Day # 22 - Oregon Coast

"Okay…we only have a month left to go in our trip." That was what Missy told me this morning when we woke up. Only 30 days left. In some ways that feels like a V E R Y long time. And in some ways I cannot believe that is all we have left. In any event, it was an interesting realization.

I got to pick the activity today. And I wanted to go to a beach called Seal Rock about 20 minutes down the coast. I like this beach because it is the kind of beach I picture in my mind when I think of Oregon. Lots of big haystack rocks all along the beach and jutting out of the water, a wide open stretch of sand, and lots of tide pools for finding starfish and other marine life. Seal Rock has all these things and I recommend it as a great beach to visit.

So after a big breakfast we loaded in the car and headed down the 101 to Seal Rock Beach. The morning low tide is at 10:35AM today and we got there around 11:00. The parking lot was busy and like many of the beaches, the walkway from the parking lot ends in a pretty steep drop to the beach. I carried AJ and all our supplies down the rocks while Missy made her way gingerly down. I love my wife, but no one would describe her as “surefooted”. In any event, the beach was very uncrowded despite all the cars and we picked out a spot about 50 yards away from anyone else.

Once we got settled on the beach, Sarah and I headed out to the rocks to find some “critters” in the tide pools. Abby tagged along for a while, but she got bored and headed back to the beach to play in the sand with Missy and AJ. Sarah has really been into “nature” during this trip and she had asked me yesterday if she and I could go out on the rocks and look in the tide pools. At first we didn’t see much besides the normal anemones, but once we got out past the first line of rocks, we started seeing a lot of Starfish (my daughter would correct me here and tell that the right name for them is “sea stars”, but they were starfish when I was a kid and that is what I am going to call them!) We found several tucked under the backs of some of the rocks. Mostly the orange and red kind with 5 arms but we did see a black webbed one also. Sarah told me that “John, the teenage boy at the Aquarium” said that the black once were called “Bat Sea Stars”. She took great pleasure in teaching me that little fact. I googled it when we got back and sure enough…she is right. In addition to the Starfish we also saw a big horseshoe crab swimming around in one of the shallow pools. Seal Rock also has several very large mussels’ beds. This explains the large number of starfish since they use their arms to pry open the mussel’s shells so they can eat them. Find a bunch of broken mussels shells in a tide pool and there are starfish nearby.

After an hour or so, the tide was starting to come back in and Abby and AJ wanted to join us, so Sarah and I went back to the rocks closest to the shore and hung with the rest of the family. That is when Missy noticed a seal lying on one of the rocks about 50 yards off the shore. As we watched it sunning itself, Sarah noticed another seal swimming in the water around the same rock. After circling around for a few minutes, the second seal tried to get up on the rock also, but the tide was pretty low and he was not having much success. He would make it about a third of the way up the rock and fall back into the water. Finally he timed a wave just right and literally threw himself onto the rock. If was very fun to watch. After digging in the sand for a while (and once AJ had packed several pounds of sand into his pants and other personal places by rolling down the beach) we decided to head back to the camper.

We grilled hamburgers and hotdogs at the camper for lunch and then all 5 of us went down for a nap. After naps we played at the camper for a while and the girls and I walked up to the campground’s visitors center and looked at some of the displays of the fossils and shells that had been found on the beach over the years. Then we all got a bag of the free popcorn they give out (did I tell you that Oregon campgrounds rock or what!?!?!) and walked back to the camper. After dinner we built a big campfire and roasted marshmallows. Well, actually I roasted marshmallows and the girls just ate them. AJ likes the cooked ones, but is usually in too big a rush to pack the marshmallows into his mouth to wait for them to be cooked. Missy brought out some chocolate chip cookies that we used to make s’mores.

After the sugar buzz wore off, we put the kids to bed and Missy and I hung around the campfire for a while. Tomorrow is our last day in Oregon and Abby has been bugging me about flying our kite at the beach. It is supposed to be pretty windy tomorrow so it should be a good day for kite flying.

Day # 21 - Oregon Coast

We decided that since today was the last weekday we were going to have at the coast we would spend it at the Sea Lion Cave down in Florence, Oregon. We thought maybe we would avoid the weekend crowds. Sea Lion Cave is across an inlet from the Heceta Head Lighthouse. This lighthouse is the most pictured lighthouse in America. You have probably seen a picture of it even if you didn’t know what its name was or where it was located.

We spent our time at the Sea Lion Cave itself. It was very windy at the coast today. It was so windy that I had a hard time holding the camera still to take photos outside. A big gust of wind actually pushed AJ down and he ripped a hole in the knee of his pants. He didn’t seem to care all that much that he had scraped his knee. All he was worried about was that his pants were broken. The cave is the largest sea cave in the world. You take an elevator down the 220 feet into the cave. There is an observation platform walled off where you can watch the sea lions in the cave from behind a fence. The cave is home to hundreds of sea lions. Most of the sea lions are Stellar Sea Lions, but there are a few of the California variety as well. Stellar Sea Lions are larger and look furrier. The male bulls can weigh up to 1500 pounds! They truly are king of the rock. When they haul out they pretty much bark their way to the top and everyone basically gets out of their way! (Tony thought they had the right idea – bark at people and have them get out of your way and leave you alone!) The cave has a very distinct odor (what is it with all of the smelly places we have visited?) and the sounds of the sea lions barking echoes off of the cave walls and produces a kind of eerie sound. AJ kept saying it was a ghost – I think that boy has seen one too many Scooby Doo cartoons! We just stood and watched the sea lions for a while. There are informational exhibits and a lookout over to the lighthouse as well as the fossilized skeleton that was discovered in the cave in the 1880’s. The cave has been open to visitors since the 1930’s. We finally made our way back up to the top to take a look at the rookery just outside the cave. There were hundreds more sea lions sunning themselves on the rocks with many more swimming just off shore. It was really cool to watch them in their natural habitat. We kept our eyes out for whales. Grey whales migrate up and down the coast and swim close to shore here. We saw a few on our last trip out, but didn’t get to see any this time. The caves have had a few pods of killer whales come to dinner in the past. The most recent visit though was back in 2006. I personally was happy not to have to explain the whole circle of life to our kids! After our visit to the gift shop for snow globes and smash pennies, we grabbed a couple of boxes of popcorn and decided to head down to Florence to check out the local sights.

