While Leanna was here we decided to go on a Bear Lake Girl Trip with Mom, Leanna, Julie and I. (Marcus got to come along as well). We had such a good time. We left Friday Morning and stopped in Logan to do a bit of shopping at Down East and at Ross's. We all came away with a few fun things. We ate lunch at Chick Fil a. I enjoyed my chicken wrap there. Then we headed for Julie's cabin in Bear Lake. We unpacked and spent a few minutes on the deck visiting and reading. Julie and Leanna made us a delicious dinner of salmon and bruchetta. Then we went to Pickleville and saw "Hairspray" which kept us totally entertained.
That night mom cooked us some popcorn and it was royally burnt. We had to hold it out the window on the way to the trash.
Saturday morning we rented a 4-person bike (surry) and went on a fun pedal trip around on the bike lane.
We got refreshments from a lemonade stand and had a good laugh as we pedaled around for a bit. Then we took off for Bloomington Lake. Leanna had never been there. We enjoyed our packed lunch there and then hiked to the lakes.
Leanna gave us all Mount Fuju t-shirts. So we decided to all wear them that day. Very fun.
It was full of people enjoying the holiday there. There were tons of people using the rope swing and jumping off of the cliffs. They kept us entertained.
On the way back we stopped at Jay's cabin and enjoyed the view there for a while before heading back to Julie's to pack up our things. We met Jay and family at Cafe Sabor where we had dinner and then went across the street for a delicious shake at La Beau's.
The time went way too fast! We need an extra day next year. But it was oh so fun!
July 18, 2016 Monday
Rustin Stokes gave us a wonderful list of things to do on the Oregon Coast, and we pretty much followed his list from A - Z and had a wonderful time! He said the best time to visit the coast was in July if you didn't want rain, so that's when we planned it. Mom and Norm went with Hunter, Scott and myself and we left the Salt Lake Airport at 6:00 a.m. Monday morning. When we got to Portland we had to wait an hour for our shuttle to the van rental place, so we grabbed some breakfast at the airport.
We rented a van to get us around and began our adventures by heading to our Northern most point of interest, which was Astoria. We crossed the bridge into Washington first
and visited Cape Disappointment State Park, where we took a little hike to and around the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse
Cape Disappointment Lighthouse
and we also visited the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center which tells the story of Lewis and Clark and their journey from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean. There were some beautiful views there of the ocean and Columbia River.
We headed from there back into Astoria where we hoped to have lunch at the Bowpicker, but it was closed for the day, so instead we ate at The Ship Inn. I had the most delicious clam chowder there of the whole trip. Most of us also ate the halibut fish and chips. Yum! Then Mom and Norm visited the Columbia River Maritime Museum while Scott, Hunter and I went to the Astoria Column.
We bought our little wooden airplanes in the gift shop on the grounds at the bottom, and then we climbed the steep spiral staircase to the top and flew our planes off. Neither of them flew very well, but Hunter could see where his plane landed and wanted to retrieve it and fly it again, so he ran down to get it, and when he came back up he had about 7 planes in his hands. He had gone into the forest and found them easily. So he gave some away and flew a couple more. One of the planes caught some good updrafts and we swear it made it out to the ocean. It was awesome! Hunter really enjoyed that stop. From there I took a little hike by myself down an awesome trail through the forest and eventually met up with Scott and Hunter on a road below. I saw the Cathedral Tree on my hike.
We picked up Mom and Norm at the museum just as it was closing. They said they enjoyed it. Then we headed to Fort Stevens State Park. We walked down on the beach and took this picture by an old shipwreck
and then explored the old military fort. It was pretty cool.
Then we headed to our house that we rented in Seaside. We thought it was a pretty nice house. We did some shopping at Safeway and got some groceries for our breakfasts. It was a full day of exploration and beautiful scenery.
The Villa, Seaside, Oregon
Tuesday
Tuesday morning Mom, Norm and I went for a morning walk along the promenade and the beach right there close to our house in Seaside. We found all the sand dollars on the beach like Rustin said we could.
