For my next trip I was off to Oregon. That’s right, all the way across the country to Oregon; I could not have been more excited! I flew out of Dubuque Monday morning and after 3 flights I finally got to Oregon and met up with Mackenzie Carr, Miss Rodeo Oregon. While we (me, Mackenzie, Tricia Miss Rodeo Idaho, and Becky Miss Rodeo Nebraska) waited for Sammy Miss Rodeo Florida to get to the airport we went and had a great supper. After grabbing Sammy from the airport we heading to Mackenzie’s home to get settled in for the night. She has a beautiful home with a wonderful back drop.
Western Oregon is so beautiful and they have SO many trees! It was almost like a rain forest. On Monday we started off the week with our queen duties.
We visited a small nearby school to talk about rodeo, visited local sponsors and had a great sponsored lunch at a local little coffee shop. After lunch we headed to the larger school and did a school assembly for the kids teaching them about rodeo. After the school visits we headed off to Portland again. We were going to visit Voodoo Doughnuts. They doughnut shop had be featured on Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives” and “Man vs. Food” which I watch both of those shows so I was very excited to visit the shop. They had so many different kinds of doughnuts! I think between the 5 of us we ended up getting about 10 doughnuts so we could each try different ones. 
We took a bite out of each and they were delicious! I think my favorite was the maple and bacon one; yes it had bacon on it! That night we finished off the night by having supper with Mackenzie’s national director at a beautiful restaurant on the water. After getting some sleep we started off Wednesday morning by visiting a job site of Ax Men Mike Pihl. Mike was such a nice man and so happy to have us at his job site and show us around. We even got to keep our t-shirts and suspenders! Once we were done at the logging site we headed off to Tillamook to visit the cheese factory. They make amazing cheese and we had an awesome lunch while there. Our next stop was to Astoria to cross the Columbia River to head to Long Beach, Washington. Once in Long Beach we had a reservation to go riding on the beach. It was absolutely amazing! I have never seen the Pacific Ocean so not only did I get a chance to see that but I got to go riding right on it as well!
After our wonderful hour ride we heading back over to Oregon and did some site seeing in Astoria. We stopped and saw the house where the movie “The Goonies” was filmed. Also we were so close to the docks we just had to go down and see some sea lions.
I didn’t realize how loud they were, or how much they stink! Once we had all of our pictures taken with the sea lions we loaded back up to head home for a BBQ with Mackenzie’s family.It was nice to have a relaxing night and have fun with her friends and family. On Thursday morning we were able to take our time getting up and moving. But once we did we loaded our things and were off to the east for Pendleton! It was a 5 hour drive so we took our time and stopped to check out a beautiful waterfall as well called Multnomah Falls.
It is the second largest waterfall in the United States! It was so beautiful and mystical. After we had taken a thousand of pictures we got back on the road, stopped for lunch and were in Pendleton that evening. We finished off the night by a little shopping, touring the town and going to our host home to get some sleep. The next morning, Friday was an early one! We were up at 4:30 am to head to the rodeo grounds to get ready for the parade. Little did we know we actually didn’t have to be there at 7am like the paper said we did. The parade didn’t start until 10am so we had plenty of time to just… well just sit there! Once we got a little closer to the start of parade we met with the people running out wagon and got on our way. It was really cool to be part such a famous rodeo’s parade. After the parade we grabbed a quick lunch at the queen’s lunch and then headed to the grandstands to watch the rodeo. And wow! What a rodeo it was! I feel like I had never been to a rodeo. The arena was a track with a grass football field in the middle!
They just had a little PVC railing going around the track and the horses would just over it or take it out! It was crazy! It was a very interest thing to be able to witness. The barrel pattern was actually on the track. So from the first to second barrel, and second to third the girls had to run across the field! The fast times were in the 28 second range! Once the rodeo was over we grabbed some supper and got ready for the Happy Canyon Show.
It was a live show that portrayed how the Indians came to settle in Oregon all the way up until the white settlers came in. They had horses running in and out, fireworks and funny skits. Besides it being a little cold it was a lot of fun and really neat to watch! After having such a long day we decided to head back to the house and get some sleep. Saturday morning we started off with a tour of the Pendleton Underground. It is this set of tunnels that run under the city and they turned it into a museum to show different parts of the city in different time periods.
There was some places that where speakeasies, laundry services, butcher shops and even living courters for the Chinese when they weren’t allowed to be above ground after dark. It was really interesting to see all the history and have it come to life. After the underground tour we finished up shopping we wanted to get done, had lunch and were back on the road by 3pm that day. We were heading back west to Mackenzie’s house but I was being dropped off at the airport to head home. I flew through the night and was home Sunday morning. I had an AMAZING time while in Oregon and I can truthfully say it was a trip for the books and was able to check a lot off my bucket list!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment