National Park #8 Crater Lake August 19,2013

This was our last day here.  We got up, watched Soul Surfer AGAIN, then packed up and headed back to Portland.  We explored the west side of Portland briefly, driving through Forest Park, the largest urban forested park in the U.S.  Is was gorgeous except for all the hippies everywhere :-) We passed Voo Doo donuts and kept on driving cuz the line was ridiculous.  That's the second time we've skipped because the line was too long so we STILL haven't ever tried them. We were going to just check into our Holiday Inn Express by the airport and swim but we got there around 1 and check-in wasn't for a while so we looked over in the distance, looked at each other and said, "What the hell...let's go to Mt. St. Helens".  It was a 90 minute drive over there and as soon as we got close we lost any cell phone connectivity so we really had no idea what the must dos were.  The mountain blew out to the north and we were coming in from the south so we never got to see the actual crater but man, we saw some beautiful stuff.  Some of the most amazing lakes EVER, along the way.

 



The first sign we came to after entering the park was Ape Cave. So we said, "Sure - a cave full of apes.  How bad can that be?"  We found a place to park then took a short hike to the trailhead for the cave.  As we approached, we say people walking down the trail with head lamps, coats (it's 80 degrees outside), etc.  so we thought this might be a slightly bigger deal than we realized.  But what the hell, we carried on.  We walked down the first set of stairs and there was at least a 15 degree temp drop immediately.

We went a little ways, woefully unprepared, the four of us holding hands, relying on Nick's iPhone flashlight app!  It was pitch freakin' dark in there AND scary.
So I said, "You know, both kids have headlamps in the car and we have a flash light.  We could always go back and get them", for sure thinking that there was no way the kids would want to walk all the way back only to walk all the way back.  Instead the response was, "YEAH!!!  Let's do that."

So here we are on round two:

Don't let the light fool you.  That is ALL from the flash.  I couldn't even see the kids when I took their picture.  It was AWESOME!!!!!

With that we headed back toward Portland.  Bye Mt. St. Helens.  Wish we had more time for you.

We stopped and ate pizza at the Blind Onion in Vancouver, Washington, then checked into the hotel around 7:30 or 8:00.  Am really glad we went on our adventure because the hotel didn't even have a pool and the hot tub didn't work.  What a great trip it was.  Up EARLY tomorrow to catch our 7:30 flight back home to Hades.  We'll miss you Oregon.

National Park #8 Crater Lake August 16 & 17, 2013

Today (the 16th) was one of our "stay in Cannon Beach" day.  We walked into town and hit the souvenir and candy shops.  They fired up the salt water taffy cutter and wrapper while we were there which is always cool

We stopped off at Local Grill & Scoop for some beer, wine, chocolate milk and cheese fries then we walked back to the house, stopping along the way to eat wild blue berries (1st time we've done that!!)

Saturday August 17 - Ah, our last day here always makes me sad.  This morning we walked south to the Waves of Grain Bakery and had cheese muffins and cookies.

 

Then we walked back and spent the rest of the day on the beach building sand castles throwing boomerangs.

Then we ended our day with a great dinner at the Lumberyard, a place we hadn't eaten at since the very first night of the very first year we ever came here.  It was delicious - we had frickles and crab legs.

Since it was our last night, we stopped by the Picnic Basket (one of the candy stores) and got one final treat then went home to watch the sun set.

 

National Park #8 Crater Lake August 15, 2013

Today was kind of a rainy, dreary day.  But we headed up to Astoria and the first thing we did was stop and take a picture in front of the Goonies house.  I can't believe in all of the years we've been coming here, that we've never done this before.  The kids were totally bored but when we walked up the road to the house, you could hear what sounded like hundreds of sea otters barking up a storm (we saw them later, from a distance, lining the piers)

After the Goonie house, we drove over the 4-mile Astoria-Megler Bridge into Washington state.
We drove through the town of Ilwaco, and into Cape Disappointment State Park but we didn't even get out of the car because there was so much fog that you couldn't see anything.  In fact, it is one of the foggiest places in the United States (it's foggy and equivalent of 106 days a year).  We drove back into Ilwaco and ate a fairly nasty lunch.  Grant insisted on crab so we got him a $10 crab cocktail and he wouldn't touch it.  The French fries were cooked in the same grease used to fry the fish.  Not tasty but such is life. 
We crossed back into Astoria and decided to go ahead and go up to the Column, something we didn't do last year.  We figured there would be no view at all but did it anyway.  Here's Ryan walking up the 164 steps.

