This was it, our last full day on the road, and the rain still falling. We stopped to look at the giant Redwoods along the coast and at several secluded bays on the roadside. All with piles of driftwood and jurassic rock formations. Many had large boulders you could climb on to that stretched past the waterline.

We finally found a place that did fish and chips for lunch, and very nice it was too!

That afternoon we followed signs to the Oregon sand dunes, which were exactly that. And we had a bit of a walk, but the light was fading so we didn't venture too far.

After finding a cheap motel in Newport I went to find some provisions for dinner and some wine to mark the last evening of our epic road trip.

The next morning we set off for Tacoma. Still stopping at various places along the coast and at a tiny diner run by an old couple who looked like they hadn't seen any customers for a week! The food was so good and so cheap and they had all manner of homemade cookies for sale, which I stocked up on!

A few more sight-seeing stops and a few direction changes and we were heading back into Washington via the incredibly long bridge that is half raised high above the water and then dips down to skim the water to the over side.

An hour or so later we were driving back into Tacoma. Back to where our adventure had started 3 weeks beforehand. We had drove through 10 states and clocked 4813 miles. We'd seen snow, a lot of rain, desert heat, and dangerously high winds. We'd stayed in hostels, motels, log cabins, tiny no-where towns, the glitz of Vegas and on peoples couches. We played in snow and swam in desert streams, slid down white sand dunes and clambered over ancient arches. Saw lizards, humming birds, bald eagles and a whole host of other wildlife. We'd followed the trails of ancient (alien?) Indians, seen the traditional town of Masilla, the vibrancy of Santa Fe, the Mexican boarder, tranquil lakes and dramatic coastlines. We'd eaten numerous diner breakfasts, backstreet pizzas, all manner of fastfood from various outlets, lots of Mexican - some good, some awful -, cooked some nice curries and drank about a thousand cups of Starbucks coffee each.

It truely was an unforgetable experience and I loved every second of it. But I wasn't sad that it was over, as I still had 2 weeks left and my next adventure was to Washington DC, the New Jersey shore, then back to Tacoma, and then to my final destination - New York City baby!!!