We’re rushing to get to Las Vegas by Wednesday night so Kim can get the full sin city experience before he has to be in Los Angeles (which is on Friday). That means a lot of driving and not a lot of time to enjoy the scenery. Today was one of two long drives – a total of 9.5 hours – and tomorrow will be a gruelling 11-13 hours depending on driving conditions.

The day started out well with a nice drive from Florence, Oregon after a stay at a surprisingly clean and well equipped motel. We stopped at a little roadside restaurant in the middle of nowhere and had an excellent meal (the guy explained that since there were so few people in the area he had to really step up the quality to keep people coming back) before powering on to the Oregon Caves National Monument. This was quite a detour but we figured it was worth it because the caves are supposed to be spectacular.

On the way to the caves it started to rain and by the time we arrived it was pouring. While Angela, Anny and myself all brought rain proof Vancouver jackets Kim only had is stylish European leather jacket so he donned Anny’s blue emergency rain poncho. It looked pretty silly.

Lucky for us this is not the main season at the caves so when we got there there were only two other people waiting and the next tour started in 10 minutes. I won’t go into a lot of detail about the caves themselves – that deserves a dedicated post – but I will say it is definitely worth it to go. We took a 2.5 hour detour and all agreed it was time well spent.

We left the caves at around 5:30pm and had dinner in Cave Junction before getting back on the road. The target was Redding, California – a 4-5 hour drive that took us back up north before heading down I-5. By that time it was dark (as in pitch black) and my night-time driving experience from Norway came in handy. By the time we hit I-5 it was coming down in buckets and extremely windy so the car was being pushed here and there and soaked every time we passed one of he many trailers climbing the endless hills. The rain turned on and off for the next couple of hours before kicking into high gear as we were about an hour from our destination. At one point it was raining so hard the wipers couldn’t get the water off the windshield fast enough and the roads were flooding so I couldn’t see the reflective tags deviding one lane from the next. Scary stuff.

Even so we made it to Redding around 11:15pm and booked in at the Value Inn (cheapest in town and AAA recommended) on a 6 lane road with 8 motels and no cars. It’s like being in a ghost town.

Now we’re all off to bed to get some much needed rest before the long haul to Las Vegas tomorrow.