Summer Road Trip: Part II

 After walking around downtown Portland we headed over to Forest Park.

This park is amazing!  It's over 5,000 acres with over 80 miles of trails throughout the park.  We basically saw just a snippet of what this park has to offer.

We decided to hike to the Witches Castle/Stone House.

 This building was actually once a bathroom in the 1930's, and today locals say it's haunted....ooooh, scary!

It's a pretty cool building with plants and moss growing all over it...and unfortunately quite a bit of graffiti as well...sad face.

 And of course our day would not be complete without a picnic somewhere!

After our hike we strolled over to the Audubon Society (also in Forest Park) right near the trail head.

They have a facility that houses several types of birds of prey that have been rescued but cannot be released back into the wild because they have become too dependent on humans.  At the time of our visit they brought out a Horned Owl, Vulture and a Raven.  And of course more hiking trails!  So many trails everywhere!  Gotta love it...I wish we had more time to explore, but we had to head to our campsite and set up before it got too late.

We camped at L.L. "Stub" Stewart State Park about 30 miles west of Portland.  This is a fairly new park and it is HUGE!  It would be a mountain biker haven as there are trails throughout this park to ride.

  When we made reservations for this campground the only sites they had left were "hike-in".  We went ahead and booked it because at $11 dollars a night we figured if it was super terrible we'd just go somewhere else and know that we weren't losing too much money.  But we were pleasantly surprised!!  It turned out to be an absolutely beautiful place to camp!  We did have to hike in, about a half a mile, but they supplied carts for us to haul our gear and with everyone chipping in it wasn't bad at all.

The only con I would say about this park were the mosquitoes.  

Luckily, I had some bug spray packed!

We heated up some potato soup for dinner, took an evening walk through the park and then off to bed.

I slept terrible in case anyone was wondering.

Tent camping is hard on me!

The next morning we headed out right after breakfast for Cannon Beach.  It took us about an hour to get there from our campground...not too bad.

We arrived right at low tide so the woman at the visitor center said to go straight to Haystack Rock first to see the tide pools.  So that's what we did!

With the tide so low the beach was enormous!

The girls found tons of sand dollars!  Unfortunately, we weren't able to find a whole one that wasn't broken though.  They also had a ball digging up the little sand crabs which were also everywhere!

Except for Rory...she was NOT a fan of the little sand crabs!

I can see why this is a popular destination, it's so pretty!

Where ever there is water, my girls will be in it...no matter the temperature!

Cannon Beach is such a charming beach community.

Everyone, I repeat EVERYONE grows hydrangeas there, it's like it's a town law or something.  And every hydrangea bush is massive and so beautiful!  For whatever reason I always think of my grandma when I see those types of flowers...I'm not sure if they were her favorite but I do know she had them growing in her front yard.  After seeing them all over at Cannon Beach hydrangeas have quickly become my favorite flower at the moment.

And weird...I didn't get a picture of any of them!!

We took the long way home and drove down the coast.
We heard good things about the Tillamook factory and decided to check it out.

The views from the lookout points were amazing!

Unfortunately the Tillamook Factory was under construction so they only had a temporary visitor center set up.  So it lacked quite a bit.  But we did get some ice cream!

We got back to camp in time to heat up some veggie soup and then roasted s'mores in the communal fire pit.

A perfect end to the day.

Snow Canyon State Park

After our failed trip to Capital Reef, the kids were so bummed.  We told them we would make it up to them...they would get their camping trip, we promised!!

 So this last weekend, we hit the road again.  Except this time we went to Snow Canyon State Park in St. George.  We only had a reservation for Sunday night. Saturday night was completely booked, however, they have walk-in sites available if you get there early enough.  Soooooo, again, we took a gamble.  We left early Saturday morning and just crossed our fingers that they had a walk-in site available for Saturday night. 

 We made it to Snow Canyon by lunch time, and low and behold they had a campsite available!!!

In fact, they had several!!  We even got to chose the one we wanted, haleluja!!

We picked one that we've camped in before...it's pretty much our favorite spot.  It's kinda secluded off the road, and it's right up against the rock.  The kids can climb all over (not too high though...the ranger got after my kids for going to far up the rock...whoops) and they created all sorts of little trails and hide-outs.

