Day one: Farewell Bend State Park

We have arrived and are safely ensconced in the pop- up (which needs a name - any suggestions?). The park is just at the Eastern end of Oregon but crossed over into Mountain Time so it is pretty late here. 

Getting packed up was a little hectic and a couple of non-essential but nice to have things were forgotten but we'll be fine. 

Before setting off, we did a brief traveling ritual. We poured an offering of Mountain Dew on the tires to honor Asphaltia, modern American Goddess of the roadways. 

Then we all made wishes for our journey and left the pennies on the top of the pop-up. (Sorry no pics of that) They were all scattered before we were on the freeway! 

In the spirit of spontaneity, we stopped at the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center and Wasco County Museum at lunchtime. I hope that we'll maintain a spirit of adventure on this trip and this was a great way to start that intention. The museum had all kinds of cool exhibits about the geology and natural history of the gorge and the native and Oregon Trail history of the region. There were a bunch of interesting and hands on exhibits. 

On the Oregon Trail!

The exhibits of native life & art really caught their attention!

We spent an  hour and could have stayed for twice that! We'll be back!

We're developing ways to entertain and manage the hours in the car. Today was a healthy combination of kindle/iPad game time with some more engaging and creative choices. 

Ainsley latch-hooking

Duncan doing some sort of drawing project

We also saw some beautiful scenery and this weird tree farm:

We were surprised to discover that it was  over 100* when we got to Farewell Bend so we opted not to cook over a campfire and used the camper's stove and spent the time saved playing in the sprinklers and showering. Now the kids are crashed out and I should join them as we have a 450 mile journey ahead of us tomorrow!