Florence is home to a Moe’s Restaurant and we just couldn’t help ourselves. We decided to have a late lunch/early dinner. Tony and I opted for chowder again but mixed it up with the seafood sampler. The kids were happy to find that although their kids’ meals didn’t come with rubber toy sharks, their plates were Moe’s Frisbees that they got to keep. We sat and watched the boats in the harbor and enjoyed another wonderful meal! After we ate, we walked around and enjoyed the town a little before we headed back to the campground. Florence is a little over an hour away from Beverly Beach. Everyone took a much needed nap in the car on the ride home except poor dad who had to make the drive. Good thing he had an audio book to keep him company!

After we got back to the campground, we decided to do a little more exploring on our beach and just had a good time walking the coast. We were more than ready to head back to the camper and crash. There’s just something about the fresh sea air! We are looking forward to exploring some more tide pools tomorrow.

Day # 20 - Newport, OR

Everyone was a little cranky this morning, but we headed out for the Oregon Coast Aquarium anyway. The aquarium is on the small side, but they have some very nice exhibits there. There are outdoor enclosures that are home to sea otters (one of my favorite animals!), seals and sea lions and a giant Pacific Octopus. There are many volunteers on hand to discuss the animals and answer questions. I am a big fan of interesting (but useless to the average American) information on animals. In college I took a few classes at the zoo as electives and I can still amuse and astound (read bore) my family with lots of really neat things I learned! We arrived in time to see the otters get fed. I will take this opportunity to share my never ending supply of useless information with you! Otters have a really high metabolism so they must eat 15 to 20% of their body weight daily. The average otter weighs 65 pounds so they eat 15 or more pounds of fresh seafood a day. Those little guys were fun to watch. They practically inhaled that food and we thought they looked pretty cute doing it.

Next, we spent some time watching the seals and sea lions. They had an underwater viewing area and the kids loved feeling like they were up close and personal with the sea life. We got a kick out of watching their underwater antics. The Oregon Coast Aquarium’s big claim to fame was they had built a large outdoor viewing area to house the killer whale they used in the Free Willy movies before they released it back into the wild. They have since turned that exhibit into a very neat display that houses 3 separate ocean zones that you view by walking through huge acrylic tunnels. I am always in awe of how graceful the sharks look gliding through the water. I am also very thankful we are separated by several inches of glass!

The exhibit we spent the most time in was a very comprehensive display of the local tide pools. They had a large touch pool where you could touch the sea stars and anemones. The coolest thing we learned was that a starfish’s stomach actually comes outside of its body to digest the clam or oyster it has pried open for its dinner. Sarah thought that was really awesome in a completely gross way. I really think the teenaged male volunteer got a kick out of trying to gross people out by telling them that! Both Sarah and Abby enjoyed touching the animals in the touch pool. AJ just enjoyed splashing around. We also took the time to check out the sea birds. I ventured in despite my dislike of birds (one too many Hitchcock movies). The volunteer there was very knowledgeable and I actually enjoyed seeing the birds dive into the water for their dinner. After a trip to the gift shop for yet another smash penny for our collections, we headed back to the camper for a little rest.

After dinner, we decided to go and explore some tide pools on our own. Oregon is famous for their tide pools. They are easily accessible in many places along the coast and the National Park Service puts out a map with the best locations for viewing along with rating their degree of difficulty for getting to them. One of the areas close to our campground was at the Yaquina Bay Lighthouse. There is a day use fee at many of Oregon’s state run parks, but because we had purchased the America the Beautiful annual National Parks Pass, we got in free! I love free! Anyway, we were not able to access a large portion of the beach because a small harbor seal had hauled himself out on the rocks for a rest from the very large waves the ocean was kicking up. The beach here is what is called a cobblestone beach. The cobblestone beach is really neat to look at – it is covered with hundreds of thousands of cobblestones that have been weathered smooth and round by the ocean over time. As beautiful as they are to look out, walking over them is like trying to walk on large marbles. We were able to carefully pick our way down the steeper section of the cobblestone beach to access the awesome tide pools. I just can’t begin to describe the many different examples of marine life that are here in these pools. The sea stars are not only huge, but they are brightly colored as well. They are deep reds and purples and bright orange. The anemone are bright green. There are clams and oysters and barnacles and red sea coral. It seems like everywhere you look you see something new. Sarah and Abby were very excited and kept yelling for us to look at their latest discoveries. I think it was even more special to them because they had spent so much time in the tide pool display at the aquarium this morning and now they were getting to see one first hand in the wild. Because the sea was so fierce even at low tide, about half a dozen more seals had hauled out on the rocks about 100 yards from us. You just don’t get that kind of sea life on the east coast beaches! Tide pools (Along with many other things in life) present an interesting challenge when you are trying to wrangle an active, inquisitive 2 year old boy!

We would love to show you the great photos we took, but as Tony had both the camera and AJ, we didn’t get any! As the sun was beginning to set, we decided to call it a night and to try to make our way back up the steep slope to our car. Everyone started back up the cobblestones carefully, but I was the one who managed to lose my balance and fall (in very graceful fashion I might add – Not!). My husband, mind you carried AJ in one arm and held Abby with his other hand, and they all made it fine. Fortunately, nothing was hurt but my pride. We headed back to the camper exhausted from our busy day!

Day # 19 - Oregon Coast

We have covered a lot of ground so far this trip traveling to many fabulous national parks/landmarks. The upside is that we have seen a large portion of our country and have shown our kids things that many people never get to in their entire life. The down side has been that we have not stayed put for very long. We are staying at Beverly Beach for 6 nights. We will have plenty of time for R & R as well as sight-seeing.

The kids were really looking forward to a day at the beach, so after breakfast this morning we packed up all of the sand toys and headed to the beach access here at the campground. The kids had a blast even if it was too cold to actually play in the ocean (well it was too cold for most people, but not our fully clothed 2 year old who seemed to think lying in the surf was hysterical). The kids built sand castles and dug in the sand and looked for shells. It was a beautiful, sunny day. We walked up and down a large section of the beach taking in the sights and sounds of the ocean. The Oregon coast is not your typical “east coast” beach that I grew up on – it is coast. Above the coast are towering pine trees atop steep and jagged cliffs. There are huge monoliths in the ocean where seals and sea lions haul themselves out of the pounding surf to sun themselves and rest. There are impressive tidal pools teeming with sea life. It is dramatic and beautiful.

