Two Weeks, One Van, No Plan

The itinerary, in its entirety, was a note on a phone that read "waterfalls, coast, mountains, home by the 14th." No reservations, no fixed route, no real idea which order things would happen in. Just a full tank of gas leaving Portland and a rough sense that the Pacific Northwest had more water falling out of more rock faces than anywhere either of us had been.

That turned out to be true. What follows isn't a turn-by-turn itinerary — it's closer to a log of what happens when you let the road decide, written after the fact from two weeks of half-remembered gravel pullouts and gas station coffee.

01 — Days 1–4The Columbia River Gorge

Nobody plans to spend four days in one gorge, and yet. The Historic Columbia River Highway is only about seventy miles long, but it's lined with more waterfalls than seems reasonable for one stretch of road — Multnomah, Latourell, Wahkeena, Horsetail — each one a five-minute walk from a pullout that's easy to miss if you're not looking for it. We stopped looking at the map after the second day and just followed the brown "waterfall" signs instead.

"We had a rule by day three: if there was a sign for a waterfall, we found it, no matter what else was on the schedule. There was nothing else on the schedule."

02 — Days 5–9Down the Oregon coast

From the gorge, the van pointed west toward Highway 101 with no better plan than "follow the coast south." This turned out to be the best decision of the trip. The Oregon coast rewards exactly this kind of aimlessness — every twenty minutes brings another sea stack, another state park with free camping, another tiny town with one good diner and nothing else.

• DAY 5
  Cannon Beach at low tideHaystack Rock, and almost nobody there before 8am.
• DAY 7
  Cape Perpetua overlookFree camping nearby; the sunset view alone was worth the detour.
• DAY 9
  Bandon's sea stacksLow tide only — check the tables before you go.

The van, a converted cargo van with a mattress and not much else, made this stretch easy. Pull off, cook something on the camp stove, sleep facing the water, move on when it feels right. No campsite reservations, no set stops — just the coast highway and whatever looked good that afternoon.

03 — Days 10–14Inland to the Cascades, and home

The last stretch turned inland toward Mount Rainier, trading ocean fog for alpine air in the space of a single day's drive. Sunrise at Paradise, the aptly named viewpoint on Rainier's southern flank, made for the trip's best photo and its coldest morning — worth every shiver. From there, it was two long days back to Portland, mostly quiet, mostly grateful, already planning the next trip before this one had technically ended.

Nine waterfalls, by the count we kept on a gas receipt somewhere in the glovebox. Probably more we missed. That's the appeal of going in without a plan — there's always a reason to come back and find the ones you didn't.