Did you know Oregon is home to the nation’s top pear growing region? Me neither. Located in the Columbia River Gorge scenic area, the aptly named Fruit Loop is a scenic, 35-mile road that’s home to numerous orchards, berry farms, wineries and farm stands. You can easily spend a day leisurely driving the route (map here), stopping for snacks, fruit picking and wine sampling. Best part? Our RV had a fridge, so we could buy whatever produce we wanted and not worry about it!

We made sure to pay a visit to Kiyokawa Orchards. Founded in 1951 by Mamoru and Michiko Kiyokawa, the orchard is now run by their son Randy Kiyokawa, a 3^rd generation orchardist. This farm grows 120 distinct varieties of apples, pears, and Asian pears. Apple lovers adore their pink fleshed apples, which boast a distinctly pink hue on the apple’s inside. Pick your own fruit, take a hay ride, and enjoy a picnic on their beautiful grounds.

With towering trees and a river running through it, Toll Bridge Park near Parkdale, Oregon was the perfect spot to park the RV for the night. We played with the kids in the river, threw stones, and two of the four of us decided it would be fun to make sand angels. Take a wild guess whether that was the parents or four-year-old twins.

One of the greatest aspects of traveling via RV is the fact that in the evenings, we can pop in a movie for the kiddos while mom and dad sit outside with a bottle of wine and actually have a grown-up conversation. It felt like date night, without having to pay a babysitter!

It’s pretty easy to spend a day or two in Hood River. This quaint town (population: 7,167) alongside the Columbia River offers breathtaking views, great food and access to all sorts of outdoor sports.

On our trip, we stopped at the Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum, better known as WAAAM. This living museum features hundreds of cars, airplanes, motorcycles, camper vans and more. The craziest part? Just about everything here works and is run regularly. Yes, even the antique airplanes! I had the great pleasure of taking a Model T driving lesson with Dale Nicol. I’ve been driving for many, many years, but quickly had flashbacks of my first day behind the wheel. A Model T drives nothing like a minivan!

At Wilson Ranches Retreat Bed & Breakfast, the Oregon Trail isn’t just some computer game. It’s a way of life that you can still almost touch and taste—except this 9,000 acre working cattle and hay ranch offers indoor plumbing and you’re probably not going to die of dysentery.

Located in the beautiful Butte Creek Valley, three miles west of the small town of Fossil, the bed and breakfast is housed in a 1910 Sears Roebuck Ranch House with six pristine ranch style guest rooms. Hosts Kara and Brian were kind enough to take me out on a horseback ride, complete with a cattle drive!

My kids weren’t quite ready to saddle up at Wilson Ranch, so my husband brought them to nearby Wheeler High School. No, they’re not ready for high school either, but they were ready to visit WHS’s fossil beds. For a nominal fee, you can collect fossils from the thinly-bedded rocks, once the bed of a shallow lake that existed here about 33 million years ago. The Oregon Paleo Land Center will hook aspiring archeologists up with all the necessary gear, including interpretive information to help you understand and identify your finds.

Oregon’s high desert region is full of jaw-dropping views, but Painted Hills National Monument stopped me dead in my tracks. The hills get their name from the delicately colored stratifications in the soil and the yellows, golds, blacks and reds. The Painted Hills are best seen in the late afternoon. If you’re into hiking, take a stroll down one of their five trails

(check out the trail details here). In the summer, pay a visit to Cant Ranch, established in 1910 by Scottish immigrants James and Elizabeth Cant.

Tucked between the snow covered peaks of the Cascade Mountains and the high desert plateaus of Central Oregon, Bend evolved from a sleepy lumber town to an international mecca for outdoor enthusiasts. But I’ll be honest. After a four-day trip with the kids, my husband and I were more after Bend’s other claim to fame: breweries.

Bend is home to the US’s highest concentration of breweries per capita. With so many to choose from, picking one can overwhelm. We ended up at Bend Brewing Co. and absolutely loved it. Overlooking the Deschutes River, this locally owned and operated brewery and pub offered the perfect setting for our family to recap our trip, and for mom and dad to high five over checking this bucket list worthy vacation off our list. It may have been our first RV trip, but it certainly won’t be the last.

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