in the movie lived. Oohh Aahh! We also saw the high school from the movie. No pictures because it wasn't to exciting.

We decided to stay at the rest area in Forks. This was our first dinner cooked out of the van. We have done a few breakfasts that worked out great. We had a dehydrated meal of teriyaki chicken, and added fresh broccoli. It was pretty good! We then snuggled up to watch a movie in the van, and fell asleep.

We woke up around 4:30 in the morning and drove down to the ocean. We watched the ocean for a while then slept a couple more hours. When we woke up again we took a walk on the beach. It was more rock then sand, so it made for a short walk.

This short wall I am standing in front of was all exposed rocks. Super cool looking

. 

Then we drove down to Long Beach, WA, to go to Cape Disappointment. Funny name for a beautiful place. We found a great trail around 4 or 5 miles round trip. Coastal trails are the best with all the lush greenery around.

More Trees!

I found a salamander!

Another great tree shot!

Striped Peak on the Olympic Peninsula

Striped Peak hike is located in North Salt Creek County Park. This hike is just over 6 miles with a 850 ft elevation gain.

Looking down to a beautiful ocean cove through the manzanitas.

There is a steep trail that leads down to the water, about a miles into the hike. Along the trail there was this awesome waterwall.

Down in the private ocean cove. Somebody chose this as there home and it smelled pretty bad.

Here is a primeval grove of towering Hemlocks, Firs, and Cedars. If access to this area weren't so difficult, these trees would have been logged.

Finally we have reached the peak. From this view, you can see Victoria, BC.

All done with the hike and back a the beginning there is a campground. It was a one time Army post called Camp Hayden. Being there in the winter is nice, the camp is vacant except for the host. After our long walk we went to use the restrooms, where we noticed not only bathrooms, but shower! Even though I had just showered recently, I was stoked. Jonathan needed a shower, he was getting pretty ripe. These showers were wonderful! They charged a quarter for a generous 2 minutes. We ended up spending .75 and we both had long, hot showers. Gotta try and find more of these!

Now on to Forks, WA.