Day 2 - February 8th, 2025

7:40 a.m. Temperature -2.5 C

It was a good night at the rest stop, a few trucks coming and going but it wasn’t noisy enough to keep us awake and we had also run the heater in the van a little before we went to bed so the van stayed comfortably warm throughout the night. We rolled out of the rest stop at 9:10 a.m. and headed to Kelso where we stopped at Target to pick up some windshield washer fluid (we were empty), a few snacks and also filled up with diesel at the gas station across the street.

For the rest of the day, we stuck to the I5 as planned and drove the rest of the way through Washington state and into Oregon. We drove past Portland (which we love) and down past Eugene, which until now had been the furthest South that we had driven in the US (for a minor hockey tournament). We stopped a few times during the day for food and to let the dogs do their thing and as we are aiming for a maximum of 600 KM between each gas stop (so that we don’t run dry and have some reserve), we stopped to fill up at Central Point. After that we were planning on driving until we reached northern California but we were tired so we stopped instead at the Suncrest Safety Rest Area just past Medford, close to the Californian border. For dinner, Emma made a spicy Italian chicken sausage pasta with focaccia and we had an early night.

Not the most exciting of days to write about, tomorrow should be better as we head into California.

Oh. And the sock re-appeared this morning! Woohoo! Crisis averted!

Distance driven today: 610.99 KM