Oregon‘s nickname is the beaver state – unfortunately we didn’t see any, just the Cascade Mountains and trees mainly Douglas fir trees. Our home for the week was Armitage Park in Eugene, a truly amazing public park, lots of grass and trails and the McKenzie River running alongside. Oregon has the largest collection of covered bridges in the West and one of the largest in the USA. The settlers used the most abundant materials available, Douglas fir, to construct these river crossings – with ‘houses’ over them to…

Most of this part of California was being tourists around Fresno and Vacaville – Yosemite for the huge trees, Napa Valley for the vineyards, Old Town Sacramento, Sausalito for eggs benedict and the Golden Gate and of course a tour of the Jelly Belly factory, so this post is mainly a collection of photographs. One trip was around Lake Berryessa and the small town of Winters and the local wildlife preserve, the drought is really hitting this area, the lake is so low. You can’t go to Sausalito…