Well, we did it.  We actually did a 700 KM day today.  Our bodies are complaining right now, but we covered a lot of ground today and we are within a couple of hours of the Canadian border.  We will be crossing tomorrow only a day later than we told American customs.  Hopefully, they have not sent out a search party for us already.

Our day began with a farewell to the ocean at Lincoln City.  We took one more walk out t0 the surf and took a few more pictures.  Time to start heading North-East now.

After gassing up in Lincoln City, before we knew it we were in Oregon lake and cottage country.  The trees grew over the road and everything was lush and green.  We have to say one thing about drivers from Oregon . . . they are very cautious.  If the speed limit is 50 MPH, they will go 45 MPH, maybe even 40 MPH just to be on the safe side.  We can not really complain about that, though.  It is a beautiful state with very friendly, warm people.

The green lush Oregon turned a little dryer around Yamhill County and  outside Portland – Oregon wine country.  There were many winery temptations along the way, but we were good and kept on course for Portland.

We drove through the spaghetti junction that is Portland, staying on course.  Whether it is the cautious nature of Oregon drivers or just the fact that we were actually going through a major city without it being rush hour, navigating through the city seemed pretty easy.  Before we knew it we were through Portland and into mountain country.  In the distance, Mount Hood, with its snow-capped peaks, towered above us.  As we drove around Mount Hood on the I-84 towards The Dalles, we encountred some very extreme wind gusts.  We thought the wind gusts coming off the ocean the last two days were bad – these wind gusts were much worse.  It took a lot of extra energy to focus on the road and correct your course against the wind whipping across the highway.  We finally made it through the wind corridor and saw the Dalles Dam on the Columbia River.

Our Garmin GPS navigated us off the I-84 and had us cross over the Columbia River to its north side and Highway 14.  At this point in the day, we were ready for lunch and figured we would do a bit of Highway 14 and stop for lunch at the next small town.  Well, Garmin picked the fastest route through the Columbia River valley and not the populated route.  We gave up on finding a restaurant, stopped at the side of the road and had some water, some beef jerky, and a granola bar.  Just enough to keep us going for another hour before we made it to civilization again.  We did see some interesting rock formations that we believed to be some of the hardened lava flows for which Oregon is known.

Civilization came in the form of Kennewick, Washington and a Carl’s Jr hamburger joint.  We re-fueled and re-hydrated and mentally prepared ourselves for that last 200 KM run to Spokane, Washington.  The area between Kennewick and Spokane is borderline desert – very dry and hot, much to our surprise – and the heat was getting to us a little today.  I almost made it to Spokane in one stretch but my body was crying for a break at the 150 KM point so we stopped at a rest stop for a stretch and a little quiet time at shady picnic table.  Jeremy saw a sign that said rattlesnake zone, but we did not see any . . . thankfully!  We think they were probably over in the the pet walking area waiting for a chihuahua . . .

After our quick rest, the last 50 KM to our hotel in Spokane was smooth and easy.  Once again, our timing was good.  We did not hit Spokane at rush hour!  We will just get our timing down perfect and our holiday will be over!