Family Pictures

When we were in Montana Uncle Pat and Aunt Sarah had a photographer come and take family photos.  We also took our own of the kids and Daddy and I.  

We had everyone but Aunt Liz and Uncle Greg who were not able to come because of work.

Oregon Coast Trip with Grandma and Papa H

This year's big trip is officially the longest camping trip our kids have ever been on, maybe Daddy's too.  We were lucky enough to have Grandma and Papa H join us with their new trailer.  The kids absolutely loved the time they got to spend with them.  We drove over 1100 miles in order to see the entire Oregon Coast and managed to drive every inch of the Oregon 101 in our 12 days on the road.

Park One: Valley of the Rogue State Park

 It was a long haul with about 8 hours of driving.  The kids actually handled it pretty well.  While we were there we went on a jet boat ride on the Rogue River to see Hellgate canyon.  The boat was much larger than anticipate and had lots of fun information.  Of course, the best part was when the pilot would stop the boat unexpectedly and make the water spray up over the boat, and spinning 360's!  Carson sat on the outside edge, which made me very nervous.  Apparently it made Kayda nervous too because the first 360 we did she reached out and grabbed on to him.  We all got soaked and dried periodically throughout the 36 miles we covered.  We spent most of the time just hanging out at camp, playing corn hole, riding bikes and visiting. We only stayed for two nights. 

Park Two:  Harris Beach State Park

I decided it was time a drove the trailer for real, beyond the few minutes to pick it up and drop it off.  Of course, I chose quite the route to do it on!  This portion of our trip was incredibly windy with cliffs right up against the narrow roads!  We were surprised to discover an absolutely beautiful river.  The pictures don't do it justice at all.  It was perfectly clear and we could easily see the bottom throughout our drive.  We also found that the Redwood national park actually comes very close to the Oregon/California border.  I kept kicking myself, if I had known about it, I would've tried to camp nearby. 

While at Harris Beach we spent any extra time we could down at the beach, the weather made it difficult by pelting us with sand constantly. The kids got to try out their wetsuits and started learning how to boogie board!   Our kids are very drawn to water, if there is water, it is almost guaranteed they'll be in it.  Normally there is only so much time they can handle playing in the Pacific, the wetsuits extended that considerably so they got to enjoy the waves a lot longer.  The boys are drawn to the rocks almost as much as the waves and they spent a whole sunset climbing all over every rock they could reach.  Kayda wasn't very interested, since visiting the Grand Canyon she has decided she is afraid of heights.  She'll still do some things but she definitely has some nerves. 

We only had one full day at this location so we got up and headed off to Secret Beach for low tide.  The ranger told us it had the best tide pools so we made the hike in.  We were certainly glad we did.  We had the beach to ourselves for a good 45 minutes before anyone else showed up.  We are used to seeing anemones in tide pools, but star fish are usually a rare treat.  We ended up seeing over 30 starfish in this one small section of rock.  It was amusing to me that I had to work hard to persuade the kids to touch the critters.  They've touched anemones and starfish before but they were very reluctant to do so again.  Carson was convinced the anemone would hurt him.   After the first time they warmed up to it.

 

Since it was a short drive, and we all wanted to see them, we actually decided to go back the next day to see the Redwoods.  We visited the Stout Grove in Jedediah Smith State Park and got to dip our toes in that beautiful Smith River for a little while.  We read that the tallest Redwood is almost 380 feet tall and 26 ft in diameter.  The largest Redwood tree is almost as wide as our trailer.  We also headed south to Crescent City since it only added 15-20 minutes of driving.  Since it was the first city on the California 101 we thought it would be neat to see... it really wasn't, it was very run down and didn't have much to see.  We did find a good restaurant there.  Dillon decided to try shrimp, Carson tried crab.  They both liked it.  It's a bonus to travel along the coast with Papa Mike since he's always happy to eat seafood.  We don't eat it, I wouldn't even know what to order, so it gave the boys the opportunity to be adventurous. 

