Our Roadtrip from Phoenix to Portland - Part 3

Heyooooo!

Tonight I wanted to wrap up the rest of the pictures of our road trip to Portland (after scarfing down a triple-chocolate muffin from Costco, of course)!

Day 7
I was definitely sad to be leaving Portland so soon, but I was excited to be visiting the beautiful Crater Lake on our way home! As we got closer to the lake, we discovered that due to a forest fire, the North entrance to the lake was completely closed. If we wanted to see the lake, we would have to enter from the South entrance--adding 2 hours to our planned 10 hours of driving. Michael asked what I wanted to do, but he already knew I really wanted to see Crater Lake. We had come all this way! He wanted to see it took, so we took the detour and I am so glad we did! Crater Lake is gorgeous. Its water is the most beautiful, brilliant shade of blue I have ever seen in my life. We learned that the water is also some of the cleanest water in the entire world!

 

We didn't get to stay very long, but I'm glad we got to see it at all! Soon we were back on the road and headed to Lake Tahoe! We arrived in South Lake Tahoe when it was already dark out, but got to explore the area the next morning. Two lakes in two days -- woohoo! :)

Day 8
Lake Tahoe was even bigger than either of us expected, and we both want to go back and spend a few days there. Camping, boating, paddle boarding, hiking. . .there is just so much to do there!! We only had a couple of hours, so we spent it near Emerald Bay.

After lunch, we were headed to Tonopah, NV. Tonopah is an old, tiny mining town and let's just say there's not a whole lot to do :) That was fine though, because we were absolutely exhausted and didn't feel like doing anything anyway! We dragged ourselves down to the restaurant downstairs for dinner (Michael had French Toast, and I had ice cream :P), and then crawled into bed and watched Hitch. We stayed at the "Tonopah Station", and they had some eclectic decor.

Dinner of champions.

Day 9

The last day of our trip! Where did our vacation go?? This was probably our roughest day of driving because we just wanted to be home. We had planned our route to go through Las Vegas and over the Hoover Dam in case we wanted to stop, but neither of us wanted to so we just drove straight through. Once we crossed the state line into Arizona, we encountered some crazy storms! It was pretty strange that during our entire trip through the Pacific Northwest, the only time we got a drop of rain was in Arizona of all places haha I'm not complaining! :) After what felt like forever, we were back home and reunited with our pups and everything was right with the world. :) 

I am the worst copilot. I give wrong directions even when I'm holding the GPS in my hands. :P After 3,470 miles of dealing with my wrong turns, this guy didn't once get mad at me for it. In fact, he kept me laughing the whole entire way. There's no one else on the planet I'd rather explore the PNW with. <3