After our trip to the beach, we headed back to the camper for a quick rest. After naps, we headed out for the town of Newport. Newport is home to a small historic bayfront that is a very active with commercial fisheries as well as the typical tourist stuff you would expect. It is a very interesting (weird) combination. There is a fish processing plant right in the middle of the main strip of shops and the locals line up to off-load their catch of the day for market. It smells exactly like you would think it would, but the kids were impressed with all of the activity on the pier. The bay front area is also home to the original “Mo’s Seafood Restaurant” as well. Tony and I have eaten at Mo’s before and we couldn’t wait to sink our spoons into a bowl of their famous clam chowder. The original Mo’s lies directly across the street from the pier and processing plant and is very small (think the size of your garage). The tables are packed in together and complete strangers share long tables and benches for a chance to partake of the above mentioned chowder. There are now 4 additional Mo’s restaurants in the Oregon Coast area including the Mo’s annex across the street, but that doesn’t stop people from waiting in lines out the door to eat at this local icon. We dined on freshly breaded seafood and chowder, with corn dogs for the kids (all of the kids meals came with little rubber sharks which were a big hit). The prices here are extremely modest for the amount of food you get (a heaping plate of fried clam strips with a side (fries of course) and a cup of chowder with fresh homemade bread was only $8.95!). Dinner was topped off with a wonderful piece of homemade peanut butter pie for me and fresh marionberry cobbler for Tony. After dinner, we walked around the shops on the pier and picked up a kite to fly on the beach in the coming days and some rock candy for the kids (they didn’t get any desert at the restaurant they reminded us).

Everyone was tired from playing on the beach all day and a big dinner. So back to the camper to bed for all of us. Tomorrow is another big day as we are going to the Oregon Coast Aquarium in the morning.

Day # 18 - Oregon Coast

Finally…a REAL campground. The only state campground we are staying at, is this campground on the Oregon coast a few miles north of Newport called Beverly Beach campground. It is run by the State of Oregon. Oregon has a reputation for great state run campgrounds and from the several we have seen they deserve their reputation. This is a beautiful campground with very large old trees providing full shade over the entire park. Plus it is right off the 101 (also known as the Pacific Coast Highway), so it is only a 5-minute walk from our campsite to the beach.

I want to put in a quick side note here. Some who may not be avid campers might not realize that there are basically 2 kinds of places to camp. Private RV resorts that are owned by a “for profit” person or company; and State or Federally run campgrounds on public lands. For the most part they are very different animals. The private RV Resorts will vary in amenities, but assuming you use a rating service like Woodall’s (http://www.woodalls.com/) to stay in the better places, they will all have pools, playgrounds, a camp store, Internet access (Wi-Fi), and probably a restaurant open for breakfast and sometimes lunch and dinner. They will have a game room, sell ice-cream and offer full hook-ups on every site (Full hook-ups is the designation for being able to provide electricity, water and sewer at every campsite. If you have a camper, and want to be able to use the campers sink and toilet just like you do at home, this requires you be attached to a fresh water line and that your waste tanks be hooked into a sewer inlet for your toilet and sinks to drain into). The downside is that all private RV Parks pack the campsites very close together. So it is common for the campers on either side of you to be about 20 feet or less from your camper. This is about enough room to fit a picnic table on the strip of grass between the sites, but not much else. And trees….forget about it. They take up room that could house an extra site or two. It is understandable and I don’t have any problem with someone laying out their available space in the most income efficient manner. But it is the big drawback to staying in a private RV resort.

State or National campgrounds rarely have full hook-ups and almost never have a swimming pool. Sometimes there is a nice camp store or even a park lodge where you can eat, but not always. What they do have is trees. And space. As a rule, a state campground will have several times more space between your site and your neighbors than a private RV Resort. And that is certainly the case at this campground. There is a good 80-feet between us and our neighbors. And our site is completely shaded by big old pine trees. After spending the last 20 days crammed in at RV resorts between the big 40’ motor homes, it is nice to be at a campground again.

Enough of my Soap box….We left our campsite in Washington later than we had wanted. And I needed to stop by the Portland Camping World store (http://www.campingworld.com/) to pick up some supplies, so by the time we made it to Beverly Beach it was almost 3:00. We got set-up and made a quick dinner at the camper and then decided to take the kids on their first beach. I know being from Ohio it is weird that the first time our kids touch an ocean it happens to be the Pacific. I don’t have a good reason…it just worked out that way. All three kids were very excited and Sarah liked watching the sun setting over the water. It was nice that it was a pretty clear night (don’t get that many in Oregon) and it was a beautiful sunset. After collecting some shells and getting splashed by the very cold surf a couple of times it was back to the camper for bed.

Day # 17 - Portland, OR

Missy and I didn’t really have a plan for today. Anyone who reads this and knows my wife, will realize how unusual that is. So yesterday we asked the girls what they would like to do today. We gave them the choice of going to the Bonneville Dam and fish ladder, going to the Rose Test Garden in Portland, or driving up Mount Hood. They chose the Rose Test garden.

So after a quick breakfast in the camper, we headed the 50 miles into Portland. Both Missy and I have been to the Rose Test Garden several times before. It is probably Portland’s best free attraction. It is a public park that overlooks the city from a hill. There are several terraces all filled with different kinds of rose bushes. Since I am not a gardener or a flower aficionado, I will not try to go into more detail about the place other than to say that they do a lot of cross-pollination to come up with new kinds of roses. So most of them are very beautiful but some are just weird looking. Mostly it is a very fragrant and beautiful garden. Both of the girls really seemed to like looking at the roses for the first 30 minutes. The remaining hour and a half they took a “seen one rose you seen them all” attitude. Frankly I don’t blame them. The place is huge and there are thousands of rose bushes. After a while they all begin to look the same. AJ enjoyed running up and down the rows of roses. And there is an interesting water sculpture that had 2 bridges that kids can walk across, that he liked.

As a side note if anyone wants to hear a funny story, be sure to ask Missy about the Saturday morning several years ago on our last trip to Portland when we were at the Rose Test Garden and noticed everyone setting up for a festival that started that afternoon. There were signs advertising the Purple Peacock festival and parade. As the festival participants began arriving, it was obvious that this festival had nothing to do with birds. That was also part of the year that we now refer to as the “queer year” because we ended up in New York and Key West during similar festivals (completely by coincidence I might add).

