(The Other) Vancouver

Tonight we are outside of Portland, Oregon, in a town in southern Washington called Vancouver. It's not quite as exciting as the Canadian Vancouver, but it's an OK place to stay for the night.

Today we headed south after a week of driving west! I guess we're making progress. We picked up the rental car at the Wenatchee airport. Laurie and Rob drove with us so that they could take the Accord back to Twisp with them. We got lunch at a very good Mexican restaurant that was down the street from the airport. I was sad to leave Laurie. We waved good-bye to each other like we used to do with Dad. It is hard to live so far apart.

I was also sad to see the Accord go ... it was Dad's last car. The license plate goes all the way back to our 1988 Astro van ... the letters coincidentally matched the initials of my great-grandfather. My grandpa, who was still alive then, thought that was great. Dad held onto that license plate code for the next twenty years. The Accord was the car that Mom and I took to Boston for the first time to find me an apartment after I got my first job. It was a good car to take across the country.

Our rental car is a Kia Rio. It is the equivalent of the "Ford Festiva" that Dad always warned about ("Be sure you get a mid-sized car because otherwise you'll be sitting with your knees up to your chin in a Ford Festiva"). Yeah, quite a different experience from the Honda.

After waving good-bye to Laurie, we headed south. We were hoping to see Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens. But instead, we saw a lot of fog. (See above photo). The view wasn't that bad though. Here's the part of the scenery that wasn't shrouded in fog:

We also saw some petrified ginkgo tree wood at a state park on the Columbia River. That was kind of interesting, although we didn't have time to drive through the whole park.

We got here to "Vancouver" around 7pm. Unlike a lot of parts of Washington that we've seen, it is lush and green here, much like Seattle. Tomorrow we drive through Oregon. Hopefully we'll find a Jamba Juice somewhere around here. :)