Oregon, Washington, Oregon, ????? What next????

After a trek along the Appleton Trail, we saw elk. We had been watching for them and finally we saw some. The Appleton Trail is the southern part of the Oregon Trail opened in 1846 and crossed the southern Oregon Cascade Mountains through Grant's Pass, Medford and Klamath Falls.

Saturday's highlight was a visit to the Sea Lion Caves. On the coast of the Pacific, this is a nesting site for sea lions. Most were outside, but there is a large cave 200 feet below where they can also nest. A cormorant rookery was near this site also along with the Heceta Head Lighthouse.

Today we stopped at the Lewis and Clark National Historical Park which includes a fort built by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in 1805. It is named after Clatsops, the local American tribe living in the area at that time. Seaside, Oregon's oldest and largest ocean resort has a salt cairn which they used to extract salt from sea water season their food.

Then we turned east and headed towards Michigan. We traveled along the Columia River and were able to see Mount St Helen's. It looked very calm today - it was 28 years ago today that the mountain spewed its ash over the northwest.

We headed into the state of Washington for a visit to Fort Vancouver, which was the headquarters for the Hudson's Bay in the Pacific area. Warehouses stocked fur and made it into the fur capital of the Pacific coast. These furs were then packed and shipped back to England which was an eight month trip.

Tonight we are in Portland in view of Mount Hood.