Road Trip: Pacific Northwest

Oregon, Washington and Canada

The Pacific Northwestern United States - where I couldn’t help but take pictures of leaves and compare them to the florescent green of my pal’s rain jacket. And we definitely needed rain jackets because we were in a full on rainforest!

Oregon is a hidden gem full of tucked away waterfalls and moss as green as one can possibly imagine. We had quite the time here, driving up the coast and exploring little seaside towns, before heading inland on Highway 138 A.K.A. the highway of waterfalls to explore the dozens of falls that are directly off the highway. We also visited Bend, which I fell in love with immediately, and eventually stopped in Portland (where I did yoga, ate some of the best vegan food I’ve ever had and forgot to take any pictures). Waking up on the coast of Oregon and then snaking our way through the Pacific Northwest, already a month into living on the road, felt like I’d truly found paradise at the time, in the form of moss, flowers and falls. There was one beach, with all its vastness and driftwood, that I couldn’t help but diving into the freezing cold water, and it was one of the most liberating moments of my life.

Washington felt similar to Oregon in the sense of a lost paradise or rather, hidden oasis. We allowed ourselves three full days of getting lost in Olympic National Park and hiked as far into the mountains as we could possibly go. We clearly took advantage of all that nature has to offer in this area, hence all the pictures of leaves and logs.

Since we had “touched” Mexico on the banks of the Rio Grande in Big Bend, we had convinced ourselves we had to “touch” Canada by that time, but turns out Canada isn’t quite as easy to touch. You gotta go into it. We spent one night wandering around Vancouver and couch surfing, but ultimately decided it was time to turn around and start heading south again.