Willamette Valley wine country was a couple hours drive southeast of Astoria. It was beautiful to see acres of grape vines and sunshine again. The area is known for the best Pinot Noir wineries in the United States.
Astoria is in the northwestern corner of Oregon. It’s where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean. It’s also where the Lewis and Clark expedition spent a long and cold winter in 1805-1806 before returning back east. We kind of know what they went through after we experienced a month of a cold and wet spring on the Oregon Coast wondering why did we come here!
Gold Beach was our first stop in Oregon after leaving the Redwoods in northern California. We were looking forward to a rugged coastline with sea stacks (large rocks in the water).
The Coast Redwoods are the tallest living trees and among the oldest living things on Earth. The tallest of the Coast Redwoods is 379.1 feet, about 37 stories high. They are a member of the sequoia tree species. The giant sequoias, which we saw at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks are the biggest, by overall size, trees in the world.
The Sierra Nevada mountain range was just stunning after heavy winter storms dumped a lot of snow. Even though snow was badly needed, it closed roads to attractions like the ghost town of Bodie, California.
Pahrump is in southern Nevada and only an hour drive from either Death Valley or Las Vegas. The town is known for it’s legal brothels and for electing a deceased brothel owner, Dennis Hof, to the state legislature. Hof wanted legislation that would bring the federal government into talks with Nevada to negotiate solutions to Pahrump’s water situation. Years of nuclear testing contaminated their local water supply.
