All is not lost Oregon, we love love LOVED Bend and Hood River ❤️ Happy to say we’ve moved on, put our unpleasant experience behind us, and we’re giving Oregon the second chance it deserves.

First up – Bend, our weekend pit-stop just an hour or so’s drive north of Klamath Falls. It impressed from the off by having an REI outdoors store. I was chuffed to bits to be the new owner of a yellow cycling jacket so bright you must be able to see it from space, along with matching helmet. No more enduring chilly temperatures in just a skimpy bike top for me!

Although I didn’t need the jacket for long before the sun came out on our (very tame and admittedly mostly tarmac) mountain bike ride.

Bend is renowned for its breweries, so we ditched the bikes (not making that mistake again) and tried to get round a few breweries on foot – reduced capacity Covid wait times permitting.

My favorite had to be Monkless Brewing, with its abbey theming, strong Belgian style ales and create your own flights. Gutted no tin tackers though.

Crux Fermentation was another strong contender. So good we went there twice (in two days). It helped that it was the closest brewery to our campsite. Crux had a beer garden the size of a park. It also had big, dark, punch-above-your-weight beers to add to our Basecamp cellar.

The downtown campsite in Bend was also a good score. It had a cozy community feel to it, centered around a communal gathering area with a fire pit and corn hole. Probably conceived pre-Covid, but what the heck, it’s outdoors. In addition to the RV sites, there were a number of renovated vintage airstreams and retro-trendy old-school caravans available to rent, so cute. Our little BaseCamp fit right in.

Such a fleeting visit to Bend. We left feeling there was yet more to see and explore (and more breweries to visit). Bend, we’ll be back!

Got ourselves a snow fix as we traveled through Mount Hood National Forest in the vicinity of 11,000ft+ Mt Hood (the highest mountain/volcano in Oregon). One of those almost slushy snow-bound walks, as the sun turned its attention to making spring happen.

Hood River

So Hood River gets bonus points for being over 80 degrees and sunny when we arrived (the city, not the river, I imagine the river’s a bit colder than that). What a contrast to the snow we’d just left. And perfect timing for the BBQ we’d planned at the campsite, with the intention of meeting up with one of Darren’s work colleagues. Somehow no pics, too busy eating and drinking, but good food, good drink and good company, nuff said.

The Columbia River forms the state border between Washington and Oregon. While we were working for the week in Hood River, Oregon (not actually a river), we were staying over the other side of the river, in White Salmon, Washington. Meaning each morning and evening we crossed the long narrow Button Bridge Road drawbridge from state to state.

In the US it’s not that unusual to live and work in different states, so you can imagine how the decentralized and state-individualistic Covid response has wreaked havoc here. Having said that, California, Oregon and Washington are relatively similar in their approach, and measures like mask wearing and social distancing were prolific, required and enforced.

Like Bend, Hood River had such a great outdoor vibe to the place. And what a spot for a co-working office, virtually right on the waterfront, spilling out onto a picturesque walking trail we made use of before, during and after work.

As always, we tried to get out and about for a few other walks.

The highlight of our pre-work morning activities had to be the bike ride we did along the historic Old Columbia River Highway, which runs parallel to but above the much newer Columbia River Highway. I presume the original one wasn’t called ‘Old’ until they built the new one.

Courtesy of the state park, this road is open to bike traffic only, and at that time in the morning we didn’t have too much company. Much of the trail was through trees, with teasing glimpses of the Columbia River occasionally revealed far below. Imagine how awesome it was to emerge to this viewpoint.

Leaving the giant forest of mythical proportions behind us, we moved on to the next US state in the trip: Oregon. First up was an overnight stop at a Harvest Host alpaca ranch near White City (remember, city doesn’t necessarily mean city) in southern Oregon.

The alpaca is the smallest member of the camel family, but about as far from a camel as you can get on four legs. Gentle and adorable, they look at you coquettishly with their big dark eyes and long long lashes, like butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths.

Stroking an animal is well known to be therapeutic. Stroking an alpaca… well, it doesn’t take long to feel the warm glow and inner calm. Is it a domesticated baby llama or Jessica Rabbit in a fluffy white costume? Or maybe just a cuteness overdose on steroids.

Bit of background for you… alpacas are sheared once a year, their shaggy coats are used to make yarn and subsequently lots of other things like cozy socks and woolly scarves. And so we bought some cozy socks and a woolly scarf, and whiled away the evening in the (very peaceful) company of Andean alpacas.

Next up, Crater Lake – deep blue water in a sleeping volcano. Just a quick trip but long enough for the must do pics and to feel the chilly air at 7,000ft pierce the lungs. The snow on the surrounding mountains gave such a striking contrast to the sapphire water, the views were breathtaking.