The morning before we left, we spent about an hour down at the beach before hustling to pack up for our next stop, it was the only time on that beach that it wasn't windy.

Park Three: Jessie M. Honeyman Memorial State Park

This was our longest stay at three nights.  This had the closest proximity to the most activities.  When we got there we weren't real inclined to go exploring so we ran errands and hung out at camp.  Grandma Peggy introduced Kayda and Dillon to pinochle.  They picked it up quickly and LOVED it.  Dillon in particular.  Part of that may be that the very first time the played independently he was able to get a thousand aces with Papa Mike.  To explain this, there are four people playing.  There are two nines, tens, jacks, queens, kings and aces of each suit.  A thousand aces means you have all 8 aces in your hand.  It's incredibly rare and he was SO excited!  

The next day, we woke up to rain.  Not a lot but rain none the less.  It worked out that we were planning to go rent ATV's to go play on the dunes.  We each got our own, except Grandma and Papa got a double.  Kayda and Dillon were able to ride the standard size but Carson had to ride a mini.  We were very nervous because everything we read made it sound like he wasn't going to do much more than barely crawl across the sand.  That was incredibly inaccurate.  All the kids took to it really quickly.  Daddy is definitely much less cautious than any of the rest of us.  He was happy to try going down drifts and such, which the rest of us avoided.  Dillon was the most adventurous of the kids, trying to find different routes around the dunes.  Carson would go anywhere as long as he was following someone.  Kayda had fun... but apparently never left first gear!  I managed to tip mine doing donuts on a not so flat section of sand.  Daddy flipped his too.  That was part of what made Kayda nervous.  We explored quite a bit until Daddy found a particular bowl.  I think it was out of bounds of where we were supposed to ride.  He, Carson and Grandma and Papa went down it's very steep sides.  I kept Dillon and Kayda up with me.  We sat to wait for them, Grandma and Papa couldn't get back out!  They tried three times, making it 2/3 to 3/4 up the side before they'd get stuck.  I had seen Carson and Daddy take off out the back so I tried to send Grandma and Papa that way.  Then I took Kayda and Dillon to try to find our way around to them.  Except we came up on a drift unexpectedly and stopped. Kayda and I both ended up stuck so we had to work together to get ourselves free.  That took long enough that I decided it was time to just head back, and hopefully meet up with everyone else there.  We managed to find them on the way back.  We got back right on time.  

 

That evening we headed up to see Thor's Well and Spouting Horn at Cape Perpetua.  You want to see them during high tide or a storm.  So we headed there for high tide.  Thor's well is thought to be a collapsed sea cave.  As the waves come in it overflows but when they pull back out it looks like it is a giant drain for the ocean.  Daddy joked that we had found the hidden world from How to Train Your Dragon 3.  Except it was a MUCH smaller version.  Spouting horn is a spot that, when the waves hit it just right, shoots a spout of water in the air just like a whale spout.  It was pretty neat to see, but not as mesmerizing as Thor's Well. 

The next day we headed to see the Sea Lion Caves.  We had heard really good things about them...  it ended up being our second disappointment of the trip.  It was neat but you only wandered around for 30-40 minutes and you were done.  We tried to go to the Heceta Light house but discovered you have to hike to get to it, we had all hit a pretty good wall at that point so we didn't attempt it.

We did find "Hobbit Trailhead" and had to take a picture for Dillon.  His favorite characters in Lord of the Rings are Merry and Pippin.  So when he tried Dungeons and Dragons he decided to be a halfling.  So when we saw that we knew he needed the picture.  None of us were inclined to actually hike it though.

Since it was still icky out we spent the evening playing games in Grandma and Papa's trailer.  Pinochle, war and telestrations.  Telestrations is the game Grandma and Papa G introduced us to.  Carson brought it because it is his favorite game.  It definitely got some laughs!  I think our favorite was Papa Mike's Easter bunny!

