Oregon Road Trip {Part 2} + A Winner

Are you ready for Part 2 of our Oregon Road Trip?
If you missed it, HERE is the link to Part 1 which covered the Oregon Coast.
Part 2 starts off in the morning where we drove 2 hours from the Beach house to drop Kevin off at the Portland Airport. He had to fly home for work, but since I am a teacher & on Summer Break, I decided to spend extra time adventuring around Oregon and do the 12 hour drive home with the kids over the course of a few days.

Before we dropped Kevin off at the airport, we had to stop by Voodoo Doughnut!

I've been wanting to try Voodoo for many years!

So many choices....

There were over 20 types of doughnuts.

It was hard to narrow down.

Look at that menu.

Wall to wall donut boxes:

These are the ones we chose:

Captain Crunch, Sprinkle, Fruit Loop, Oreo, Maple Bacon & Sugar.

We ate our donuts & then dropped Kevin off at the airport. On the way to the airport is when my dermatologist called me to let me know my nose biopsy came back as basal cell cancer and that I had to have surgery. But, I was determined to not let that get me down and I wanted to enjoy the rest of the trip.

After we dropped off Kevin at the Portland Airport, I drove the kids to Washington. It's just over the river from Portland, so I thought it would be fun for them to go to a new State.

We drove to Vancouver, Washington and checked out this cute park.

I really wanted to drive to Seattle, but it was 3 hours away, so that was going to add 6 hours round trip to my 12 hour drive home, so we just stuck to Vancouver.

Then, we drove back into Oregon so we could check out more of downtown Portland.

First up on the agenda....Powell's Books.

The kids were in HEAVEN!!!

We all love books & this was the biggest bookstore I have ever been to.

We stayed here for almost 2 hours. I couldn't get them to leave.

Each kid picked out a book to buy.

Claire got The Tales of Beattle & Bard (from Harry Potter), Kate got Fantastic Beasts (also from Harry Potter) & Luke picked out a Star Wars book.

We walked around the downtown for a little bit. I should have taken more photos, its a cute downtown. We went to the Food Truck area to find lunch.

It was a hot day in Portland (90 degrees!) so the kids decided they wanted to eat in a restraunt, not at a food truck. I don't blame them. My friend Emily told me about The Grilled Cheese Grill (it's a food truck, but they also have a reastraunt on the other side of town, so we decided to get back in the car and drive to the East side.
When we got back to my car, I had a Warning on it!!

I got a warning because I put my parking meter receipt in the center of my dashboard instead of on the curbside) Classic Portland!!!

I bet they saw my gas guzzling SUV with California plates and just looked for a reason to give me a warning ;) I'm just glad I didn't get a ticket.

The coolest part about The Grilled Cheese Grill is that it's a restaurant in an old school bus!

The food was AMAZING. Best grilled cheese of my life.

Luke had fun "driving" the school bus.

The whole neighborhood where we had lunch is very “Portlandia”. Conversation I overheard at the table behind us was a mom telling her kids they all had to share the same water cup because they weren’t going to waste more plastic. What an interesting city, we loved it. Keep Portland Weird.

Our next stop was Sun River, which was a 3.5 hour drive.
It was such a beautiful drive, I had to pull over at one point to take this photo of this beautiful caynon.

The picture doesn't even do it justice. 

We arrived in Sun River, checked into our room..this was the view from our deck.

We had dinner at Sun River Brewing Company, it's right in the Sun River Village.

We stayed at the Sun River Lodge which is walking distance from the Village.

Mt. Bachelor!

After dinner, the kids needed to burn off some energy, so we walked over to the pool.

The kids loved the slide.

So fun.

This pool was gorgeous.

Happy kids.

Watching the sunset from the pool

SO pretty!

Mt. Bachelor in the background.

There were several fire pits at the pool as well.

I wish we could have stayed longer in Sun River!

The next morning, we woke up & had breakfast on our deck with this beautiful view.

The last time I was in Sun River was when I was in middle school, it's so pretty. We will be back.

It was time to hit the road and drive 3 hours to Crater Lake!

Crater Lake is a thing of beauty.

My parents took us here over 25 years ago & I still remember how majestic it was (it’s a volcano that erupted over 7000 years ago & is now the deepest lake in the US).

