June 22 - July 5

The location was set. This year for family vacation, people who have been scattered across the country for one reason or another would meet up in McMinnville, OR. It was a little outside Portland where my brother works. The plan was to visit his restaurant as well as enjoy wine country in a beautiful part of the country. There was only one hitch- how would we get there?

In true Millennial fashion, our dog is like a child to us. The idea of stuffing her in the luggage area of an airplane felt like a situation in which she’d never forgive us, and leaving her with a stranger that might not be as gentile with her bad back as we’d like was out of the question. So we decided to road trip the 1,770 miles across the country and back.

Since the vast majority of the time on the road was spent, well, on the road, there’s not much to say for a few of the places, but we definitely stopped in some interesting places and ate some great food.

Having Fun In Missoula

I hold Missoula pretty close to my heart as it was one of the major locations my bicycle tour stopped when I bicycled across the country in 2014. Missoula is home to Adventure Cycling Association, who welcomed us with open arms both when I arrived a decade ago as well as this trip. I got to go through the guest book and see my name as well as the names of other people on my trip I made lifelong memories with. It was pretty easy to bicycle over to Adventure Cycling Association, but after we finished, we didn’t want to just head back to the hotel, so we went to a local Cidery, Western Cider Co., had a flight, ate some amazing asian food from a food truck, and bicycled back along a bike path back to our hotel (after purchasing a bottle of cider we liked).

Our hotel was also really interesting. We’ve stayed at a couple LOGE hotels on our trip and both of them had hammock hooks attached to the ceiling as well as a place for bike storage inside. There’s also apparently a ton of equipment you can rent out from their office, though we didn’t get a chance to inspect this further.

Trinken in Leavenworth

Leavenworth, WA is a small town turned Bavarian Village that was honestly a great time. We sat at the balcony of Khein Haus and had a couple beers as well as a bratwurst sampler. Most of the shops were closed, but we managed to entertain ourselves after dinner by taking a walk on their wonderful park pathways along the river.

Relaxing in Astoria

We stayed two nights in Astoria, which meant we had more time to look around. Aside from walking by the water, waving to the trolly passing us by, I managed to finally get a haircut in a light blue camper trailer. We also got food at Rogue Pier 39 Public House right next to our hotel and taste tested some of their beer and whiskey (which might have been too jarring to drink alongside a burger), but we liked their beer enough that we bought a few extra before heading back to our hotel where we could listen to Sea Lions barking across the water.

Meeting up with the family

We were technically all together the first dinner we had planned in Portland. Unfortunately, my brother had to work in the restaurant as we ate so we didn’t get to see much of him until things slowed down. It didn’t help that Post Malone was performing in the building and the club where he works was full of people who were attending. Dinner itself was amazing.

The next day, we headed to some Wineries in the area to do a little wine tasting. Then we went to a little Italian restaurant which was great, though I was pushing through a migraine, so the gnocchi was really having to fight for my attention.

The next morning, we woke up early to drive nearly 2 hours to Cannon Beach so we could get there during low tide for the best possible chance of seeing puffins. It was brisk and very windy, but undeniably beautiful. While we didn’t get to see any puffins close up, we definitely saw some of them flying around.

We also hiked out to Short Sands beach and had some fresh steamed oysters, but I was so tired, it’s hard to remember the order of things at this point.

The last day with the family, we decided to grill some hot dogs and cheeseburgers, which was a pretty good send-off to a great trip. On the way back home, we celebrated the 4th of July by opening up our window at Rapid City, SD to see a fairly decent fireworks show without dealing with crowds.

We’re finally back home now and, as much fun as long trips like this are, there’s nothing quite like my own bed and shower.