Washington National Parks - Day 10 - August 18, 2014

Day 10: August 18, 2014:

Well this was the last day but I have to blog because the coolest thing happened.  We got up around 6:30 and I decided, quite on the fly, to just take a quick 25 minute walk because I have a 2014 exercise streak going (25 minutes at least, of exercise every day) and I would otherwise have to walk the airport.  I headed down the street from our motel, towards Ecola State Park and then walked past Les Shirley Park.  Then at the last minute decided to walk up the steep hill at the end of the street, not sure of what was at the end of it.  To my surprise, a herd of six elk were at the end of it – two male, four female.   

I got within 10 yards of them and took their picture.  It was truly amazing.  They were eating the bushes by some condos.  I texted Nick, who had been on a mission the entire trip to spot Elk, and he and Grant came running down.   

They only caught a glimpse of two of them as the sprinkler system had come on and scared them off.  But it was truly one of those small, miraculous moments in life, as was my final view of the coast...

We got in the car a little before 8:00am and drove four hours to the Seattle airport.  We stopped at a Starbucks along the way and grabbed lunches for the airport.  After checking in, we ate lunch at the gate then boarded the plane.

Much to my surprise, our flight attendant was a friend of mine from College, Janice Coffee.  She lived with Mary Weir Mary’s sophomore year.  She remembered me and was so kind.  She brought the kids cookies, free snack packs and at the end, gave them little passbooks signed by the pilots, and the pilots let them go up into the cockpit and have their picture taken.  It was awesome.   

I said something like, “Wow guys.  This is so cool.  I’m 40 years old and haven’t ever done that.”  Attention Bucket List:  check!  The pilot let me get in next.  It was totally cool.  

We got back to our car via the Parking Spot shuttle then drove home via the Taco Cabana drive through.  The diet starts tomorrow!  The house and pool were in decent shape.  Life will be back to normal once Nick and the kids get Hooper from the vet tomorrow morning. 

What a trip.  I can’t believe at ages 6 and 8, my kids have been to 11 national parks.  So glad we are doing this as a family.  This is my favorite thing in the world and I’m so proud of those damn kids!!!

Washington National Parks - Day 9 - August 17, 2014

Day 9: August 17, 2014:

We slept in a little bit this morning – 7:10am? Ryan and I worked on the puzzle a bit more then I went for a 4 mile run while the kids and Nick went down to the playground and skate park.   

Man my legs were so sore from all that hiking that I couldn’t make the whole run without walking for part of it.  But along the walk I got to eat 3 wild blackberries just randomly growing on the side of the road.  We all made it back to the house, had lunch then got in the car and headed south.  Before we hit Girbaldi (a town on the way) I reminded Grant that there would be a white G up on the side of a hill.  We made a big joke about the name of the town and renamed the town Gerbil and made up some funny country lyrics and sang it with a nice twang.  The kids were hitting each other the whole way down (not uncommon) and I got sick of telling them to stop so Nick and I just declared that they could beat the hell out of each other.  Wow.  It got bad.  Ryan hit Grant so Nick told him to defend himself and hit her back so she hit back as hard as she could and that was it – total mayhem.  Both kids were screaming, crying and we were getting lectured on what bad role models we were.  Ryan told us she hated us both and on and on and on.  I honestly was trying as hard as I could not to crack up.  But I must say that the fighting stopped.   

We drove 8 or so miles south of Tillamook to the Munson Creek Falls.  The hike itself was only ¼ mile back but it was closed off and we couldn’t get the same great view of the falls that we’d gotten the other time we’d done the hike, either 2 or 3 years ago.  The falls are supposedly 300+ feet tall, making them the longest waterfalls in all of Oregon.  Very hard to believe.  

We then headed over to Cape Mears and saw the Octopus tree again.  It was about 20 degrees cooler up there, windy, foggy and raining so the kids and I were freezing.  After the Octopus tree, the kids and I got into the minivan and waited for Nick to go check out the Cape Mears light house, then it was on to Tillamook.

Oh my gosh, it was crowded – crazy crowded.  They weren’t even “making” cheese while we were there so rather than wait in a 30 minute line for ice cream we just headed back towards Cannon Beach.  Grant was so upset that he started crying but then fell asleep.  We did find a place to stop in Rockaway Beach, another Picnic Basket candy store just like in Cannon Beach so we stopped and all got Tillamook ice cream.  It was very nice. 

