Summer Road Trip: Part III

We dedicated another day to Astoria.

Our first stop was the visitor center.  They were so helpful and friendly!  They gave us a map of the area and told us some hot spots we needed to check out!  Our first stop was the Astoria Column.

 It stands atop Coxcomb hill and was built in 1926.  The outside of the column is entirely covered with a spiral mural dedicated to the events and people who settled the area, including Captain Grey and Lewis and Clark.  There is a spiral staircase (with 164 steps) to the top where you can lookout from.

The views from the top:

The Columbia River. 

The other side of the bridge (highway 101) is Washington.

 Youngs River.

And I'm pretty sure (although it didn't come out in photos) you can see Mt. Rainier and Mt. Hood from the lookout.  Pretty cool!

 We had our picnic lunch under the column and then headed out for a hike that started right next to the column and led down through the woods to Cathedral Tree.

 Oregon has the biggest slugs!  And they are everywhere!

We had to oooooh and aaaaaah over every one.  Some local hikers saw us doing just that over one particular slug and chuckled at us.  I guess they are pretty used to seeing them in their yards on a daily basis.

But seriously, they're huge!

 Cathedral Tree!

So since we were in Astoria we HAD to find the Goonie house after our hike.

Unfortunately, they have it pretty much like Fort Knox around there...and believe me, we weren't the only only ones there trying to get a peek!  I wouldn't be able to stand living near the Goonie house!!  They must have a ongoing line of traffic at all times around there.  And we were there on a Friday...what's it like on a Saturday I wonder.

 This is the sign they have posted at the entrance of their street.

We decided we probably shouldn't go any further...sad face.

 This is the best I could get of the Goonie house.

Not too shabby.

 They did have the jail, now a museum and the Jeep Cherokee from the movie.

 Complete with the bullet holes!

After Astoria we headed back south to the town of Seaside.

 The girls didn't hesitate to get their suits on and jump in!

 There were crabs everywhere at this beach...as a wave would go back out there would be a few crabs on the sand every time.  And Haley (who went way out) said they would crawl on her legs!  Yikes!!

Morgan's goal was to catch one...which she did eventually.  She's smiling in the picture, but it really freaked her out to hold it, ha!

After the beach we walked through the little main street and found a place to grab some dinner before heading back to our campsite.

Pretty full day indeed!

Happy Birthday!!

Happy Birthday Morgan!!

Today your are 11!!

We love you bunches!

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.