We Drove North Some More....

...and ended up in what would be our home base, Lincoln City, OR.  We stayed at the Sea Gypsy which was a hotel when I was a kid, but now it's condos. I have to say, we were thrilled with our choice.  It was called The Beachlor Pad (each condo has a theme name), and it was really nice. It had a beach/surfer theme, was totally updated, and the view....wow.  I could stand in the kitchen and see whales. No joke.  The windows opened, so we could feel, smell, and hear the ocean.  The kids slept in the room you see below, there was a murphy bed that would fold down at night.  Brian and I had our own bedroom and bathroom, which was a treat. It was super affordable, too, which had us a little scared booking it online, but once we saw the condo, we were thrilled. There's no logical reason it should be less than all the surrounding hotels, but it was!

 Brian made breakfast every morning.

 Staying here as a kid, you are just kind of along for whatever your parents had planned, and we always had a great time.  Planning a trip as an adult, and mom, it was fun to really research the area and see what all there was near by.  I found out that right across the street from our condo there was a huge lake called Devils Lake, with a really nice little park. We explored that area one day. If we ever do this trip in the summer, there is kayaking and paddle boarding, too.

 Antiquing was a fun part of our trip.  Really, anytime we were driving and saw a place the kids wanted to stop that was opened, we swung in.  On the way up to Tillamook, we stopped at a shop called The Rusty Cow.  Sophie scored this old horse harness, some wooden stirrups, and a horse bit to use in decorating her room, which is all horse themed.  Myles got a wash board which he uses as a musical instrument with a spoon. The shop owner owns a ranch and all the horse stuff came from there.

Below, staying right on the beach meant beach time whenever we wanted it!  A fun thing about Lincoln City is they have a season called "Finders, Keepers".  The town is known for it's glass blowing, and during this season, everyday one of the glass blowers hides glass floats on the beach.  If you find it, it's yours. This year, they will hide 2,016 floats along the beach.  So, whenever we hit the beach, there was a lot of searching for floats going on.

 One of the days we drove up to Tillamook to tour the cheese factory, get some "squeaky cheese", and eat some ice cream!

 She is so cheesy!

 Below, some sunset from our room.

 I don't think we missed a sunset the whole time we were there. Life kinda came to a halt during this part of the day.

 More pictures from the room-

 More beach time-

 That weathered old beauty is the Sea Gypsy. Our room was on the second floor.

More to come....

Spring Break 2016 - Still Day 1!

Ok, so from Trees of Mystery, we continued north on 101, up for any adventure we came across.
We stumbled across a forest of dinosaurs, beaches, and goats...all on day one!

Prehistoric Gardens -

 We drove north and stretched our legs at a beach. Em jumped the creek and learned that wet sand is really hard to land on.

 

We saw this place and had to stop. It's a walk thru safari. Lots of animals roaming free, and some bigger ones in pens, and some you could pet.  Myles learned a few things about goats.  The babies above are Lucy and Lucky. They were so cute, herding each other around. When they would stray to far from mama the would call out until they found her. Sophie had a long conversation with them.

 Questionable fencing, there was also a chain length fence that my camera is shooting thru, but these were huge.

 See how the one nudges the other to get it to go where she wanted to go? I wanted to take these babies home. The humans that worked there would call them like dogs, and they would come if the wanted to, if not the would get all sassy and jump around.

From there we headed to our hotel in Gold Beach, OR and finally called day one done!

Spring Break 2016 - Day 1, Trees of Mystery

Over Spring Break we headed up the CA and OR coasts. Day one was jam packed, but I'm starting with breakfast, elk, driving thru a tree, and our first real stop, which was at Trees of Mystery.  I am always amazed at the reaction when I mention this place. I find that a lot of our friends who have lived in CA their whole lives have never heard of it. I say, "you know, the place with trees and Paul Bunyan and Babe??"  Blank stares.  I had been here as a kid on a trip down from WA, and since having kids had wanted to take them there. Our oldest is now 14...so it took a while!  But we got them there, and they enjoyed it as much as I did as a kid. It was mostly the same, with one major upgrade -

This is how we travel : ) If you squeeze his hat pompom his ears fly up.

 The Samoa Cookhouse is somewhere that Brian had been as a kid.  It is not right off 101, so you either have to know about it, or have been there before to know how to get to it, or even that it exists. It's actually in the town of Samoa. It was the cookhouse for loggers way back when (1800's).  They serve the food the same. You don't order, just go in and sit at a long table, and whatever they are cooking that day, that's what you eat. It was really neat!

 That was sausage gravy for biscuits. There was also sausage, french toast, and scrambled eggs. We headed out of there and drove north. Along the way we saw a lot of elk, which the kids have heard about, but never seen in the wild.  Growing up we had a herd of elk that would pass through the field next to our home. I was excited for the kids to finally see a herd in nature.

  Some of these are from my phone, so quality isn't good.

 

 We left the elk and drove some more and spotted this amazing old school house in a field.  It was so pretty!

 Then we saw more elk.

 

 Best place to view elk from....

 

 Then we drove some more and spotted this, so of course we had to do it!

 

 Let me just say, as much as I wanted the kids to experience driving thru a tree...holy cow, it was close. I guided Brian through, but it was so close if I told him left/right and he turned the wheel, the tires would hit the sides. It was too much for Myles, he wanted no part of it.

 

  

 

 The sign below cracked Brian and I up. Rhodies are the state flower of WA and are everywhere. I don't think anyone would even drive a mile to see one.  They are beautiful.....but 1000's of miles??? Really, now.

 Below is the upgrade from when I was a kid.....it was pretty cool!

 We caught on pretty quick that when you pass another group going the opposite direction, you have a chance to wave, or make faces, or have a family dance party to amuse the passing car of people.

 There is a Tall Tales Trail, which is the history of Paul Bunyan. Myles spent a lot of time in 2cd grade learning all about Paul and Babe, so he knew what everything you see was meant to depict and filled us in because I was totally lost!

It brought back a lot of memories, and made a lot of new ones! From here we drove north, and had a few more fun stops during day one, but I'll do a post of those later.