Throughout our childhood my mom would tell us about her vacations growing up. My Aunt lived in Washington so my mom would go there every summer to take care of her kids. While there they would take trips to Cannon Beach on the Oregon Coast. When we watch Goonies she would look back on her vacation days and make it sound wonderful. Since then, all of us have wanted to go to this fantasy land that she created in our minds. Last year I looked into going, but it didn't seem like a destination that would be kid friendly, so I put it in the back of my mind. A couple months ago my sister let us know that she was putting together an Oregon vacation and invited us to go. This was the opportunity of a lifetime for us! A couple weeks before the trip it seemed like things we not lining up for us to go. Our sprinkling system had breaks all over in it and Brandon was having a really hard time fixing it. There were a bunch of other things coming up too and we just didin't feel good about going. The excitement was too much for me though, and we left for our journey at 4:00 a.m. on June 16th. We had 3 carloads with us. Our car had me, Brandon, and the girls. My mom's car had her, Amber, Diane, and Tevin. My cousin Brian's truck had him, my Aunt Cally, his daughter Brittney, and son Nate along with all our supplies. Everything was going well until just after Caldwell, Idaho when Brandon saw my mom's car rolling into the median in the rear view mirror.
When I got out and saw the car sitting there I panicked. I couldn't imagine my life without my mom and sister. There were a lot of very nice good Samaritans that stopped to help us. It turned out that everyone was fine except for some cuts and bruises. We ended up driving them to the hospital in Caldwell where they were checked out. They were blessed to not have been injured more seriously. About 6 hours later we were back on the road again with a rental car. We drove into Pendleton, Oregon around 10:30 that night and were so exhausted, so Brandon and I decided to stay in a hotel and finish the trip the next day. The rest of the group drove on to Cannon Beach. I'm really happy we stayed because the others didn't get to the beach house until 4:00 a.m. We ended up meeting up with group the next afternoon and arrived at the most beautiful house a couple blocks from the beach. Our room was on the 3rd floor with a balcony overlooking the trees with the ocean in the distance. It was an amazing view to wake up to every morning! Maddie's bed was set up in the closet and Bryn & Emmy were in the room with us.
As soon as we were settled we went down to Haystack Rock with the family. The tide was low, so we explored the tide pools. It was so much fun to see the sea urchins, giant starfish, and crabs. The water was really cold, but after a while our feet went numb, so it didn't really matter!
On Saturday we woke up to a constant drizzle of rain. It was a different rain than we get at home because it was more of a mist than rain drops. We went to the annual sandcastle festival on the beach.
That afternoon we drove north to Seaside and went to the Carousel Mall. There was a fun little store with a bunch of novelty glasses that everyone had fun trying on!
The next day we went to Astoria and explored the downtown outdoor market. We sampled delicious cookies, breads, salsa's, and other things. They had beautiful flowers for cheap, but the best thing was the fresh crab that my mom got Brandon for Father's Day. He was a happy camper!
Astoria was a beautiful city and we would have loved to explore it more, but we ran out of time. It's definitely a place we will go back to next time. On our last day we went back to Seaside and went to the aquarium where the kids were able to see octopus, touch urchins, starfish, and sand dollars. They also had just had 2 new baby seals born that were fun to see. Outside of the aquarium was the perfect spot for our pictures by the beach.
On our way home we stopped at the Bonneville Fish Hatchery on the Columbia River. We saw huge sturgeon and salmon. The grounds were beautiful and gave the kids a chance to run around after being cooped up in the car.
We stayed in Pendleton again that night. In the morning we had to find another rental car to take home because we had to drop the other one off in Nampa. For a while we had 4 cars, so the drivers were thinned out. In the end we traveled over 2,000 miles and drove more hours than I want to in a long time. The trip was amazing, emotional, and full of good memories. Now we're trying to get back to real life, but Amber, Mom, and I are already dreaming of our next trip to the Oregon Coast!
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