Day 1 - In the Books!

The morning of June 13th was the "official" start of Trip America. Lauren and I packed the last of our things into her trusty Subaru, popped our Road Trip Mix in the CD player and headed south on I-5 towards Portland.

Thanks Jerin and Craig!

Guess who's idea it was to pack a basketball?

We hit a bit of rain leaving the Emerald City but nothing too bad. After a few hours we stopped at a lovely little pie-joint called Random Order for an afternoon pick-me-up. I had a slice of Strawberry Rhubarb Pie, a boozie coffee drink called a Nudge (coffee + brandy + creme de caocoa + whip = Dan "tapping out" and letting Lauren take the keys). While in Portland we also stopped at Blick to pick up some art supplies* for me (*more on this in a later post).

Boozie coffee and a obtuse slice of pie... that's my kind of lunch!

 As we left Portland we realized that in order to get to Warrenton we'd have to head NORTHeast... our first back track of the trip (apparently, the fact that Portland is "just across the border from Washington into Oregon" doesn't exclude the possibility that Warrenton (also "just across the border from Washington into Oregon") is actually substantially north of Portland...)

Anyways, we headed off and a couple of hours later we arrived in Warrenton (more like BORE-enton, as Lauren would say). Warrenton's nice enough but it is, admittedly, the red-headed stepchild to, well, pretty much any of it's neighboring towns. Before we got to our hotel we stopped briefly in Seaside to see the famous boardwalk, snap a picture in front of the landmark sign, and get a glimpse of what was to come.

Afterwards, we checked into our abode for the next couple of nights, the Shilo Inn of Warrenton,  made fast work of ordering pizza, cracking open a bottle of red wine that was far too nice for the occasion, and watched the second half of game 4 of the NBA finals (go Heat!)

Thanks Greg!

Half a pizza (and half a bottle of red wine) each later, it took all energy we could muster to make our way down to the empty pool/hot tub for a quick soak before retiring for the night. It felt nice to have day-1 officially in the books and even better to think about what wonderful adventures lie ahead of us!

-Dan

Trip America; the possibilities are endless!