 Haley and Morgan slept in their own tent tucked away.

They named their spot the Coyote Den.

 Sunday we went on a hike in the park to see the lava tubes.  The tubes are basically huge caves created from lava flowing underground from volcanoes dating back 27,000 years ago.  Some of the tubes collapsed but some are still in tact and people can walk through them.  

Having our picnic lunch outside one of the caves.

 The lookout point from the lava flow hike.

 We also hit up the sand dunes in the park that evening before dinner.

This is always a favorite with the kids...you can't visit Snow Canyon without hitting up the dunes!

Monday morning we went on a very short hike (more like a little walk) to see the pioneer names written on the canyon wall.  Pioneers would write their names with axle grease as they passed through the area.  Some  dated back to 1881!

And just for kicks I had Haley and Morgan pose in the same rock hole they peeked through years ago.

 They're so little!!!

 Hiking up to see all the pioneer names.

After the hike we headed back to camp, made a quick lunch and then we packed up to head home.

I'm so glad we planned this little weekend getaway.  It was perfect and just what we all needed.

And we all got our much needed s'mores fix!!

Spring Break Part II: Anza Borrego

Tuesday morning we caravaned with my parents from Lake Arrowhead to Anza Borrego...about a three hour drive...to camp for the rest of the week.  I grew up camping there...it was tradition to spend New Year's there every year, so as you can imagine I've built up a lot memories there!  Anyway, the last time we camped there was when Haley and Morgan were very little, in fact, they had no memory of it.  So it was time we introduced them to one of my childhood stomping grounds!

This camp trip we had Haley and Morgan sleep in their own tent...which they were surprisingly excited about!  It was fun to pull out our old tent...the "jockey helmet"...seriously though, we can spot that tent miles away!

 My parents had their set up right across from us.

The first day we hiked to the Palm Oasis...this is a three mile hike (round trip) right there in the camp ground.  The kids went crazy for this hike!  At the end there is a little water fall and you are surrounded by palms in a shady little "oasis".  What the kids don't know, is how massive this oasis used to be!  But unfortunately flooding washed it all away and since then it's been slowly growing back.  But it's still beautiful and of course it didn't take long for my kids to throw off their shoes and get drenched in the water.  Luckily the weather was quite warm!  I didn't bring my camera on this hike so unfortunately I don't have a single picture from it.

We also hiked to the Visitor Center.  There is a little paved path (.6 miles one way) that leads to the visitor center from our camp spot.  So once Haley and Morgan discovered how easy it was to get there they went there often on their own for the rest of the week.  They would wait for the flag to raise in the morning showing they were opened for the day and off they went.  

Thursday was Piper's 5th Birthday!!  

When we all crawled out of our tents my mom had decorated the awning with banners and a Happy Birthday sign for her!  What a treat!  She blew out a birthday candle on a blueberry muffin that morning!  And then it was off to Slot Canyon...this is always a favorite!  It's a short hike that winds through the canyon and in some cases you have to climb and squeeze through really small spaces.

These are four tired girls!!

 And then after Slot Canyon we drove to Font's Point.  This is a lookout onto the Badlands of Borrego,  and they say you can even see into Mexico from this spot!

 That evening my mom handed out some party stuff for the kids to celebrate Piper's birthday.

A Desert Pirate Party...what's not to love?!

We made a peach dump cake in the Dutch Oven in the coals that night for her, and she opened her presents around the campfire.  Not too shabby!

Our last morning we cooked up our Mountain Man Breakfast.  It was tradition to cook this meal on the last morning whenever we camped in Borrego.  Mountain Man breakfast is potatoes, onions, peppers, bacon, eggs and cheese....good, good and good!

Then we packed up and headed back to Lake Arrowhead.  We had Saturday to veg out at the cabin before we got back on the road for home on Sunday.

I have to say, this was one of our best trips!

Except for the part when my back was killing me every night sleeping on that ground (am I getting old?).

Or the part that my parents both had bad colds...total bummer!

Or the part that Rory decided to poop in the bushes near our tent without us noticing and got poop all over her clothes and hands (yeah that wasn't so fun).

Or the part that my mom and I had to clean up that poop in the bushes since it was basically in someone else's camp site (thanks mom for helping me).

Hey, just making it real people.

But seriously, one of our best trips!