Still enroute to our work-week destination, we explored some of the non-alpaca related delights of the Rogue Valley. Which amounted to some great hiking, especially around Table Rock, a volcanic plateau with great views of the surrounding area.

The Rogue Valley is also the home of Rogue Creamery, a cheese shop of heavenly proportions. Established in 1933 and still going, they offer a wide range of their own hand-made organic cheeses plus a selectively picked range of outstanding cheeses from around the world. They even have the good business sense to sell all the fancy goodies you could possibly need to create the perfect meat and cheese board. That’s dinner sorted then.

I later realized: we had bagels with jalapeño cream cheese for breakfast, a Rogue Creamery grilled cheese sandwich with Branston pickle for lunch, and a cheese charcuterie board for dinner. Cheese, cheese and cheese. I don’t think I’ve ever had cheese for every single meal in a day before. Isn’t it supposed to give you nightmares or something?

Or maybe a sense of foreboding for our time in Klamath Falls.

We did a couple of nice enough walks along the Link River trail in Klamath Falls, the section of the river joining Upper Klamath Lake and Lake Ewauna (never did see much in the way of waterfalls mind).

And then this happened. My cheese nightmare became reality.

Yup, someone had taken it upon themselves to trash the truck window to break in. Shock, anger, denial, disappointment, frustration. You go through the motions.

Finally comes relief. A realization that it could be so much worse. They took my handbag, which gave them a whole $3 in cash. You’re welcome!

Unfortunately, the car window cost a bit more than that. As for my Green Card replacement, that was $540 and a whole lot of hassle (moral of the story, don’t carry your Green Card in your wallet). But… at least they didn’t steal the truck, then we’d be screwed! And we didn’t have the BaseCamp with us, so no issues there.

I spoke to sooo many call centers over the following days, now there’s a challenge! The hassle of dealing with replacement credit cards was not something I relished. But what was much worse was the violation. That feeling that someone’s breached your personal space and your personal property. Not a nice feeling, actually.

For me, the glass was the manifestation of this violation. And there was glass everywhere, making it impossible to think of anything else until we got it cleaned up. Feeling desolate and broken, me, Darren and the F150 limped into the self car wash place after work and pulled up at the vacuum station. I was dispatched to go get tokens from the attendant.

To my surprise, the attendant furnished me with a handful of tokens and wouldn’t accept a penny for them. He was abashed and apologetic that something like this had happened in his town. In my emotional state, this simple gesture brought a lump to my throat. Five minutes earlier I was convinced that all of humanity in the locale of Klamath Falls was evil. Now, with a few tokens – worth probably, ironically $3, I felt a renewed sense of hope.

And so we paid it forward by leaving a couple of cans of beer for the guy. He was made up, certainly not expecting it, and we were relieved to have a glass-free car and to be moving on. While we wouldn’t entirely rule out a return trip to Klamath Falls, we’re certainly in no rush.

We tend to think of San Francisco as Northern California, practically discounting anything beyond there. But there’s more, much more to Northern California than you think. The entire state running north/south along the coast is about 900 miles, almost 400 of which are north of San Francisco. No wonder there have been various moves to try to split off the north and south into different states, these areas are worlds apart.

As we took a chunk out of those Northern California miles to hit up the ‘lost coast’, long gone were the palm trees, bikini clad babes and tanned lifeguards. Instead we had rugged coves, rocky outcrops and wild waves. The quaint undeveloped towns of Mendocino, Trinidad and Fort Bragg perched on the cliff tops were quite a contrast from the population-dense cities of SoCal. Not so much blue sky up north either.

Our co-working space for the week in Fort Bragg was called the Little Red House. Very fitting. Teeny tiny, it really was like someone’s house, with the interior opened up into office space. And the outside was red. There was a little sun trap in the front porch/conservatory area, with a comfy sofa and a tiny TV-dinner style table. Guess where I spent most of my working days, languishing in the sun like a cat 🙂

Camping in Fort Bragg for the week was handy for the office, a little bit packed in overlooking the bay but awesome ocean views just steps away. Nicely contrasted with a night in Mackerricher state park, less views but more wiggle room. And ooh, a fire pit.

No shortage of walks along the coastline, many straight from the campsites.

And not a bad spot to while away the sundowner hour with a beer.

A rather more unusual stretch of coastline was Glass Beach in Fort Bragg. So named because it was previously the site of a dumping area for trash from the early 1900s to the 60s. Over time, the biodegradable stuff biodegraded, the metal was looted, and this was before the widespread use of plastic bags. What was left was primarily glass and pottery, broken down by the relentless ocean waves into small shiny glass pebbles. The forces of nature then washed up the dazzling array of gems to form an enchanting colorful beach.

