The Road to Zion

Our next stop after the Hoover Dam was Zion National Forest, in Utah. I love it out here - it's such a contrast to the Northwest, so beautiful in an entirely different way.

Our new favourite chain of gas stations

Entering Utah - Life Elevated!

 There's a Starbucks in the Promised Land - PHEW, am I right?

Does it not look like the set of a John Wayne film?

Is This a God Damn?

On Sunday morning, we hit the road out of Vegas and headed to the Hoover Dam (those of you familiar with the educational film Beavis and Butthead Do America will no doubt appreciate the reference!).

Ahh-mazing.

Half of the dam is in Nevada and half is in Arizona:

Observing, from the Arizona side

I can certainly appreciate some good civil engineering, but one particularly gobsmacking thing about the Hoover Dam is the fact that it is deco as all get out:

The 1930's was a great time, aesthetically speaking, to be undertaking huge public works!

Seriously!

Even the carpark signage was in keeping with the theme.

After a lap or two of the top of the dam, it was time to get on the road again. Next stop? Utah!

Thursdays at the Brew Station

Isn't it great when your favourite coffee shop also happens to be a bar with an appreciation for great beer? We started out on Thursday afternoon at the Brew Station (my preferred latte, and possibly also preferred Americano, in Corvallis), with some study and coffee:

... and raccoon, of course. I finished Annie Proulx this morning, and now I'm reading this book for my bookclub, about a bookstore that stocks only good literary fiction chosen by secret committee, and the blackmail, bribery and assassination attempts that result. Ah, booksellers! Hopefully I'll finish it in time to make it to the monthly meeting.

 At 3pm on Thursday afternoons, the Brew Station hosts a brewery tour, where a brewery offers samples of their delicious wares and pints of said delicious wares (or what Americans call pints - in Australian parlance, we're talking about schooners plus a little bit) are $3. Once a suitable amount of reading had been done, we joined the queue for a taste of the Alaska Brewing Co.'s offering. I'm already a great fan of their amber ale, so was eager to try the porter, pale and summer ales on offer this afternoon.

This was actually full of summer ale, and it was quite tasteful

 While enjoying a drink, we spent some time planning our final road trip before we fly home to Sydney. I am epically bummed out that it is time to start thinking of such things, but I am pretty darn excited about this trip. I won't say too much now, but seven days, five states, a variety of different national parks and deserts, and presumably a bunch of weird roadside eateries? Count me in! I've never really been to "the interior" before, so I'm pretty excited to see what happens in the middle of this great and bizarre country.

As the trip planning moved along, so did the sampling

 The trouble with beer is that it often leads to tempeh enchiladas...

... followed by frozen yoghurt covered in chocolatey bits. And now I'm lying on the couch, watching Everybody Loves Raymond and nursing my belly. 

Sunday on the Coast

We made a bit of a detour on our way back from Seattle so Georgia could experience some of Oregon's spectacular coastline. The 101 crosses from Washington back into Oregon at Astoria, which means you get to drive over this terrifying and impressive bridge. My photos really don't capture the size of this thing, so I suggest we turn to Google image search for a better look. Yikes, eh?

Once safely over the giant bridge, we made a few scenic stops at beaches down the coast:

In the town of Garibaldi, we found some (I think?) now-disused relics of the Great Northern Railway, and the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad, which is a railway museum that runs train tours down the coast. Putting that on the list should we ever be up that way again!

 Trains are pretty big, as it turns out

Reading up on the Great Northern Railway is fascinating - turns out it was the only successfully completed,  privately funded transcontinental railway in US history. Who has that kind of money, I wonder? I think I would settle for having enough cash just to cross this huge and beautiful country by train. One day!

Mini Break Part Three - The Road Home

Once we'd had our fill of the mountain (and the wind chill), we hit the road back to Corvallis.

Despite its proximity to such a popular tourist attraction, the economy of Fort Klamath doesn't exactly seem to be booming. This dilapidated building was full of unfired ceramic animals, among other things.

The only open shop in town had coffee and also a kitten named Rocky, ready to greet us on the door step. 

Kitchens! 

Fantastic national park signage

 They do love a covered bridge in Oregon, that's for sure

Our role as Northwestern hosts has taken us to Seattle this weekend, so stay tuned for more adventures (and possibly more of those nachos)!

Mini Break Part Two - Volcanic Crater Times

Once we were on the road, it didn't take long before we found...

Snow!

And it didn't take long before we found snow taller than Paul.

Turns out Spring means little on the top of a mountain!

Although the roads had been plowed and were ice-free, when we arrived at the top we found that the lodge was still snowed in, and we were the only tourists in sight. Fortunately, it meant we had this incredible scene all to ourselves:

 Crater Lake! Of course, the deepest lake in the US would have to be at the top of an extinct volcano. Damn show offs! The lake was so big I couldn't photograph it all in one go, so you'll have to piece together the full picture from the shots below. 

Just... wow. I hope I can sufficiently recall the feeling of standing on the edge of this thing next time I'm bored at work and in need of some spiritual sustenance!

As well as a big-ass lake, there was plenty of snow to caper in.

Feeling rather alpine 

G$, craterside