So in order to remember things about our trip and not just have my pictures go to Never Never Land, I decided to try to blog as we go and write a little about each of our days here on the Oregon Coast.
So starting with yesterday (Day 1 of being here) -
Here is a little video showing the house we rented. We went with
Sweet Home Rentals and the house that we got is awesome. AND it is about a 30 second walk from the house to the beach. :)
And THIS is a video of the ocean. I am thinking I will just put this on a loop to play over and over again at my office. It will be almost the same as actually being there, right?
The token first picture of the kids together on vacation.
Selfie! (Kaden is not being tortured or hurt, he just hates having his picture taken and it causes him a great deal of distress.)
"Our Beach" a/k/a Yachats State Park (right outside our door).
We actually got here the night before (after a LOOONG drive), but because it was so dark, we didn't take any pictures. So after we got up on Sunday and explored "our beach" a bit (I didn't take my "nice" camera), we decided to go check out Cape Perpetua and Devil's Churn.
We didn't quite know where to park and we could see there were a number of trails around, so we asked two ladies who looked like they knew what they were doing and they told us we could park at the top and get where we wanted to go that way. I think they were like evil Disney witches or something because that actually ended up with us going on a four + mile hike in the end (that was completely unnecessary) and we weren't even parked where we needed to be to get to the two things we were trying to find.
So here we are starting our hike (unsuspecting fools), look how high up we are!
This was also taken at the starting point - Oregon is SO beautiful. I love the ocean SO much and have declared that there is nothing in nature that I love more than the ocean.
So, the upside of the going-on-a-big-hike-that-you-hadn't-really-planned-on-going-so-you-were-wearing-flip-flops was that this was the view of the majority of the hike. So lush. So green. So beautiful.
Here was a bridge to get to the "Big Spruce" which was BIG.
After hiking aimlessly (we didn't know where we were going) and stopping to gorge ourselves on the wild blackberries growing in the parking lot of the campsite, we FINALLY came upon the BIG spruce. And you can see that it was BIG. The sign informed us that it was over 550 years old and I think it was 15 feet thick. Wowsa!
After the wonderment of the spruce, we hiked on and finally found the visitor's center. They informed us that Devil's Churn (one of the things we had originally wanted to see) was another mile or so hike and that it wouldn't be that great to see because we were at low tide and that would be no good. Instead, the helpful park attendant recommended that we hike another .3 miles and go check out Captain Cook's Tide Pools.
Starfish!
We think these are mussels (they are some type of clam/oyster thing), but they cover the rocks so that you walk on them all over the place when you are exploring the rocks/tide pools by the beach. They are all over the rocks by our beach too.
Token name in the sand picture.
I caught a mermaid - obviously her fin transformed back into legs before I could get photographic evidence.
More starfish! There are lots and lots and Courtney keeps trying to talk us into letting her take one home.
This picture is of two teenagers in the wild and demonstrates that not only do they like being at the ocean, but I think they might actually like each other too!
One more picture from the top. I love how the forest meets the sea. It certainly creates some terrific scenery.
We did survive the hike, a bit more sore and out of breath than when we first started (especially since the hike back to the car was 1.3 miles all uphill). And we did finally find where we SHOULD have parked, so if we so choose, we may go back and look at Devil's Churn and Spouting Horn. :)
After all this, we had worked up quite an appetite, so we headed back home to powder our noses and go get some dinner. We ended up at Luna's Fish House and all enjoyed the various sea food fare that was served there.
Afterwards, we headed home and were all so worn out that we decided to stay in and watch a movie. Well, my big kids crashed within about 30 minutes around 8:45 and Greg wasn't too far after that. We were beat! So we called it a night and headed to bed.
The house that we are staying in has the master bedroom on the second floor and so it's a little more stuffy and warm up there. I started opening a few windows to cool things off and was loving the fact that you can hear the ocean from our bedroom window - I can't even imagine living this close to the ocean! How awesome would that be?
So Day 1 was pretty great, our hiking adventure was a bit unexpected, but it took us places we probably wouldn't have seen otherwise.
My favorite parts of Day 1? Loved getting back to the ocean, I swear to you that it feeds my soul and that it makes me so happy beyond belief. When we got here Saturday night, it was already after dark, but we still walked down to the beach just to see what we could see of it, it just energizes me and I really wish we lived closer. The other thing I love is the love my kids have for the ocean. Even though they are 15 and 13, both of them could spend hours exploring, looking for shells/marine life, and just playing in the sand and the surf. It is so fun for me to watch them love it so much.
So grateful.
