back from Oregon

Christmas break has been great so far as my parents and I just got back from Oregon. Though our itinerary was simple due to time constraints, all of us enjoyed the beautiful scenery of the Pacific Northwest.

Day 1

The first leg of the trip was a 400-mile drive to Medford. The traffic was fairly light, but a problem with the snow tires caused some delays. It was already dark when we arrived at the hotel. Aside from watching The Incredibles on TV after dinner, the evening was uneventful as we were all tired.

Day 2

I saw Poseidon and X-Men: The Last Stand on HBO in the morning. While Poseidon was kind of lame, The Last Stand was awesome. The free cable TV is one of the best things about traveling, especially when there is little else to do.

The three of us went to KFC for lunch. The nice thing is that we received a free chocolate cake as part of a promotion. There was a family of four next to us, and my mother noticed that they were all wearing old clothes. We figured they were struggling financially and gave them our cake at Mom's suggestion. As you could imagine, that totally made their day. Sometimes happiness isn't about having fun, but bringing joy to others. :-)

Our journey brought us to Grants Pass in the afternoon. I enjoyed browsing the shops even though the prices were absolutely insane. One store had all sorts of fake food as well as real samples. It was hard to tell which were real without touching them. Further down the street was another store with a cat sitting in the window. Having seen all those fake items, I couldn't tell if the cat was real until it turned its head. That was a funny moment. On the whole, Grants Pass was my favorite part of the trip.

We headed back to Medford after a good laugh. There was some free time, during which we went to WinCo Foods for groceries. Back at the hotel, I watched Black Dog and Blood Diamond before going to bed.

Day 3

Time was tight as we had to drive another 400 miles home. Dad made a stop at the Shasta Outlets in Anderson so Mom could visit the Mikasa store there. However, she decided not to stay after finding out the store had permanently closed. This allowed us to get home a little earlier than expected, although I wish the trip didn't end so soon. ^_^

Conclusions

The trip was lots of fun even though we though we didn't visit many places. The Pacific Northwest is quite beautiful; the scenery alone made the trip worthwhile. I've posted a few pictures from our vacation here.

December 24 update: The pictures are now online. Go check them out!

Currently listening to: "Take a Chance on Me" by ABBA