We thought about packing in a lunch and eating at one of the benches at the Garden (several families were doing that while we were there), but we had read about a cheap Mexican place in downtown Portland that had an enclosed play area for kids so we went there instead. The food was okay but the kids loved playing in the “kid area” and Missy and I had a pretty quiet lunch as a result.

We headed back down the Columbia Gorge for our campground after lunch and I decided that I wanted to try to find the mountain overlook that Missy and I went up 10-years ago when we were last in Oregon. We didn’t remember exactly what it was called, but we were pretty sure it was a picnic spot at the top of Larch Mountain.

Larch Mountain is small compared to Mt. Hood or Mt. St. Helens, but it is still 4300’ and it took a while to drive up to the picnic area. As soon as we got in the parking lot we knew that we were in the right place. It is a ½ mile hike from the parking lot to the overlook, but it is a very steep hike with the last tenth of a mile being about 120 steps straight to the top. And it is COLD at that elevation. We had been in jeans and t-shirts, (standard Oregon attire for June) but even wearing our jackets it was cold up there.

The neat part is that from the overlook you can see Mt Hood, Mt. St Helens, Mt. Jefferson, Mt Rainer and Mt. Adams. Cloud cover kept us from seeing Adams or Rainer, but we could see the other 3 well. It is neat to stand up there and look around.


The drive back down the mountain is a windy one. And it had gotten late and I was trying to hurry. Sarah can get a little car sick from time to time and I was not thinking about her being in the back of the truck. Well…you guessed it, just as we got off the mountain and with no warning; she puked all over herself and her booster seat. We stopped and Missy cleaned her up while I cleaned Sarah's seat (yuck!).

So once we got back to the camper, everyone got a bath. Since we had blown off naps and Missy and I needed to pack-up for the move the next day over to the coast, we had pizza (we buy the “ready to bake” crusts and top them with sauce, cheese and pepperoni ourselves. A frozen pizza would never fit in the camper’s freezer) for dinner and then the kids went to bed early

Keeping the kids busy.

A couple of people have asked about the ways we have kept the kids busy during this long trip. Tony and I spent some time considering this in our planning. We have done several things to help the kids have a good time and feel like they are "involved" in the trip and not just spectators. All of them have all been inexpensive have taken up small amounts of space.

First we have limited the amount of time we are in the truck on any given day. We decided that we would limit the distance we would try to travel to less than 350 miles a day. While this makes a trip take longer, we were worried that day after day in the truck would be too hard if they were in there all day.

Next, we have a DVD player/TV combo that is installed on the ceiling of the truck. AJ in particular spent much of his time in the truck watching movies.

On the seatback that is in front of both Sarah and Abby we installed organizers and filled them with coloring books and magnetic puzzles and other "car friendly" things to play with.


We had already purchased the penny passports books on Ebay (for keeping their smashed pennies in. We got ours at http://www.pennypassport.com/, but there are other places) prior to leaving. Tony used a label maker to help the kids keep track of which one was theirs. The passports have also been available in most of the larger gift shop/information centers we have visited too. The kids already had a few “smashed” pennies they had made locally (zoo, museum center, Jungle Jims etc). Pretty much everywhere we have looked for one they have been available. Just about every “touristy” place we have visited has a machine. Most of them have cost the standard 50 cents plus the penny, but at one place they cost a whole dollar –seriously! At Yellowstone, each of the different visitor centers had a machine with different scenes so we made a few there. If you want to visit the website that lists the location of every smashed penny machine in the country it can be found at http://www.pennycollector.com/

I also made each of the girls a travel scrapbook by using a small 3 ring binder. In the binder, I put a two pocket folder and several sheet protectors so that they can easily slip in brochures and other literature they pick up along the way. We have tried to stop at the Interstate Visitor Center that is usually at the first exit off the interstate every time we go into a new State. They go inside and collect some brochures and put them in their scrapbook. They have also purchased post cards along the way. They slip these in their sheet protectors too. We have tried to have Sarah record her thoughts about her favorite sights on the back so she can remember what she liked. Since Abby doesn’t truly write yet, we have helped her. The girls also have small Tupperware containers to collect rocks and other natural things they like to collect (Sarah is the ultimate collector and if we don’t limit how much, she would fill the car top carrier!).

The other thing they like to do is take pictures. Sarah got a new digital camera for Christmas and Abby inherited the Fisher Price Kid Tuff Digital camera that Sarah had been using. Having multiple cameras has proved worthy when batteries run low and memory cards fill up! Tony created a folder for each of them on the laptop so he can download their photos and they can see them. We will probably let them print a select few when we get home.


We also bought a kid friendly map of the US and Highlighted our route with the kids. We marked the destinations with numbers so we can see where we are going and where we have been. We also have an outline map on the door of the camper. As we have visited each new state, we add it to the map.

The National Park Passports were a neat addition. I found them in Yellowstone, but discovered after the fact that they were available at Mount Rushmore too. I am bummed that we missed the stamps at Mount Rushmore and Wind Cave as well. The basic model was fairly inexpensive (8 or 9 bucks). You can also purchase these from the National Parks website (http://www.eparks.com/store/product/22515/%2APassport-To-Your-National-Parks%2A/).

We originally thought about getting each of the kids one, but didn’t want to keep track of three so we got one for the family. The passport is divided into geographic regions and lists all the National parks and monuments for each region. At the visitor centers/gift shops of these places they have free stamps to “cancel” your pages. They list the location and have the date. Yellowstone also had picture stamps (old faithful, Waterfalls etc.) that you could use as well. There are also stickers you can purchase at the individual parks (Yellowstone’s was 2 bucks). They sell these individually and as a yearly set purchased in sheets. We decided to pick them up as we go rather than collect stickers for places we haven’t been yet.

Day # 16 - Columbia Gorge, OR

The Columbia Gorge between Oregon and Washington is beautiful. It has been over 10 years since I have been out here and you forget how lush and green everything is.

After pushing hard to get to our campground in Home Valley, WA yesterday, everyone was in the mood to sleep in today. We all got up late and had a quiet Breakfast that we made of eggs, bacon, apples and toast. It took a while for us to remember that it was Fathers day. I collected Fathers day hugs and kisses from all the kids.