We got gliders for the kids so they both launched them off the top then unbeknownst to anyone, Grant ran back down the stairs to fetch his.  After a small manhunt, we found him minding his own business in front of a good picture op:

Oh and here's the Column:

On our way home, we stopped by a family fun park and Grant, Nick and I rode go karts while Ryan watched.  Nick and Grant rode together b/c G was way too short and he was not particularly happy about that but it was still much fun!

National Park #8 Crater Lake August 14, 2013

We took it easy this morning (the 14th).  We played on the beach, hung around the house, watched Soul Surfer (the Brittany Hamilton movie) for the 2 millionth time - Grant's new favorite movie - then we headed south, stopping at Oswald West State Park (this was our first time there).  It's just a few miles south of Cannon Beach.  I'd read about this short (1/2 mile) hike down to a great beach with a waterfall, etc., etc., etc.  So we checked it out and it was truly amazing. Here's a pic along the hike

Once we got onto the beach, which was covered with surfers, here's what it looked like:

 

Oh and did I mention that there were sea caves???

This is the latest we've been there in the summer so this may be typical of late August but there were dead crabs all over the beach, something we have never seen here before...

We left Oswald, drove down to Tillamook, got ice cream and goodies, then headed on home.  Of course we played on the beach when we got home but that was about it.

National Park # 8 Crater Lake - August 13, 2013

This was our Seaside day.  We got there around 9:00 before most things were open so we went straight to the arcade where the kids won lots of tickets and bought a bunch of junk.  We then went over to the toy store.  Each year we give the kids $20 that they can spend on whatever they want.  Grant bought a boomerang, a slide whistle and a rubber band gun at the Seaside toy store. (Ryan mostly ended up with fake nails from the grocery store:-))

 

 

After the toy store, we went to Aquarium, something we started doing a few years back but that we skipped last year.  Of course, the first thing you do at the Aquarium is feed the seals!

 

 

The seals eat these small, very stinky fish but it's so much fun.  The one below was taking his left flipper and banging it rhythmically down onto the water so that the visitors would notice how hungry and cute he was. 



 From the aquarium, we walked down the prom and ate at Sam's Seaside Café then Nick and Grant too a spin on the bumper cars, something Ryan refuses to do.

From the bumper cars, we got into a 4-person pedal boat and headed up the Necanicum River.  This is the first time we tried the pedal boats and while we crawled along at 1 mph, Grant thought it was a blast because he'd never been on one before.  Ryan and I had done this once before at Tyler St Park several years ago.

We swung by Safeway and then drove home and spent the rest of the afternoon working a puzzle/watching tv/reading/playing on the beach.

National Park # 8 Crater Lake - August 11th & 12th, 2013

While we were actually finished with our national park visiting for this trip, I thought I'd go ahead and write some stuff about the remainder of our trip.
We got up this morning, fixed breakfast in our hotel room, which the kids thought was cool, watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the old one) on TV then got on the road to Cannon Beach.

It was a relatively uneventful drive.  We stopped in Lincoln City and ate at Mo's then stopped in Tillamook with the intention of going to the creamery (for the 5th or 6th time) but it was completely packed.  So we did our grocery shopping at the Fred Meyers in Tillamook then drove straight into Cannon Beach, unpacked and went down to the beach.

Happy to be here.

August 12th.  I got up this morning and went running south of the house and onto the beach.  The kids went into town and played on the skate ramp and playground.  I showered up, packed a picnic and drove into town to grab them and go check out Crescent Beach. Well they made some friends, Amadeo and Luciana (yes from Portland) and severely ADD and they wanted to tag along with us on our picnic/hike.  So after dodging it every annoyingly polite way I knew how, they came along with us.  We went into Ecola and instead of turning right and heading toward Indian Beach, we turned left (first time we've done this).  We picnicked on this beautiful area then took a somewhat difficult hike (1.25 miles each way) down to Crescent Beach and it was breathtaking. 

Here's a pic on the hike down:

First off there were sand dollars everywhere.  There was also a waterfall that all four of the kids drank out of.  SO MUCH FUN!

 

 

 
The return hike involved lots of complaining and bickering among all four kids so we dropped off the friends, went home and crashed.  Great first day at Cannon Beach!!

National Park # 8 Crater Lake - (Day 2 continued) Aug 9, 2013

Once back in the car from our treacherous hike, we continued around the lake stopping a few more times at Pumice Castle Overlook (4:00) and Phantom Ship Overlook (5:00).

