The Oregon Coastline seemed to pass in a flash. Heading north from Trinidad on the 101 we were hoping to see Elk and weren't disappointed. There were a couple of spots of the big beasts wandering around taking no notice of passers by, boys were amazed how big the male was with his antlers, not to be messed with.

One of the highlights for the boys was our jaunt into the Redwoods National Park just before the Oregon border. The boys had been pretty blase about most of the sites so far but these massive trees really captured their imagination as we had a fantastic time exporing the forest groves, in and out of the shadows of some of the largest trees on the planet. Really special place where you can sense the age of these monoliths. Another highlight was Mon getting her hands on Betty for the first time, weaving amongst the Redwoods she managed not to get on the news for trashing a 3000 year old tree with a 30ft bathtub.

Soon after we headed over the border into Oregon and began a 2 day winding path up almost the whole Oregon coast. Quite touristy in spots but the continual winding, climbing and jagged coastline in and out of the constant beautiful pines and fog. Lighthouse after lighthouse with loads of history. The major towns/ports along here are on the estuaries of big rivers and typically have massive logging/lumber wharves as well as fishing. When we talk about Oregon towns we remember "massive rivers, millions of logs and big bridges".

Dropping out of the woods you're into Oregon Dunes National Recreational park - basically boys and their ATV toys smashing about on enornous sand dunes for mile after mile. getting petrol was a nightmare as every bloke with an ATV in America seemed to be queueing for petrol at the same time. That night was a chilly stop at Bandon.

Further up the coast (Florence) we stopped at a notorious tourist trap - the Sea Lion Caves - supposedly the largest sea cave in America where sea lions come into and hang out and fart. The seas were calm so they were all outside on the rocks making the 200 feet lift down into the cave a little pointless. Points to them for taking our money.

That evening was at Lincoln City before we turned right inland towards Portland. As we were leaving the next morning Mon decided we had to stop at the 'outlet mall' as we needed more stuff to cram into the RV. When we got there the car park was empty so we parked Betty across 2 spots in the middle of the car park, 45 minutes later when we returned the car park was jam packed and it looked like it was going to be impossible to get Betty out with such a large turning circle and fat ass (tail swing i believe it's termed). We tried backing out...no - tempers were getting short as we looked to be spending the day in a car park until it cleared out but we tried one more forward attempt and scraped out by a coat of paint, much to the many onlookers amusement. Divorce averted!

We turned inland on the 18, heading for Portland the Columbia River Gorge. On the way, we'd gotten a tip about a fantastic aviation museum in the unlikely location McMinville. We were pretty skeptical but when getting there this place turned out to be a huge, capital city worth museum / exhibition of planes and space bits and pieces. It was set up by a cargo aviation baron (Evergreen Cargo??? ...never heard of them). The centrepiece of this is they house the actual Spruce Goose - Howard Hughes' one-flight-only monster of a water plane. This truly massive piece of machinery is actually made of wood (and not much spruce by the way). Everybody had a great time exploring aircraft old and new as well as the Space section. A great find and if you're ever bored just hop on a day long flight over to McMinville! What a great museum.

A few hours later we hit Portland and headed up the Columbia River. We really only drove the Oregon coastline so can't comment on the interior, but the coastline was like much of America so far, everything is massive. Trees, cliffs, roads, sea-lions, sand dunes, logs, bridges, rivers, ATV fanatics. It went quickly but was an ever changing vista.