Around 10:00 we decided that today we would cross back into Oregon and go see some of the waterfalls in the Gorge. Some of the falls are very near the Historic Highway (SR 30) and some of them are a bit of a hike back into the gorge. Since we have Abby and AJ with us, the smart move was to stick to the falls where the trail was ½ a mile of less from the parking area/trailhead. There a total of 6 falls in The Gorge that worked for our criteria. Missy packed a picnic lunch for everyone and we headed across the “Bridge of the Gods” bridge between in Stevenson, WA and Cascade Locks, OR.

The first waterfall we stopped at is my favorite…Horsetail falls. It is not the biggest waterfall in the Gorge, but you get very close to it as the pool the water falls into is deep but not wide. So you can feel the mist on your face as you stand there very close to the falls. The next one we stopped at is the Big Daddy of them all and the most famous…Multnomah Falls. It is the tallest in the gorge and there is a ½ mile trail so you can hike up to a bridge that crosses in front of the waterfall. Multnomah also has a nice gift shop and a restaurant that has huge windows that overlook the waterfall. I had forgotten that they do a Sunday brunch buffet. If we are back out this way on a Sunday again, I would like to try the brunch. We did stop by the gift shop and the kids all got their Columbia Gorge smashed penny. Sarah was very excited because this brought the total number of smashed pennies in her Penny Passport to 12. So now she has one of the 3 sides completely full.

The last waterfall we hit is one that has a bit of a trail, but not too bad…LaTourell Falls. It is interesting because the waterfalls is tucked back into a canyon that you have to walk into. The path is level and the walk easy, but the sound of the waterfall is very loud because of the steep canyon walls. Still, it is very pretty. We decided to leave the other three falls for another time or another trip.

After a cruise through the very quaint village of Hood River, OR we crossed back over the narrow bridge that Missy hates (sans camper this time) and went back to our campground. We decided to have a campfire and got a bundle of wood from the owner of the campground. I cooked marinated chicken breasts with asparagus and red peppers over the campfire. Missy cooked chicken nuggets and French fries for the kids in the camper’s oven. After Dinner we made s'mores. Well actually, Missy, Sarah Abby and I made s’mores. AJ is happy to just sit and jam as many raw marshmallows into his mouth as possible before Missy or I stop him. He will look at me with a mouthful of the last marshmallow and say “Daddy…annoder mishmellow pleesse”. How can you say no to that?

After the kids were in bed, I hung around the campfire enjoying a local microbrew that I cannot get back home (Full Sail Amber Ale) for a little while, but both Missy and I were tired. So after a few minutes on the blog…we went to bed. All in all…a pretty good Fathers Day.

Thoughts and observations after 2 weeks – Tony

Two weeks into an 8-week trip is just getting started. Still, it is long enough to begin to realize what you did well, and not so well in, planning a trip across the country. So in no particular order, here are some random thoughts on our trip so far.

1) The generator was a big waste. So far, we have only used it 4 times. Each of those times was at a Wal-mart parking lot on a day when we were traveling all day. Yes, it is nice to be able to produce 110-volt electricity to run the Microwave and let the kids watch TV while lunch is being prepared. But given the fact that the things weighs 145 pounds hanging off the back of the camper and takes up a lot of space that could have went to something more useful (like an easy-up awning to use at the beach next week) it is not worth that minor convenience. Plus the last time Missy wanted to warm up some leftover bacon for AJ, we were at a gas station filling up the tank and I just ran inside with my paper plate of bacon and used their microwave.

2) The laptop computer was a wise investment. In addition to paying bills online and keeping up this blog, we have several times looked up alternate routes and searched for things to do that we could not have done without a PC. My only regret is that we should have bought a cellular air card. The Wi-Fi at several of the campgrounds has been pretty weak. I have managed, but a cellular modem would have solved all my wireless connection problems.

3) GAS IS GOING TO BE OUR SINGLE LARGEST EXPENSE. Not lodging and not food for a family of 5. And it really peeves me to pay over $100 to fill the tank. It hasn’t happened yet, but just today I filled up in Stevenson WA. The truck was down to about a ¼ tank after pushing hard to get to Oregon on Saturday. The price was $2.93 per gallon and the pump clicked off at $99.90. The truck has a 40 gallon tank, but still…damn!

4) An old camper is still an old camper even if I have rebuilt most of it. I have been fixing small problems with the camper as we have gone along. The actual cable that connects the cable TV wiring to the port on the outside of the camper came loose. It took me an hour and a trip to the radio shack to fix it. A couple of the nails that secure the shower enclosure to the wall in the shower stall popped and I had to nail in new tacks and seal the nail holes with silicone caulk. One of the sensors that tells me how full the fresh water holding tank is malfunctioning. I will have to get in there with a multi-meter to figure out which one is broken and then order the part. Cannot really do that until I get home. And I still have not had the time to re-pack the bearing on the driver side wheels after the grease caps came off while towing. Still, with all those nagging little problems, the old girl has been drug almost 3500 miles in 15 days and has not had a single major problem. All the appliances are fine and we have towed through some pretty bad rain and she has not leaked a drop.

5) If we had a hard side trailer that didn’t require setting up a tent bunk end, we could have saved a lot of money by spending some nights in a well lit parking lot rather than a campground. We have passed several Wal-Mart parking lots near the interstate in resort areas and seen them packed full of travel trailers and motor homes at night. We saw the same thing in the parking lot to Wall Drug in South Dakota. The Cabalas in Rapid City had a place for campers to dump waste water and fill up with fresh water (as does every Love’s Truck stop) for overnight campers. I would not want to do it every night, but for the times when we are just staying for one night and pulling out the next morning, it would have been much cheaper. Since our camper is a Hybrid that has canvas covering the fold out beds, I am not comfortable with the idea of staying in an unsecured parking lot. But a hard side trailer with locking doors would be much easier. If we were to ever try a trip like this again (especially as the kids get older) I would like a hard-side trailer to make the trip. Camping in a parking lot in a hard-side trailer would also have made the generator much more useful. Even if I didn’t want to run it all night it would be handy to to re-charge the batteries in the morning before getting on the road.