Our last morning there it rained... a lot.  We were trying to wait to pack because we only had a 1.5 hour drive to our next campground and check in was around 4 but our site started flooding.  So we hurried and packed and then hid in the trailer as long as we could stand it. The plan was to stop by Cape Perpetua again to visit the tide pools at low tide, but when we got there it was so cold and misty we just made our lunches and headed out. 

Park Four: Beverly Beach State Park

We arrived at Beverly Beach to rain.  We were a little concerned about the campsite flooding again but it actually stopped fairly quickly and didn't come back.  We went and explored Depoe Bay in the hopes of seeing some whales.  Papa thought he saw one but we were never quite sure.  

Since we only had one full day at Beverly beach we used it to our best advantage.  We played on the beach, which was amazing.  The campground itself was really crowded and frustrating driving in and out of, but the beach was perfect.  The kids boogie boarded and played in the sand.  We went in to depoe bay to have lunch (Dillon tried calamari and crab mac and cheese) then headed over to Devil's Punch Bowl for low tide.  It was a little tricky to figure out how to actually get into it but we eventually found the trail and headed down.  When we first got there I wasn't very optimistic.  There was a lot of sandy area, which usually means you won't find tide pools.  I was pleasantly surprised.  We saw some anemones and a few starfish but we found about 50 crabs!  These weren't the tiny ones we found at Tolmie.  The weren't huge but some were the size of my palm.  Then of course we found sand (mole) crabs, but we counted those separately.  

 Carson and Dillon decided it was hilarious to take my bike and ride it around.  The two of them would grab Dad and I's bikes and take off.  The bathroom was a ways away so it was easiest to ride our bikes.  I ended up riding Carson's multiple times because he'd taken mine!

That evening we packed up and headed back out to have a fire on the beach and watch the sunset.  We brought down meat to cook on skewers over the fire.  It would've been great but I accidentally over seasoned the meat!  Dillon ended up not feeling well so he and I headed back to camp before the sun went down.  The other stayed and had a fantastic evening.  They even saw a couple whales!  Dillon and I drove out to try to see them when Daddy texted, we thought we saw one, but we really weren't sure.

The morning we were leaving we went to see the Yaquina head light house.  We were able to drive right up to it.  It's a pretty light house, thought Daddy wasn't impressed with the smell.  There are a couple big rocks not too far off the cliffs where some birds nest.  They were incredibly stinky, it bothered Kayda and Daddy much more than it bothered the rest of us though. Daddy took them back into Depoe bay while I went and packed up.  It was good we did that because we pulled out right at 1pm.

Park Five (last one):  Fort Stevens State Park

Our first evening at Fort Stevens we decided to have another sunset fire on the beach since Dillon and I missed the first one.  We ate dinner then headed over.  It was windier than Beverly Beach but wasn't uncomfortable.  Dillon and Carson had their shovels out and dug out a "fort".  They worked on it the entire time we were there, with the exception of when they made their smores.  The sunset was stunning. The sun went bright red as it went down.  It was an incredibly relaxing evening. 

We were down to our last full day of our trip.  We spend a few hours just hanging out at the beach.  The boys kept working on their fort and then they all flew the kite.  It turned out to be a great day for the kite.  It's a trick kite so it took a little practice.  

We went in to Astoria hoping to find some souvenir shops.  We weren't successful, though we found the largest ice cream/candy shop I've ever been to.  They had fudge, ice cream, all kinds of candy... they even had jelly belly's sorted by flavor!  I had been promising them ice cream for several days so we finally delivered.  We spent the rest of the day relaxing at camp and playing pinochle.  Carson made a fire, it was one of his favorite activities during the trip.  He always wanted to start the fire.  Though the task got considerably harder when I ran out of our egg carton fire starters.  He still stuck with it.  

On our last day we didn't hang around.  We wanted to get back before traffic really kicked in.  We said good by to the beach and had a smooth drive home.  It ended up being a really good, really busy trip and we were glad to do it with Grandma and Papa.