We drove back up the coast to Cannon Beach and are now packing up and running one final load of laundry before we head to dinner.  More to come….

We ate at Tom’s Fish & Chips.  It had been opened for 2.5 weeks and it wasn’t too bad.  We all got burgers and fries.  The kids walked down to Bruce’s candy store one last time, all by themselves and were very proud of that. 

We watched a little bit of Frozen and went to bed.

Washington National Parks - Day 8 - August 16, 2014

Day 8: August 16, 2014:

Today was much more low key than any day we’ve had yet.  We got up early, as usual, then walked down to Haystack rock (which from our room was about 1.5 miles one way).  The kids played in the sand and we looked at the tide pool life a bit.   

I’d heard that there was some disease that had killed out 60% of the Washington and Oregon starfish population but man it looked more like 90%.  I saw only two starfish whereas last year, there were hundreds.

We got back to the room, had lunch then headed up to Seaside for a visit to the toy store.  Grant got a joke kit – whoppie cushion, fake ketchup, pretend bloody finger, hand buzzer, etc. and Ryan got a cute little stuffed animal with big eyes and a rainbow tail and some moustache erasers.  I got an awesome 1,000-piece puzzle, as usual, then we went to the arcade and blew $20 on the fun pyramid game, Fruit Ninja, ski ball and who knows what else. 

After that we just came back to the room and worked the puzzle and watched some movies – Wreck-it Ralph, Soul Surfer and The Lorax.  We had lunch and dessert in the room then Nick took the kids back down to the playground for a bit while I obsessively tried to finish the puzzle in horrible lighting, on the floor of the living room. 

 Ryan helped me a lot but we gave up at around 9:45 and she went to bed.

Certainly our slowest day of the trip but still very nice.  It’s hard to believe we only have one more day here.  It’s been so fun.

Washington National Parks - Day 7 - August 15, 2014

Day 7: August 15, 2014

Today was one for the ages.  After waking up early, as usual, Nick went for a long run then I went for a glorious 5-mi run down to Mo’s then back up the beach.  We had to run a few loads of laundry and the laundry mat didn’t open until 9:00.  From 9-11 we ran two loads of clothes, then ate a quick lunch of sandwiches then drove into Ecola State Park.  

 It was our intention to take a very fun 1.25 mile one-way hike from the parking lot down to Crescent Beach, just like we did last year but we all forgot that the Crescent Beach hike started from the Ecola Point Lookout parking lot and not from the Indian Beach parking lot.  So after taking the trail to Ecola Point (about 1.5 miles), we realized that we were completely turned around. We ventured down to a “trail” that went behind the bathrooms but we quickly realized it wasn’t for hikers.  We did walk to a lookout and get a great close-up of a hawk.   

Nick wanted to keep going but I was getting nervous.  After getting to a point of sheer treachery, Nick stepping in a bunch of mud and doing some crazy ballet moves, we finally turned around and that’s when we realized that the trailhead of the trail we intended to take, was just in front of us.  So we said, “What the hell” and continued on the 1.25 mile trail down to Crescent Beach.  The hike was amazing.  We got down to it, literally after hiking for 2 hours. 


































We all took our shoes off and walked over to and up the waterfall that we drank from the previous year.  It was amazing.  

 

 Nick stripped down to his underwear and dove into the Pacific and 3 of the 4 of us peed on the beach.  

Then we had to go back the 1.25 miles, + the .25 miles across the parking lot, + the 1.5 miles, back to the car.  4.25 hours later, at 4:45, we made it back to the car.  We totally bribed the kids, telling them that if they did the, what turned into a 6 miles hike without complaining, we’d give them an extra $10 of vacation money, a 50% increase from the $20 they’d been given.  They were unbelievable.  Everyone’s legs were hurting but man those two kids were troopers. 

We got back to the room and I took a quick shower then fixed turkey sausage, cheese, fruit and Hawaiian rolls for dinner.  We all ate then walked back to Bruce’s so the kids could get a treat. They both bought these Icee candy spray things and I got a caramel apple.  Nick got taffy.  Then Nick and I both got coffee.  We went into one souvenir shop (next door to the Crepes store) where Grant bought a sling shot then we walked over to the playground and the kids played for a while.  They actually played all out and after Grant’s 10^th or 11^th fall off the monkey bars and Ryan’s bloody knee, we went home.  Both of those poor kids cried practically the whole way home.  They were both exhausted and who can blame them.  But what a day it was!!