6) Five people in a truck or camper everyday for 15 days does come with its own set of issues. But overall it has been better than I feared it might be. Yes, the girls bicker at each other and AJ gets frustrated with his big sisters and having to share everything. But they are all dealing with it okay. Since we have limited space, the number of things they have to play with is reduced. There are the community toys that have always been in the camper that they all have to share. And then each kid has a few toys that are theirs alone. Because the volume of toys is not nearly what they have at home, it is pretty easy to see quickly if someone has a toy that doesn’t belong to them. Truthfully, I expected these problems with sharing a limited number of toys. What I didn’t expect was how tiring it would become having to be a “parent” constantly. With work or school, there are times during a normal day when Missy and I have a break from some or all of the kids. Time during a normal day when we do not have to be a Mommy or Daddy. Those “times off” are much fewer with all of us so close together. Missy and I have fallen into a rhythm of taking turns giving the other one a small “break” as the frustration builds. It is basically the same thing we do at home, just with more frequency.

7) A quick word about budgeting and costs. Taking a normal 1-week vacation does not have much impact on your bills at home for the month. But being gone for 2 months does. Realistically we can expect our bills at home to be greatly reduced these two months since we are not there to use the electricity and water and so forth. For that reason, we canceled or reduced many of the services we use normally at home before we left. I unplugged everything that normally drains power. And left the thermostat set at 85 degrees. So for that reason we thought that we could take this trip for double what we normally budget for gas, eating out and groceries and other misc costs per week (as an example… if your weekly budget for gas, groceries and eating out is $400.00 per week our plan was to spend no more than $800.00 per week total). So far, we are a little over budget for these first 2 weeks. Mostly due to higher gas prices and the fact that we have covered a lot of miles getting to the Pacific Coast. But, it looks like things will even out these next 2- weeks as we don’t have very far to travel. Overall…we are doing okay. If gas was still 2 bucks a gallon, we would be great. As it stands we have less wiggle room, but we are okay.

That is it. If you have questions, post them and I will try to answer them as best I can.

Day # 15 - Columbia Gorge

We didn’t get quite as early a start as we had hoped, but we gained an hour as we crossed into the Pacific Time Zone so we still arrived at the campground around 3:30 local time. The drive across Oregon was uneventful until we stared to climb into the Cascade Mountains. We went from dry flat plains full of hay fields into lush green pine forests. There were a few steep grades, but after tiny mountain roads with what I termed “rolling death” as a drop off to our right, a 2 lane interstate was nothing. Usually I get to do an hour or so of driving on travel days so Tony can catch a rest, but Tony drove the whole way today.

As we neared the Columbia River Gorge area the winds really picked up. They have been known to gust between 50 and 60 mph. That’s great if you are kite boarding or sailing, but not so great when you are towing a land yacht behind you! You can just hear the gas being guzzled down. To make matters worse, gas was up to almost $3.00 a gallon. We had been hovering around $2.50 throughout most of the trip, but it has steadily risen the farther west we have come. When we planned this trip, gas was just under $2.00 a gallon. That’s a big increase! What can you do? Grin and bear it and make the most of it!

The Gorge area is as picturesque as I remember it from our travels here many years ago. The huge pine trees are very stately. Our campground is actually across the river in Washington State. In order to cross the river, you must take one of three toll bridges. The Hood River Bridge is a towering metal grate bridge with a drawbridge in the center. It is extremely narrow and the tires make a strange humming, almost moaning sound as you cross over. It gives me the creeps. It doesn’t bother Tony though (even with the camper in tow) and the girls seemed to get a kick out of the fact I didn’t like it! The view is nice, too bad all I want to do is close my eyes until we are over!

Our campground is in the town of Home Valley, Washington. It is a small family owned campground. The place is really beautiful. It is extremely hilly as was are half way up the side of a mountain, but the campsites are surprisingly large and flat. We pushed hard to get here today and didn’t stop to eat lunch, so Tony decided to treat us to dinner at a local restaurant called "The Big River Grill" the campground owner suggested. We made the 7 mile drive up the road to Stevenson, WA. Stevenson is typical small town America. I thoroughly enjoyed garlic shrimp over pasta. For dessert we strolled down the street to Granny’s Gedunk Ice cream parlor. We enjoyed our ice cream in fresh homemade waffle cones – yum! Then it was back to the campground for a romp on the playground. We are worn out from our travels and are looking forward to sleeping in a little tomorrow. Tony wasn’t feeling well this evening – don’t know if it was something he ate or too much time in the car. I ventured back out in search of some medicine for his upset stomach. I encountered 2 deer on the road down and had 2 dogs chase the truck on the way back up. I thought we left the wildlife in Yellowstone.

Day # 14 - Boise, ID

We had an early morning departure planned to help us get to Boise at a reasonable time. Today was one of our longest distances to drive at around 400 miles. Idaho is underwhelming. In all fairness though, I realize we just came from seeing many natural wonders. The trip started off as fairly foggy, but the sun thankfully burned it off by mid-morning. I got to do some of the driving today. Fortunately for me it was relatively flat and mainly construction free! Yeah for me! Everyone was pretty tired of being in the car today. We spent too much time in the car yesterday, but just couldn’t help ourselves. We arrived to Meridian, Idaho late afternoon to find many of the streets closed to construction. We also noticed the fairgrounds were full of people attending Dairy Days. It looked like a lot of fun, but we opted for an early dinner then a quick swim in the indoor pool. We have another long day ahead of us tomorrow top get to the Columbia Gorge in Oregon and want to get a good night’s rest for the journey.

Day # 13 - Yellowstone N.P.

Our final day in Yellowstone. This entry will be a long one because we packed so much into one day! On the way back to the camper yesterday, we saw blue and orange smoke rising from one of the geyser basins. We decided to take a side trip to check it out. It turned out to be Grand Prismatic Spring. It is Yellowstone’s largest hot spring at 370 feet across. The water is a deep blue and it is surrounded by yellow and orange colored thermophiles. It produces a beautiful prism effect. The spring pushes over 500 gallons of water per minute into the Yellowstone River. The only problem is that because the water is a constant 160 degrees and the air in the park is much cooler most of the time it produces so much steam that you can’t see all of the way across the pool most of the time. Having had our fill of the thermal features of the park, Tony wanted to check out the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and the Lower Falls. As we drove to that side of the park, we saw the lingering effects of the 1988 fires that ravaged much of the park. More than 20 years later there are huge areas with burned trees – many of them still standing. What was really cool to see was all of the smaller pine trees growing in to take their place. The guidebooks all say it will take about 60 years for the forest to fully recover. Nature is an amazing thing!

