Didn't someone say, "I never met a road I didn't like?"
If not, someone should have. Back when gas was cheap, our budget didn't allow elaborate vacations, and vacation time was limited, we used to get in our car on the weekend and go, with no particular destination. Just because we hadn't driven down a particular road before. During those years, we did a lot of camping, which at first involved the kids sleeping in the car and us on the ground outside. We learned a lot about sleeping out, including the clammy feel of a wet sleeping bag. Eventually we bought a tent, and that was much better. The sleeping bags only got wet when it rained really hard.
After a few years we moved up to a Volkswagen camper, and spent one summer seeing as much of the United States as we could in eleven weeks. Fourteen thousand miles, and it cost us $25 a day (gas was cheap, remember...). The camper served us well for quite a while, until it got tired and started spending a lot of time in the shop. But it didn't leak, and we loved it while it ran.
For a few years we did the motel thing, but kept talking about how we'd buy a travel trailer, someday...
Someday finally came, and we found that having our own modern covered wagon was a joy and a delight. We toured much of the Pacific Northwest in our Award Travel Trailer and for several years we spent one month a year as park hosts. It was a wonderfully comfortable home away from home.
It also was a joy to tow. In 1995 we took the Award east from Fort Clatsop along Merriwether Clark's return route to Independence, Missouri, with a stop at Fort Mandan, and followed the Oregon Trail back to its end.
In the photo, we're at Chimney Rock, Nebraska.
The Oregon Trail Interpretive Center at Baker City, Oregon, and the End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center in Oregon City, Oregon, were among the best of the Oregon Trail Museums we visited.
Time takes its toll of us all, and we've finally admitted that towing a trailer has become more work than fun. Now we jokingly tell folks we've moved up to a motel, but we'll miss the trailer. There's much to be said for having our own bed, our own reading light, and our own stereo when we stop for the night. Not to mention being able to cook our own dinner instead of finding a restaurant we like.
Now we're looking at other options. We've taken some cruises, one down the Columbia and then north to Vancouver, BC, one up the Inside Passage to Glacier Bay, a third through the Panama Canal. Both were wonderful, but we found that shipboard life as its lived aboard the cruise vessels is not as much fun for us as it is for some. We don't party much, we don't play Bingo, and we would rather look at scenery than an endless ocean.
We're still looking for a cruise that specializes in amusing lazy recluses and other equally peculiar people.
Much as we like to tour by automobile, sometimes it's more fun to let someone else do the driving. The most comfortable way to do this is to Take The Train. We've traveled all the way across the country and back three times, and loved every mile of it.
And speaking of trains, each year a reenactment of the driving of the Golden Spike is held at Promontory Summit.
Oregon has the best State Parks in the world.
You can tour a Civil War fort, walk in the ruts of the Oregon Trail,
sleep in a teepee, rent a houseboat, waterski, windsurf, rockclimb,
or just sit and watch the ocean surge or the grass grow.
Then tomorrow you can do something else.
The parks aren't just for campers, either. There are some fabulous day-use parks, like Shore Acres, which is a lovely botanical garden, Banks-Vernonia, a rails-to-trails park that winds through the Oregon Coast Range, and the historical museum and gun fortifications at Fort Stevens, where there is also a replica of the old Civil War fort, built to protect the mouth of the Columbia from Confederate raiders (and no, we don't think any actually got here).
Another great way to see Oregon is on a bicycle.
The Oregon Bicyling Guide shows traffic volumes, steepness of grades, and bicycle repair facilities along most state highways. It also tells you where you can camp and how to get local bicycle maps.
The Oregon Coast Bike Route Map is chock full of information about one of the most spectacular bike routes anywhere.