 

Pumice Castle Overlook (see the orangish thing on the right?)

 

Phantom Ship Overlook

 

 

We drove down to the Pinnacles Overlook, which I thought was pretty cool, then we stopped and had a picnic on the side of the road in front of a Videa Falls (5:30 o'clock) then headed back to the Visitors Center to catch a 20 minute film on how the lake was formed. 

 

Pinnacles Overlook

 

After the film, we heading back around to 12:00 (exited out of the north entrance) and drove 188 miles over to Florence, Oregon (on the coast).  We got in around 5:00 and the kids were thrilled with our hotel (the Driftwood Shores Resort - not in quotes this time).  We unpacked our stuff, got on our bathing suits and walked over to the hotel's indoor pool/spa/spray ground.  It was very nice to relax.  After swimming we headed out for pizza.  I think the place was called Abby's Legendary Pizza.  The kids played some games then we swung by the grocery store and went home.  By grocery store, I mean a Fred Meyers which was bigger than Ikea and wasn't just a grocery store.  It was a grocery store, nursery, clothing store, furniture store, etc., etc., etc.  In all the years we'd been coming to Oregon, we'd never gone inside one.  Wow.  Crazy.  Anyway, we picked us some eggs, OJ, whatnot, for breakfast.

 

 

It was a great day!



 

National Park #8 Crater Lake August 10, 2013

We got up sadly early this morning (5am?) thanks to Grant, ate pop tarts and toast in our room then got in the car and headed into the park.  Of course, the most important stop was the sign!!!

We came in from the south and I had anally big plans to hit this thing on a perfect schedule driving the rim counter clockwise, all culminating in a hike labeled strenuous by the park itself.  Well of course today was the day of the annual Rim Race marathon that ran clockwise around the rim and required all drivers to do the same.  Hum.  So we improvised a bit.  If you imagine the lake as the face of a clock, we came in at 7:00 and first stopped just outside of the entry gate, at the Annie Creek Gift Shop so that we could buy the now-mandatory hat pin and magnet for each of the kids. 

Our first stopped along Rim Drive was Discovery Point (8:00).  This is Grant is his brand new Volcom jacket (possibly the dumbest thing ever invented) but he got it two days ago and has been talking about it for 11 months (aka 20% of his life)

 

 

 

 

Next, at 9:00 (on the face of a clock remember), was Watchman Overlook.  Beautiful.

 

 

We got a caught by surprise when heading to our next stop, Cleetwood Cover Trail (Strenuous Hike, Bribery Trail, I could go on forever) because we passed many runners who were already walking only 6 miles into the marathon.  Nope, they were actually crossing the finish like of the associated 10K right at our trail head (which was at 1:00 btw).  We parked and got the kids all pumped up by talking of double ice cream cones if no one complained.  Not a long hike actually...only about a mile or so down but the return hike was straight up.  However, we were DOING THIS because it's the only place where you can legally get into the lake.  So off we went.

 

 

 

Of course on the way down the kids were like, "This is totally easy!  I'm so getting ice cream!"

 

Once we got to the bottom, it was simply magical.  The water was freezing but crystal clear.  We stuck our feet in, ate some Pringles, fed some Chipmunks and tried to get psyched up for our ascension.

 

We trudged up the hill (lots of complaining) got in the car and continued on.  I asked the kids if they liked it to which they replied that they landoliked it, a term we coined on the plane the day before which means, "I liked and I did not like it."



National Park # 8 Crater Lake August 9, 2013

Since Ryan was one, in 2007, we began visiting the Oregon Coast, staying in the same beach house each year.  It is a magical place for our family.  We've typically gone for 7 nights, Sun to Sun in accordance with our rental agreement but this year we left for Oregon on a Friday (today) in order to take a "slight" detour down to Crater Lake National Park.  We landed around 11:30 am got the best stinkin' minivan ever (brand new, leather seats, satellite radio, built in overhead DVD player...the kids were in heaven) and we drove 260 miles from Portland to Crater Lake, stopping of course at the Original Pancake House in Portland for lunch.  The drive was slow and it rained several times along the way but we finally pulled in around 6:00 to Union Creek "Resort".  First time in my life that I've stayed in a "hotel" that had a communal bathroom but hey for $68 a night and considering there was no place else to stay, it was awesome. 

We walked across the street for dinner then grabbed groceries beneath our room at the registration office/grocery store and finally went to bed.

A very long day but the kids were awesome.