Oregon Trip Part I

In mid-July we took a week-long road trip to the Oregon coast.  We all wanted to see the ocean, and plus go on an adventure of our own that did not involved the "canned" experience of Disney World (though of course that is great too).

On our first day out we headed out through Ennis, then through Idaho Falls.  We took a detour here and headed a bit north to go to Craters of the Moon National Monument.  This was a neat place - lava flow from about 2000 years ago (so relatively recent).  Someone (I think it was maybe Roosevelt?) said he thought it looked weird, like the surface of the moon, hence the name.  We would have explored more but a nasty thunderstorm cut our time here short.

Peering into a volcano:

We stopped for the night hear Boise, in a really cheap and decent hotel.  Then next day we headed out through eastern Oregon....oh my, boring!  And long!  We finally made it to Bend.  Wow, that is a cool city.  That is a place I could live!  Kinda hippy Boulder/Bozeman-ish with fabulous scenery.

One thing we did near Bend was go to another volcanic monument (the name is escaping me).  We climbed down into this old lava tube, which is pretty much now a cave.

Good thing Gramma and Papa gave us new flashlights for our trip!

After the lava tube we drove up a volcano to look in the top.  This was cool.  One thing that caught our interest immediately though was this funny chipmunk.  He'd scurry as fast as he could through the sun then flop down in the shade.  Was this cool on his tummy?

I like this picture because of the beautiful scenery behind us.  You really could see mountains forever:

Here they are standing on the rim of the volcano.  Behind them you can see the lava flow, which is all black rock now.

Look at all that lava!  Things don't change much over time, do they?

A very pretty peak on the way from Bend to the coast.  We sure enjoyed that ride....over mountains down through a valley to the ocean.

We stopped in an old growth forest.  Totally cool!

That's a big tree!

We thought this was a yew tree...Papa Randy will know!

This was proving to be a really long drive so we stopped in Sweet Home, OR (I'm not kidding) for dinner at a drive-up A&W:

As we got closer to the coast the weather got worse and worse, though the green-factor definitely increased.  It's gorgeous, but cold!  We stayed in Newport, at a pretty nice hotel, at least for us.  We liked it because it had a kitchenette, which made breakfast time easier:

The very next morning, rain or shine, we headed down to the shore with our beach toys.  The bushes along the trail are wild blackberry bushes.  They are a noxious weed there, though for us we were really wishing the berries were ripe!

I think the kids were more than intrigued about the ocean and the sand (and cold!!):

Next we headed to the aquarium in Newport.  This was great.  This is one of a few touch pools.  I think these were stingrays in this pool, if you can see them.  Don't worry, they trim their stingers (which are like a fingernail) everyday:

This touch pool was full of anenome, urchins, and starfish (though we learned the more accurate name is "sea stars"):

Ruby refused to stop climbing on this guy so we could go to lunch:

We went to Mo's for famous clam chowder:

Reder was in hog heaven!:

All four of us devoured it:

And Jason and I also had some baked clams.  Delicious:

And we stopped for ice cream that afternoon:

The sun finally came out, which was great!  Isn't the coast pretty?

Then we went and toured this lighthouse.  It was neat but I must say the girls in charge of that place weren't quite smart.  It was still fun to see though:

Then we went and explored some tide pools, as it was time for the tide to be out.  Ruby's first finds:

We played around this little spot for a long time.  As the tide started to come in this little "river" got more and more wet, so it was fun to jump over and back before the tide got you.  There were lots of interesting things to see in this area:

Sea starts and anenomes in here:

We had intended to sometimes cook meals in our hotel room.  But, once we had a taste of seafood we ditched that plan and went out everyday!  Life's too short!  For this meal we all enjoyed our favorites - clam chowder for the kids, Jason had scallops, and I tried the razor clams.  Have you ever had them?  Rich like butter!

Then the sun was still out that evening so we had a lot of fun playing on the beach.  I love this photo: