College Visits West

As Josephine and I left Arcata we stopped at the beach visitor center of Redwood Nationals Park. This park spans many acres along the coastline and is not just made up of giant trees.

Our drive to Crescent City was beautiful through the forests and valleys of Northern California. Our hotel was a dump with no light in bathroom but the price was great. On February 11, we arrived in Eugene, Oregon and had time to take a hike after checking into our airBnB.

We also realized there was a basketball game that night and went to watch the Ducks in action. The game was fun but we were disappointed to see the football team come for the first half and when they left for good (at half time) they left huge piles of trash in the stands. I should have sent a note to the football coach, but didn’t.

Meanwhile Nate was making his way across from Georgetown, Bahamas to Florida. He accomplished his goal of not turning on the engines the entire time! Bad news was that during this passage a rash he thought was from using my natural deodorant turned out to be the start of shingles.

February 12th was our official tour of University of Oregon. There was only one other family on the tour so we had an admissions introduction sitting with an Admissions Officer in an office. Much more informative than a giant lecture hall. Our tour was with a family from Hawaii and the daughter was also a horse rider like Josephine. We ended up eating lunch together and discussing the upcoming snowstorm that was about to hit Oregon. After lunch Josephine and I headed over to the Track and Field exhibit connected to the track stadium. The history was interesting with some information on the developed of the sneaker and Nike. One of the only MRI treadmills is located in the athletic department of the stadium.

We drove to Corvallis that afternoon, but the snowstorm hit and the campus of Oregon State was closed for February 13th when we were scheduled to tour. I presented the option to Josephine to stay another night and hope the campus would open. She was more excited to visit Boise State so decided to be brave and tackle the snowy roads. I channeled my days growing up in Colorado and tried to remember skills learned all those times we drove from Boulder to Steamboat Springs in the winter season. I was able to trade my rental car for a 4WD truck so we could get through Bend and the mountain passes. The drive from Corvallis to Bend was slow and took double the hours but our steady progress gave us some great scenery.

The next day we inched into Boise which had a bit less snow but then started snowing upon our arrival!

Meanwhile Addy was rocking her spring training and sending us humorous photos of her workouts.

On February 15th, we had an icey tour of Boise State, treated ourselves to manicures and saw a bit of the city. I enjoyed the bathtub one last time know we would be back on the boat the next day.