The Grand Canyon area was awesome. The golden cliffs were very impressive as we walked around to see Lower Falls from a spot known as Artist’s Point. The canyon is over 1,000 feet deep and 4,000 feet wide. Lower Falls are over 300 feet tall (twice the height of Niagra Falls). We saw a hawk and a chipmunk who, scurried after AJ. AJ thought it was chasing him and he squealed with delight before running the other direction! We decided since it was our last day to try to get in one more of the major sights before we left. We ate our picnick lunch in the car on our drive around to see Mammoth Hot Springs. We also figured we might as well drive around the top of the loop of the park to take in some more of the scenery.
We have been constantly amazed at how diverse the many different areas there are in the park. Each landscape seems completely different, yet they are all remarkably beautiful. We looked forward to rounding each bend to see what we would find. In addition to the many changes in scenery, we saw a wide range of wild life today as well. We pulled over to snap a few pictures at an overlook. A woman who pulled in said there was a grizzly foraging by the side of the road a few miles up. We were excited to see a grizzly so close up in the wild (and from the safety of our car). The bear was maybe 10 feet from the road. There were rangers posted in the area to make sure no human did anything stupid. We saw a second grizzly much farther away a little later in our journey as well as a baby black bear. We didn’t stick around to see mama bear. Sarah and I spotted a fox by the side of the road as well. We scoured the landscapes all day for signs of a moose, but never saw one!

By the time we got around to Mammoth Springs it was much later than we anticipated and AJ had fallen asleep in the car. We decided to get out and take a look anyway. Tony got him out of the car and he slept the entire time – through Tony getting him out of the car, putting his jacket on and walking around on the trail. He slept through all of the noise the small crowd that had gathered made, being handed over to me and then getting strapped back into his car seat. That was one tired little boy. Mammoth Hot Springs are very interesting. The minerals in the water are constantly building more and more tiers to the springs. They are getting taller and taller each day. They areas where the water is actively flowing have a deep orange color. The “dead” areas are a whitish grey. The springs are incredibly large and there are boardwalks and catwalks to take you all the way up and around. We chose to see the rest from the car. On our way back to the parking area, an elk walked right up and across our path. No matter how many of these wild animals we see, we can’t help but to take more pictures!

As we reluctantly headed back to the campground, a mother and baby buffalo crossed in front of us. We thought they were just crossing the road, but instead they decided to walk down the road in front of us – sort of like a buffa-pace car. We followed them for quite some time at a distance. The girls thought it was very funny. We took some good video footage of it as well. Finally, they decided they had gone far enough and moved off into the grass. We joked that today should be named wildlife day in honor of the many animals we saw in the park today. Our visit ended on a high note with a glimpse of a baby bald eagle sitting in the top of its nest on our way out of the park. We spent just enough time in Yellowstone to realize that we definitely want to come back!

Day # 12 - Yellowstone N.P

We were treated to an awesome glimpse of a bald eagle sitting proudly in its nest on our way into the park today. It was pretty thrilling to see a bald eagle in the wild. We turned the car around to get another look! It was just thrilling to see one in the wild!

Staying in the town of West Yellowstone is great because of its easy entrance to Yellowstone. The city literally begins just outside of the parks west entrance. Our campground is just 6 miles from the entrance. West Yellowstone is a neat little town - a very eclectic mix of restaurants and shops. There are plenty of places for a weary traveler to spend his money ( or, window shop)- a sort of Gatlinburg of the west. We were also intrigued by the city’s trashcans – they are all bear proof. There are signs at many establishments telling you were the nearest trashcans are due to the bears! We were a little nervous about camping in our trailer because of its tented bunk ends. Many of the campgrounds in Yellowstone do not allow camping unless you are in a hard-sided trailer due to the bears. That is one of the main reasons we chose to stay the 6 miles up the road at the local KOA. Still, there were signs all around our campground reminding us to beware. Tony managed to park the truck right up against the girls’ bunk so we felt better about them being safe. I guess we were just out of luck!

We spent much of our time in the park today at the geyser basins. We pulled up and parked and walked over to the visitor center just before Old Faithful erupted. It was a very impressive sight! Water spouted into the air as if someone had just opened a fire hydrant. Then as quickly as it erupted, it stopped again. Old Faithful isn’t as faithful as she used to be. The geyser erupts every 90 minutes or so, give or take 10 minutes on each side of the predicted time. We decided that we wanted to see it again, so we spent the time walking around the upper geyser basin.

There are several geyser basins to choose from, but with little legs, we thought we should choose our routes carefully. You could probably spend a few days working your way around to all of the geysers. Some of the other geysers eruptions can be “predicted.” I use the term predicted loosely because the board in the visitor’s center gives estimated eruption times and the +/- window. Some of them had a range of a few hours for predictions and others a few days! Some of the smaller geysers continuously erupt/have water bubbling up from the ground. The bubbles get faster and higher momentarily and then die down for a time before starting up again. Some of the hot springs are crystal clear and you can see deep into the earth. It is an awesome sight. You view many of the park’s geothermal features by an elaborate system of boardwalks. There are signs everywhere warning about the dangers of the thin crust layer and the extreme temperatures of the water. It was a little daunting trying to keep AJ from careening off the side – perhaps a little glimpse of what our visit to the Grand Canyon will be like! We had to have him hold our hand as we walked much of the path. Needless to say he was none too thrilled about that! One of the rangers thanked us for keeping our children safe though – a statement that was lost on an almost 3 year old. She said she recently had a family who let their child put their hands in the run-off water from the geysers. People! Chalk up a gold star for us. We hustled everyone back to the front to see Old Faithful again. Of course, the eruption was on the plus 10 minutes side rather than the minus. It was hard to keep the attention of tired and hungry Abby and AJ. Sarah has been completely into Yellowstone. She is awed by its many wonders and looks for new discoveries. She has been taking more pictures than we are and has been trying to identify animal tracks too. After all of that, we were thrilled to get another chance to see Old Faithful in action. We were looking forward to capturing it on film and video from a better vantage point. In true fashion, the memory card on the camera was full and then the battery on the camcorder died! Oh well, it was still well worth it to see its eruption again!