Unfortunately, years of tourism have subsequently taken their toll, with visitors each taking just a few of the gleaming souvenirs, rationalizing that it wouldn’t make much of a difference. What was left for us to see was a long way from its former glory, but we still thought it was pretty cool as the early morning sunlight lit up the opaque whites, emerald greens and burnt ambers of the trash glass.

The California Redwoods are the tallest living organisms in the world. To see is to believe. These things are ridiculously tall, I mean crazy stupid tall. To give you a sense, they can grow to 115 meters. Which is taller than Big Ben (the clock tower, not the bell). Higher than the Statue of Liberty. Three quarters the height of Blackpool tower. Or the rough equivalent of 26 double decker buses stacked on top of each other. Yes you read that right. And in terms of age, the Redwoods can survive over 2,000 years.

The very oldest and the very tallest are very well kept secrets to avoid vandalism, so I think the ones we saw weren’t quite that tall or that old. Still, it took a while after leaving the area to readjust our tree size expectations – all other trees seem, well, just so small!

Our campground was called Elk Country RV Park. That sounded promising, I was excited at the prospect of maybe spotting the odd elk mooching around the meadows or skulking in the forest.

As we drove into the campsite itself, I did a double take. No need for binoculars here.

We had one last chance to eke out the coastal experience before heading inland for a few weeks. Humboldt Lagoons State Park was just a couple of miles from our campsite. It was bracing, it was windy, it was f***ing freezing. But we were damn well going to embrace it. What better excuse to get those Seabourn jackets out – they got very little wear during our Alaska cruise but here they were coming into their own. Hah, Alaska’s got nothing on Northern California!

The year is 2021. Let’s put that nasty COVID-ridden 2020 behind us. And for The Hamiltons and The Basecamp, it’s time to head off “on the road again” (as Willie Nelson would say. I looked it up – whilst the song itself is iconic and I can’t stop singing it, I had to use the google machine to find out who to credit for On the Road Again). This time we spent a whole month at home before setting off – partly for a chance to get stuff done, but also let’s face it, SoCal is not a bad option to spend the not-quite-spring days of March.

The plan this time is to head north. To infinity and beyond! Well, at least to the great unexplored wilderness of Alaska. Or… maybe not. Unfortunately for us, this pesky pandemic has other ideas. There’s a slight issue of having to drive through Canada to get to Alaska, and that border between the US and Canada ain’t opening any time soon. Plan B it is then. North from LA for now and take it from there.

Step one takes us from SoCal to NoCal (or should that be NorCal? NoCal sounds too much like a US state of weight watchers, not so appealing). Smack bang into the heady wine lands of the Sonoma and Napa valleys.

To say I’m in my element could be an understatement. Sitting in a picture perfect vineyard in the sun, with a cheese & charcuterie plate and a range of local vintages, and you have one happy chick. Throw in some cycling and it brings on a smug ‘I earned this’ mentality. Especially if I remain in one piece on the way back. (Happy to report I did!).

But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. Along the way, we passed San Francisco and it felt like the decent thing to do to pop in for a quick visit. After parking up in Tiburon (not a character in a Shakespeare tragedy, actually a spit of land just north of San Fran), we took the ferry over to the big city, along with our bikes. Cities, especially tourist ones, can be busy places, so we didn’t hang around. It was a 20 mile bike ride back from downtown SF, over the iconic Golden Gate Bridge (woohoo, how cool is that!), and through Sausalito, stopping only for a cheeky ice cream.

Before you know it, it’s Monday and weekend vacation is over; work beckons. Week one of our 2021 Road Trip is based around the town of Petaluma in Sonoma County – co-working space, tick; campsite, tick.

Our makeshift office for the week was probably the biggest space from all our trips, at 9,000 square feet. It was bright, light and airy, not to mention virtually empty. Covid risk – low; all good.

With sunrise around 6:45am and a work start time of 8am, trying to get a half decent morning walk in requires planning, precision and motivation of military proportions. Of course, there’s always after work, but then you’re competing with wine and cheese.

In the spirit of diversity, equity and inclusion, it seems wrong for wine to get all the limelight. After all, there’s some pretty good breweries around here too. So we spread the love and our patronage.

OK you Brits. Just a word of advice about this eating and drinking outside lark, which I believe is on your doorstep. All very well (maybe, sometimes, when it’s not raining) during the day. But believe me, standing around outside, at night, is just freezing. Heat lamps are your new best friend. Takeaway too.