Getting ready to go was a little intense - even though we had the trailer for about a year, we hadn't taken it out as a family except for one overnight trip. Not only did we have to load it, but Mike had to fix the refrigerator in the trailer which stopped working last year. After he got that done, the slide out stopped working. It turned out to be a broken gear. Mike ordered it online and replaced it himself, but I was a little stressed because it didn't actually come in until the week before we were scheduled to leave. But he got it replaced and we were ready to go on Saturday, June 30, 2012. We left on Saturday and came home the following Saturday.
We reserved a space in one of the Oregon State Parks - Nehalem Bay State Park to be precise. When we were doing our research in January, one of my coworkers told me you couldn't go wrong with any of the Oregon State Parks, and I think he might be right. This one was clean, well cared for, and situated right on the beach, we only had to walk over the sand dune and there was the ocean.
The first day we were there we got unpacked, checked out the camp ground (which had a play area with swings and bars and such for the kids - the girls used it ALOT). Then we explored the beach:
The girls quickly discovered the joys of racing the waves into shore:
And digging holes in the sand to watch the waves fill them in:
I quickly discovered that I didn't pack enough clothes - sand and water require more changes of clothing then I thought! (we just threw out Katelyn's boots at the end of the week - they were just about shot anyway - and Alyssa is still kicking sand out of her tennis shoes)
The second day in camp we did a little more exploring. We got the bikes off the rack and there was a two mile trail around part of the state park, so we made that loop twice. While we were riding, we came across a couple of deer. Alyssa was super proud of herself because she was the first to spot them. We also ventured into Nehalem, shopped at a few of their stores and then called it a day.
The third day we explored a little further out. We went to Tillamook and took the tour of the cheese factory. It was pretty fascinating to watch them cut and package their 2lb cheddar loafs. We ate lunch there and then of course had to have some Tillamook ice cream for dessert! Then we had to stop for some photo ops:
And here is Mike's first experience with Alyssa's driving. Hopefully he can handle it better in about 11 years (of course, if she were to look at the road, it might make it easier to handle being a passenger!):
We then went over to Cape Meares to see the shortest lighthouse on the Oregon Coast. We walked down to the lighthouse (or at least most of us walked, someone hitched a ride!):
We got there in time to take the last tour of the day and it was pretty interesting to learn about how the light was built in France, disassembled, packed in fat and shipped to America around Cape Horn (the Panama canal wasn't in existence) and reassembled on the cliff using ropes and pulleys to bring up the many crates. It was two tons once it was assembled. There was a two hundred pound weight that kept it turning and that needed to be reset every two and a half hours. Once they switched to electricity, they only needed a half horse power engine to turn the light it was that well made and balanced, even though it was that heavy!
From the view out into the ocean, we spotted some Sea Lions sun bathing on some rocks - this is the best I could get with the zoom lens and its still hard to tell that those lighter brown shiny things are sea lions - Mike spotted them with the binoculars:
We decided to stop and take a picture of the Three Capes sign - we did take the scenic route, but we took the picture to share with Mike's dad (a childhood thing), so Grandpa H - here it is - the Three Capes:
The Fourth of July was another beach day. We hung out in the park, took a bike ride and then went to the beach. We took a couple kites with us on our trip, but the kids didn't want to fly them, they wanted to build sand castles and play in the water - it was FREEZING:
After I took the kids back to camp, got them showered and warmed up, we headed back to the beach. Manzanita had fireworks over the ocean and it was only about two miles down the beach, so we set up a fire around some driftwood, made smores and watched the fireworks from a distance. It was a pretty impressive display and we got alot of oohs and ahhs out of the girls. I think that fire on the beach might have been my favorite part of the trip.
The next day we drove up the Pacific Coast Highway to Seaside to the small aquarium up there. Its a one room aquarium, but we spent at least two hours there. Katelyn fed some harbor seals and then there were several hands on tanks with Star Fish and crabs and sea anemones - the biggest hit with both girls were the various star fish (probably because they didn't move like the crabs did) - unfortunately I forgot the camera, so no pictures from that excursion. After the aquarium, we stopped at a laundry mat to make sure the kids had enough clothes to last them the rest of the week! (oops, live and learn I guess).
Our last day on the coast we did one of the best activities - we went crabbing:
Mike got his crabbing license so he was the one that got to haul in the crab rings (I got to drive the outboard motor boat - that was interesting!). We caught at least 50 crabs, but none of them were big enough to keep. Mike took too long to measure one male crab that was probably the biggest and it ended up pinching him. That startled the girls but by the time were were done, they were teasing him about it. Needless to say, Mike threw almost all the crabs back in without the assistance of the two crabboat captains in the life jackets. But at the very end of the trip, Katelyn got up the nerve to throw one of the tiny crabs back in - you should have heard the squeal as soon as it started moving. She tossed that little crab quick!
And that about sums up our trip. We had one minor issue with the trailer - on the way home one of the vents broke to pieces so there was a hole in the roof and of course we drove through some gnarly rain/wind storms, but we aren't sure when it broke and it doesn't look like any rain got in the camper, so we are pretty lucky I guess. Its just one more thing for Mike to fix!
In the end, we had alot of fun and hopefully made some great family memories with the girls. Hope everyone is enjoying their summer as well.
1 comment:
You have such a happy looking family!
btw, that is exactly what I look like when Sky is driving..
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