After a picnic lunch in the park, we drove around a little and then headed for the campground. We saw herds of buffalo again today. There are so many buffalo in this park that Tony has taken to putting the phrase “Buffa” in front of many of his words. The park should be called Buffastone. A Buffalo lying down is taking a Buffanap. The kids were grossed out by seeing one take a buffapoop. You get the picture. It will be difficult to decide where to spend our last day in the park tomorrow.

Day # 11 - Yellowstone

We packed up the camper today and headed to the opposite side of the park and the town of West Yellowstone, Montana (we had been in Cody, WY for the last 3 days). Since we had to drive through Yellowstone to get there, we had every intention on seeing a few sights along the way.

We decided to check out the mud volcano and sulfur springs. We arrived by the East entrance again and were amazed how beautiful everything was a second time! We worked our way through the Hayden Valley over to the Mud flats. We saw a lot more buffalo today. There were also a few more elk. The thing we discovered about the wildlife is that you don’t have to look all that hard for it – just follow all of the cars that are already pulled over to the side of the road!

Yellowstone so far has NOT been all that crowded. Don’t know if it’s too early in the summer or what. We had fully prepared ourselves for the onslaught of humanity all of the guide books warn you about. We have so far been pleasantly surprised. We walked the trail around the mud pots. They were really cool! Where else in the world can you see mud boiling up from out of the ground? We took a lot of video because we couldn’t get over the sounds the many different features made. We commented that we need a video with smell-o-vision to capture the true nature of the mud pots and fumaroles we saw. Sarah & Abby pretty much spent most of her time holding her nose! As we walked around the boardwalk we couldn’t get over how many there were and how each one seemed a little neater than the last.

We hopped into the camper and headed for one of the many picnic groves for a bite of lunch. About 100 yards from where we stopped, there was a single buffalo standing in a grove of trees. We snapped a few pictures and ate lunch. As we drove through the park to the West entrance, we couldn’t believe how different the scenery became. We went from the mountainous terrain and the views of Yellowstone Lake to valleys of lush forest with several winding rivers and streams. I saw trumpeter swans among all of the ducks and geese. I also couldn’t believe how many thermal features we saw in the park. It seemed like everywhere you looked there were plumes of white smoke billowing up from the ground. Because it was pretty chilly and the thermal springs are so warm, they produce a lot of smoke/fog. We happened upon Beryl Springs on our way out. This spring was emitting a blue haze. The water bubbled and spouted and was a brilliant blue. It also had the distinct odor we have come to love around here of rotten eggs! I wonder what the early pioneers must have thought when they happened upon such a sight (and smell)!

We saw a family group of buffalo on the way out. There were several baby buffalo there. Sarah and I think baby buffalo are adorable - sort of cuter and fuzzier than a calf. Tony indulged us by pulling over by the side of the road (with everyone else) so we could snap several pictures. As we got to the west entrance we were happy to find West Yellowstone was right on the border of the park. Although we really enjoyed checking out Cody, Wyoming, having to travel 50 miles to the park seemed like a long time in comparison. We arrived and were greeted by rain! Nothing is more fun than setting up a camper in the rain! Oh well. We are looking forward to checking out Old Faithful tomorrow.

Day # 10 - Yellowstone N.P.

This morning we got up and took full advantage of the campground’s $2.00 all you can eat pancake breakfast. It was prepared by an older camper host couple and was very yummy. The best part was it was cheap and we didn’t have to cook or do the dishes! We climbed into the car for the drive to Yellowstone and our first glimpse of America’s first National Park.


The East entrance is 50 miles from Cody. The scenery was beautiful on the drive over, but we were anxious to get into the park. On the way there we stopped to see the Buffalo Bill Dam. It was built in the early 1900’s and was a model for the Hoover Dam. You can walk out over top of the spill way. It was impressive to see the calm reservoir on one side, and then turn around and watch all of that water come rushing out the other. It was very breezy and the kids were ready to get into the visitor center to make yet another “smash” penny for their collections. Boy, I would love to have been the guy who came up with that idea!

As we worked our way up into the mountains to the park, the temperature dropped 30 degrees! We were amazed to still see snow on the ground. The kids threw on their jackets and happily posed in the white stuff. You would have thought that they had never seen snow before. We kept reminding them that we get plenty of it where we live, but I guess the novelty of snow in the summer was just too much.


Yellow stone is nothing short of amazing. It is a place that everyone should visit at least once in their lives! The scenery is breath taking! We came in on the east side, so most of what we saw today was Yellowstone Lake (large enough to create its own weather patterns) and many small waterfalls. We did spot a few buffalo and an elk by the side of the road. We also saw a few of the thermal features venting their sulfur smelling gasses. The east entrance is very mountainous terrain and as we kept rounding corners, we continued to be impressed by the lush green, snow topped mountains being reflected in the still glass like lake. I have never seen anything else quite like it. It was rainy and pretty cold, so we stopped at the visitor center to pick up our National Parks passports for the kids to collect stamps from the various visitor centers from National Parks and Monuments across the country (wish we would have known about it when we were at Mount Rushmore! Oh well, guess we’ll have to go back!). We checked out the lay of the land so to speak and figured out our plan of attack for the next 3 days. We bought a couple trail maps for the areas we wanted to visit and headed back to Cody for the nightly shootout at Buffalo Bill’s Irma hotel and to pack up to move the camper to West Yellowstone, Montana tomorrow.

When we got into town we grabbed a slice of pizza and worked our way over to the Irma hotel and our rented folding chairs for the shootout. The local tourist trolley company will reserve a seat for you so all you have to do is show up right before show time and Tony had stopped b y yesterday when we were downtown and reserved us 5 chairs . With impatient little kids it was well worth 5 bucks! The shootout happens 6 nights a week all summer long at 6:00 p.m. It is a reenactment of a gun fight between Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill. Not sure how historically accurate it was, but it was campy and cheesy and very amusing. All in all, it was a great way to spend some time. The gun shots (blanks obviously) were very loud. They made Abby cover her ears and AJ scream with delight (not sure if he was more happy about the loud bangs or his sister freaking out!) After we walked around Cody a little more, we headed back to get ready to pull out in the morning.