Day 5: Inland Bound

We started day five by leisurely breaking down camp and packing up the car. Aside from the rain fly which was definitely going to have to be packed wet, the light rain from the previous night didn't dampen the packing experience.
We left South Beach State campground around 9am and headed East from Newport on Highway 20. Lauren had an important work phone call scheduled for 10am and at about 9:30 as we were driving through the heavily wooded hills east of Newport we came across one of the funny challenges digital nomads need to be prepared to deal with... connectivity.

"I don't have any bars" Lauren nervously said.
"What time is your call again?" I asked as I checked the time and glanced down at the dashboard.
"10am" She said.
"We should be fine then." (I think...)

We rolled into Corvallis just in time and Lauren had her crystal-clear phone conversation!

Digital nomads in the making

 After Lauren 'took care of business' at the cafe we decided to spend "30- minutes, tops!" working on the blog. About 90-minutes later we packed up or laptops.

We headed off on I-5 for our next destination--Eugene, Oregon--to check out Lauren's alma mater, the University of Oregon. As we approached campus we spotted a young person in cap and gown, followed by another, and then another and before we knew it there were more green gowns than plain-clothes. They wouldn't be holding graduation on a Monday would they? Lauren said. In my mind I thought, it's Monday?

We soon found a parking spot and headed to The Glenwood Restaurant, one of Lauren's college go-to's.

The food was amazing. I had the Alder street special, bacon, turkey, Tillamook swiss, Tillamook cheddar, a tiny bit of lettuce all held together by a couple of butter soaked and toasted slices of wheat. Not the most healthy, but tasty-as-hell!

After lunch we weaved through campus, pushing our way through mobs of recent grads with family in tow feeling a bit like salmon fighting to get up stream.

When Lauren spotted her old friend Ducky-the-mascot (what's his name) she used her b-ball skills to box out the excited recent graduates and I snagged a pic of her getting a big ol' Oregon Duck hug.

Before leaving town for the second leg of the days journey we had just one more stop to make... Ninkasi Brewery!

Ninkasi is a fairly new brewery, only open since 2006 but they are well established and growing fast. Across the street from their primary brewing facility and tasting room is a second building well on it's way to completion that should double their production capacity.

Lauren and I responsibly split one taster ;)

 We still had a lot of ground to cover so after the brewery we headed back to the car. The drive from Eugene to Bend (our home for that night) was possibly the most beautiful 3-hours of driving thus far on our trip (maybe it just felt that way because I wasn't driving?) We took Hwy 20 which hugs a variety of pristine rivers, cuts through the Willamatte and Deschutes national forests, and passes (among others) the breath-taking snow-capped peak of Mt Washington.

We rolled into Bend a little after 6pm. It reminded me a little bit of Flagstaff, AZ with the 'cowboy/wild west flair' sprinkled in and high-altitude forest greenery but it definitely had a different feel to it.

We went straight to our home for the night, Lesley's house. When we learned that the one campsite located in Bend was full we looked to AirBnB. Leslie greeted us with a smile as we rolled into town, showed us around our very comfortable accommodation, and gave us about a dozen suggestions for fun things to do in the day and a half that we would be in town. It was instantly evident that two nights would NOT be sufficient. Lauren and I both wanted to leave lots of flexibility in Trip America but it was slowly becoming clear that in order to do the most things that we wanted to do, we would need to sacrifice some things (i.e. places like the Redwoods, Yosemite, etc. would need to be booked well in advanced, and there wouldn't be much flexibility with those dates once booked).


We spent the evening downtown. Had an AMAZING dinner at Zydeco Kitchen (I highly recommend the Shrimp Andouille Jambalaya) and headed back to the house for the night.

Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!

-Dan

Walking through downtown Bend Squirrelly saw his dream girl in storefront window.