The directions are "When you are at the Lewis and Clark turnabout (next to the beach), if you look south along the promenade, there is a hotel that has a large clock tower at the top of it. Head west from there towards the ocean at low tide during the early morning. When the tide gets low enough you can find hundreds of whole sand dollars all over the beach. Go to saltwatertides.com to print off a tide table)."
Everything in Oregon is so green and pretty. Here is a short clip of one of our drives.
After breakfast we went to Indian Beach in Ecola State Park.
There are some good rocks for tide pooling on the left-hand side, but we weren't there at the best time for that. It was a really pretty, smooth-sanded, uncrowded beach.
We loved it and then went to another stop in the Park and took a nice hike up to a great viewpoint, where we could see Indian Beach at one end and a lighthouse way out at sea and more beautiful scenery.
After Ecola we headed to Tillamook where we took in the Tillamook Cheese Factory. We got some good ice cream there and enjoyed watching the cheese being packaged.
Hunter enjoyed all the cheese tasting.
We went from there to Cape Meares State Park. We got to go up into this short little lighthouse.
It was very warm and we had to listen to a spiel about the lighthouse. There was a great view from there though. Then we took a short little walk up to the Octopus Tree. It was a very interesting tree. In fact, on the trip I saw the weirdest trees I've ever seen in my life!
After Cape Meares we headed to Oceanside, which is a small town just south of Cape Meares. It has a cool beach with a tunnel at the north end of the beach that goes through a cliff and has a rocky beach on the other side. It just makes the beach different than the others. People were collecting clear rocks that kind of looked like quartz or something. I found a cool miniature sand dollar.
When we got back to the house, Hunter and I tried out the hot tub. It wasn't very hot, but it was fun to warm up my bones.
Wednesday
Wednesday morning we took Hunter and Scott back to the Seaside beach to show them the sand dollars. They were more picked over this time. We saw kids hauling sacks of them away. We were on the beach later than the day before. But it was still fun to look them over. We kept a couple of them.
This was our Cannon Beach Day. But we started by going to Hug Point State Park. It seemed like you could walk forever in both directions on this beach at low tide. We explored the tide pools on the north end. They were pretty cool.
There were some fun little cave-like indentures to explore and a small waterfall. Hunter made a coffin in the sand while mom and I walked the beach.
Then we went to Cannon Beach and it was quite crowded with lots of shops to explore and parking hard to find. We began at Bruce's Candy Kitchen where I had to buy a carmel apple. Then we ate lunch there at a burger/chicken joint. Pretty good. Then we walked the beach and admired Haystack Rock. We weren't there close enough to low tide to rent a fun cycle at Family Funcycles. But that looked like a fun thing to do.
Cannon Beach - Hay Stack Rock in the background
Watching the para-glider come in for a landing
This was our sunniest day, so Scott got a little burned on the beach. He and Hunter threw a frisbee around for a bit that they bought back in Gepetto's toy store until they nearly decapitated a lady sitting on a blanket. Then we went back to our home in Seaside. We went to dinner at Pig and Pancake there on Broadway street. Norm really enjoyed his pancakes and omelet there. I enjoyed my French Dip. We made it back to the house in time to play a game of Farkle before going to bed.
Thursday
We packed up our things and left fairly early for Oswald West State Park. We wanted to get there in time to explore the tide pools at low tide. You park on the East side of the road and then take the trail that goes under the road and down to the beach. It only takes 15 minutes to walk to the beach. It was definitely the BEST place for tide pooling. You go to the far North end of the beach, which is a fair walk, and there is another small waterfall there. The tide pooling is close by there. You don't have to even climb any rocks. We found a huge crab that had washed up on the beach and was probably dying.
There were LOTS of star fish and anemones and crabs and such.
We enjoyed seeing what we could see. We sat there for a while and I really hated to go, knowing it was our last beach. If I had had more time, I would have explored the southern end of the beach as well. We had a good negative tide the whole time we were there. So the tide was really far out. Early mornings at any beach are my favorite times.
After the beach we headed to the Portland Temple. What a beautiful temple!
We walked around it a bit and visited the Visitor's Center. Then we returned our rental van and our plane got us home late Thursday night. It was a very, very fun trip. I would definitely enjoy going again.
