Frida's Freedom

Three friends who bought a VW Westfalia and are taking a roadtrip across the western half of America.

[fridasfreedom-blog]

More Portland adventures. The top photo is Mount Hood. We walked around Forest Park where there is what is known as the “Witch’s Castle” or “Stone House” where Joey and Joel took a rap album cover photo.

[fridasfreedom-blog]

Portland, OR was a blast! So many fun places to go see! We found ourselves a Mac & Cheesery where we got some delicious food. We went to the Freakybuttrue Peculiarium where we had a big foot sighting as well as many other wacky oddities. Joel got abducted by aliens. We found the “Keep Portland Weird” sign and saw Voodoo Doughnuts but decided not to wait the few hours it would have taken to get through the line to go in. We also had a good time getting lost in Powell’s Books.

[fridasfreedom-blog]

Incase anyone wondered what it was like to be behind the wheel of Frida.

[fridasfreedom-blog]

Since our propane tank had a leak we were forced to let out all the propane. In order to keep our fridge running we decided we needed to find a campground so that we could plug Frida in to keep our food from spoiling. After driving around for at least a couple hours and being turned away from two campgrounds we drove into Milo Mciver campground and our spirits sank low when we saw a sign proclaiming “Campground Full”. We decided to head in and ask the camp host just to be sure. The friendly and helpful camp host told us that he actually just had one spot open up because some people checked out early. We were thrilled that we had found a place to stay for the next couple days after running all over the Portland area searching.

[fridasfreedom-blog]

We stopped in Salem, OR at the Minto Brown Island Park. There were plenty of great trails to wander around on and we took full advantage. As we were about to leave the park we realized that our propane tank had a small leak that needed our attention. Of course this happened on a Friday and no propane places that could service the tank would be open until Monday.

[fridasfreedom-blog]

Crater Lake is amazing! The deepest lake in the U.S. located on a collapsed volcano. It is impossible to capture how gorgeous this lake is with photos. So incredibly blue and the water is so still it almost looks like ice! 

[fridasfreedom-blog]

We made it to Oregon, our 7th state just as we hit the two month mark of being on the road. As we headed for Crater Lake we stopped at Joseph H. Stewart campground next to Lost Creek Lake. We got caught up on some reading and Erin trimmed up Joey’s beard for him. We then hiked down to the lake and walked around skipping a few rocks. The campground was very nice and decently priced especially compared to the campgrounds in California.

[fridasfreedom-blog]

Patricks Creek campground where we stayed after walking all day through the Redwoods.

[fridasfreedom-blog]

Big giant huge massive enormous trees.... and a slug.

[fridasfreedom-blog]

We found some trails through the Redwoods taking in the otherworldly beauty of the enormous trees. You almost expect to see dinosaurs walking around among the massive trees! We also found another river nearby to hang out next to for a little while.

[fridasfreedom-blog]

We decided we weren’t quite done with the Redwoods quite yet so we drove up to Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park campground but found it to be full. We continued down the road looking for another campground in the area. After finding another with no vacancy we found Madrona campground which had one spot open and was free! The campground was right next to a river of crystal clear water. Which made it easy to think some zen thoughts.

[fridasfreedom-blog]

College Cove

[fridasfreedom-blog]

We visited College Cove in Trinidad, CA. It was a bit chilly but very beautiful!

[fridasfreedom-blog]

This guy turned 23 on June 12th! We celebrated Joey’s birthday in Arcata, CA. We started out the day walking around the downtown area and quickly realized there was some sort of art crawl going on with live music in the park. We then went to get some sushi followed by drinks at one of the local bars.

[fridasfreedom-blog]

The Redwoods! We found ourselves a campground in the Humboldt Redwoods State Park and settled in for the next couple days. Nearby there was a nice clear river to swim in that you had to hike through a trail of huge trees to find. Joey even made friends with one of the local snakes!

[fridasfreedom-blog]

After leaving San Francisco we drove up to Santa Rosa and stopped at a theatre to see the movie Mad Max: Fury Road. We all really enjoyed the film and afterwards we headed to park in a casino parking lot to spend the night. We had previously called this casino to make sure they allowed overnight parking. We pulled in around 12am and found a place near a few large RVs. Soon after we had popped the top of our van a security guard on a bike pulls up flashing his little light connected to the handle bars. We roll down the window and are greeted with “We don’t allow people to just hang out in our parking lot!”. We let him know that we had called to make sure it was alright if we parked there overnight and he told us that was incorrect (ignoring all the other RV and semis parked there obviously sleeping in their rigs) and we needed to leave. Desperate we called a local truck stop that said we could park overnight. Though we had found a place to sleep for the night the truck stop would not allow us to pop the top of our van so Erin had to sleep on Frida’s floor. We were then woken at 7am by one of the truck stop employees who said we needed to leave. 

[fridasfreedom-blog]

We left Lake Tahoe and made it to San Francisco. We went to the Fresh Bay Cafe for some lunch and vietnamese coffee. We then wandered around the city until we came upon the Palace of Fine Arts. We walked around in awe of the beautiful architecture. The locals seemed to be very active. We saw many people out running, walking dogs, or biking.