 It rained, it hailed, we saw snow & then it was sunny & hot.

We experienced all 4 seasons driving the lake.

Absolutely gorgeous! 

Then, we headed to our next destination which was another 3 hours away...Grants Pass, Oregon.

Final stop on our Oregon Road Trip...Grants Pass!

My parents used to take us here in the summer. I have many fond memories of the Rouge River, so I knew this had to be a stop on our Road Trip.
 
 The hotel I grew up staying at was full, so the kids & I stayed at a hidden gem...The Weasku Inn.

It's an old Fishing Lodge that has been converted to an Inn.

 There is a Main Lodge & then by the river there are cabins.

 There are only 12 cabins, so it has a Bed & Breakfast feel to it.

It has a HUGE lawn area & tons of trees.

When we first arrived & walked around I felt like it was a setting for a mystery novel or show. 
I felt like I was on Murder, She Wrote and kept waiting for Angela Lansbury to appear. 
Don't worry, I felt safe there & we survived :)

The sign said No Vacancy, but we barely saw anyone else on the property.
 I was the youngest one there & no other kids around. 
We saw one group of ladies in their 60's and a couple in their 70's. 
This place was awesome. So quaint & quiet. 
They have happy hour each afternoon with appetizers and drinks. 
Happy hour was going on right when we arrived.

Look how cute our cabin was:

The room: Other side of the room:

 Back porch:

Overlooking the creek:

We went on a little walk down to the river, there was a path by the creek that turned into the river:

Just so pretty!

Grants Pass was also having a heat wave...it was 95 when we were there.

I have so many childhood memories playing in the Rogue River.

So peaceful.

I could have sat by the river for hours.

We ordered pizza and had it on our back deck. It was perfect.

Every evening the lodge has cookies & milk.

 We enjoyed them on the deck. I guess no one else wanted cookies & milk?!?

They also have S'mores in the evening.
  Of course the kids wanted S'mores also.
We were the only ones doing S'mores!!
   Everyone else was missing out :)

Perfect Smores marshmallows....lightly toasted.

YUM.

We had a nice, slow morning hanging out in our room reading & playing cards. I mean, look at the cool ceiling.

The lodge also provides breakfast....again...basically had the dining room to ourselves!

Do you see why I felt like I was on Murder, She Wrote? A booked lodge, but barely ever saw anyone else.

We all loved this place.

 I found out that after we left that Clarke Gable would stay here often (he even went on his honeymoon here) Walt Disney is another person who would come to this Lodge frequently.
After we checked out of the lodge, we did a jetboat tour of the Rouge River.
 
My parents took us on this as a kid and I wanted to take my kids on it. 
 
It was just as fun as I remembered & we learned a lot about the Rogue River Valley.

 We used Hellgate Jet Boats (this is the same one I went on as a kid) I highly recommend them!

It was a great way to end our Oregon Road Trip!

We had In N Out after our jet boat excursion & then headed straight home...we didn’t stop once. 
  They were troopers the last 5.5 hour stretch home from Grants Pass.
No one had to go to the bathroom until we were minutes from out house #hardcore


1,634 total miles driven during the Oregon Road Trip.
My kids didn’t kill each other & I didn’t kill them, so I call that a win.
But trust me...I had some moments where I was wishing that I flew home with Kevin on Tuesday. LOL.
The good outweighed the bad & we made some amazing memories in the beautiful state of Oregon.

Thankful for kids who adapt to my adventurous spirit & embrace my love of road trips. 
Between this Oregon trip & our spring break trip to San Diego, they have driven Highway 5 the entire length of California & Oregon. Plus another road trip to Disneyland in May.
All with a busted DVD player in the car #helpmejesus

This is the Summer of Road Trips...last week the kids and I road tripped to Santa Barbara, more on that next week! 

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Now until July 24th, you get Lash Boost at MY COST!

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I am also happy to answer any questions you have.

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melissa_larson17@yahoo.com

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The winner of the $250 Nordstrom Gift Card is Aileen D.

Congratulations! Send me an email or leave me a comment!

The Sale is still going on for another week and a half.

Check out what I bought on this post.

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See you back here tomorrow for What's Up Wednesday!

The bonus question for this month is "What is your favorite Summer memory?"