Road Trip Part 1! Travel South

I really haven't had time to sit down to write any of this other than getting photos into a post and even that was a struggle. So now, over a month later, I have the tale of the drive down.

My trailer was packed, with, in hindsight, more shavings than I needed and plenty of Leche's new things.

We left early enough that we were catching the early glimmers of sunrise coming up over the Cascades. This is a view I love. 

 Unfortunately, the clear skies left fairly quickly as we proceeded south through Washington. The timing of us leaving worked perfectly with all the respective rush hours of the various cities we had to pass through (Redmond, Bellevue, Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia)

Marshy areas south of Olympia.

We hit some fog in Southern Washington and I had to do a double take with this car because there was an INCREDIBLY realistic, lifesize decal of a cat. As you can see. 

And then before I knew it we were crossing the bridge from Vancouver WA into Portland OR!

There are lots of bridges in Portland, mainly because a river runs through dang center of the city. 

After Portland we were on a very VERY boring straight away through the Willamette valley. It was flat forever, with mountains far in the distance. 

But as we reached the southern portion of the valley, the mountains reappeared and we began our ascent toward the passes that would encompass much of southern Oregon. 

Lots of farm fields and sheep.

The mountains looked familiar, very much like the western side of the Cascades. 

This part of Oregon is very pretty, but also not incredibly populated. There were small towns here and there, but we weren't near major cities at this point. 

You hit the passes in Oregon, much higher than any pass is in Washington state, and that's how you know you're almost done. Because coming down out of the pass you get your first views of California with just a glimmer of Mt. Shasta in the distance.

There she is and we'd get MUCH closer as the day wore on.

When we could see the California border on map, it was a big deal.

We made it to California!

We spent a long time on approach to Shasta and it really impressed just how giant it is. 

Fun fact, Shasta has the greatest prominence of the volcanic peaks in the Cascade range, which means that you can see the majority of it from base to peak, as opposed to peaks like Rainer which have quite a bit of foothills to hide the true height.

There was this tiny little mini peak off to the side, which I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what exactly it was since it wasn't fully labeled as a solo item. It seems to just be the Shasta Ski slopes but didn't have much snow.

And as full circle to the day, after we left Shasta in our rearview mirror and came into the valley, the sun began to set and the remaining travel time dwindled.

We were squarely in farmland again and eventually the sun fully set.

My friend was off at dinner, but we got there, and I got to see Dulcinea in person, finally!

Cortney and I found a hole in the wall mexican place where everyone who was eating there was speaking spanish, so we figured it had to be good. We managed to come in during a lull so the wait was minimal. Friends were surprised we managed to even get a seat. 

After food we headed back to the barn to meet up with Keila and say hello to Baby Girl again, who was suspicious and perplexed. I promised her we'd have much more time tomorrow to get acquainted. 

Soooooo narrow hahahahah