Eclipse

Michael was wrong.  He said we needed to head up to Crouch on Friday morning to beat the eclipse crowds.  I was exhausted and did not want to go on another trip.  I argued the eclipse from Boise would be fine, especially with the kids starting school the day after. I lost the argument and we got in the car Friday morning and headed up to Aunt Toni's cabin.  We played in the river, watched a few movies, and relaxed.  A couple of friends joined us Sunday afternoon, and guess what?!  No traffic!  I win, Michael was wrong.

Monday morning we all settled in to watch the eclipse.  Most of us, anyway, as those under ten were at the river catching water skippers.

We all stared at the sun with glasses because we are smarter than the current president and a random rapper.

Watching the moon move across the sun was interesting, the temperature drop was interesting, the company was wonderful.  Michael, of course, had an app on his phone that announced what changes to look for in the environment and the current eclipse progress.  At one point the phone announced that we should note animal behavior.  Everyone stared at Harley, while she looked curiously back at us.  Shortly thereafter, all the humans started running around exclaiming over shadows.  I think we may have been observing the wrong animals.

The moment the eclipse hit totality, I realized I was wrong.  99.5% eclipse viewing in Boise would not have been sufficient.  In the first moments of the eclipse, all you could hear were the gasps of our group.  There were no words.  Then everyone started hollering like we had won the super bowl.  It was a moment of pure wonder and excitement.  The temperature dropped more, a few stars came out, a bat flew out into the false night.  It was a purely perfect moment.

Michael may have been wrong about the crowds, but I was wrong about wanting to stay home.  We will call it a draw this time.  And, for those wondering, coming home wasn't too awful.  It took us about 2.5 hours, so an hour longer than usual.  Not a bad trade off, if you ask me.

Nobody Puked...but I came close

The pictures tell most of the story.  We went on a wildlife watching tour.  The bay was gorgeous, calm water, blue skies, birds and fish everywhere.  We then went out past the jetties into the open ocean.  Fog descended, waves were crashing, the ship teetered at the top of waves, and then crashed down into the trough.  Everyone was too busy hanging on to look for whales.  All the males plus Libby declared it the best part of vacation.  After twenty minutes of terror the captain turned the boat around and we headed back into the bay.  Grace was very relieved as the blood slowly returned to her knuckles.

2017 Summer Vacation - Beaching It

We spent a lot of time at the beach, just hanging out.  The kids dug for clams and Libby proved herself to be the clam master.  She dug enough for us to have a small clam bake.  We then realized we all strongly dislike eating clams. We didn't dig up any more clams much to the children's disappointment.  Digging for clams was fun!  Eating them, not so much.

We went and saw many areas with "devil" in the title.  They all started to blur together.  This was probably named Devil's Armpit or Devil's Right Toe.  The waves crashing in was interesting, but I was fearful one of my kids was going to fall in and get bashed against the rocks. (Michael's note: this is Devil's Churn near Cape Perpetua.)

We painted the ocean at Cape Perpetua Visitors Center.  The finished masterpieces were given to their Grandpa, who we stopped to visit on the way home.

The specks out in the waves are Ethan and Libby.  They spent a lot of time practicing their water bending skills.  I seem to be raising very geeky children. I'm not sure if I'm incredibly pleased or very mortified.

And of course there were sand castles.

We played on beautiful sandy beaches, had gorgeous blue skies, and a startling cold ocean to play in.  What more can a vacation ask for?

Yaquina Head

The second day we headed to Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area.  It has amazing tidepools, an interpretive center, and lighthouse tours.  By the time we got there the next available lighthouse tour was four hours away!  We signed up and then went to look at the tidepools.

I wish the pictures did it more justice.  The pools were so colorful with sea urchins, starfish, anemones, mussels, chitons and many assorted crawling things with pinchers.

After briefly losing Sam, finding him and scolding him, we went up to the interpretive center and had a picnic lunch.  We then had time to closely explore all aspects of the interpretive center.

We all agreed that Ethan's outfit was the best.  If you look very closely you can see that he is wearing a vest that is sized for a toddler.  He was very much into dressing up.  Michael strategically placed himself in the back because the costume pants were ripped along the middle seam almost from bow to stern.  Sam also quickly lost the costume spirit, but he did humor us by taking the picture.

Finally our tour time rolled around and the kids started complaining (after watching the video tour of the lighthouse).  They decided it was going to be the most boring thing in the world, the tour guide was going to drone on and on about the floors and architecture, and they would have more fun back at camp.  I informed them we were still going on the tour but we did strike a bargain.  Every time the tour guide mentioned anything about architecture, the floors, and any war, each kid would receive a point.  For every five points I would give them a piece of hard candy.

The tour guide was a lovely young energetic National Parks ranger from Florida who started off talking about butts (the proper nautical term for barrel) of oil.  My kids were hooked.  After exploring the lower floors, we all headed up a circular cast iron staircase that was 150 years old and could only safely support six people per section.

We were able to go all the way up and see the lens up close.

Do you see how happy these people are?  That's because they thoroughly enjoyed the tour!  Also, they were each entitled to a cheap piece of hard candy.  They only earned one, but as I am a generous woman, I gave them each two.

2017 Summer Vacation - Day One

For our big family vacation this year, we decided to head to the Oregon Coast.  My kids have never seen the ocean.  Michael and I haven't been to the coast in over 15 years.  It was an easy decision.  Then ten days before we were scheduled to leave, the A/C went out in the van and we discovered it will be cheaper to replace the van than fix the A/C.  What to do?  We decided to be hardy pioneer-type folks and live without A/C. *dun dun DUUUN!*

We left Boise at 4 a.m. and started the adventure.  Some of us were more alert than others. After our first stop for gas, the trailer started acting funny.  We pulled over to find the tread completely gone from one tire, the other tire with visible bulges, and a bald spare.  After changing the naked tire for the bald tire, we decided to limp into the closest town with a Les Schwab.  We thought it was forty miles away.  The nice dam government workers (whose road we were blocking while changing our tire) directed us to a Les Schwab in The Dalles only two miles away. 

I'm starting to believe no vacation is complete with a stop at Les Schwab.  I'm also beginning to believe we should replace our trailer.

We were planning on stopping at Multnomah Falls to take a break and eat a picnic lunch.  The entire western seaboard had the same idea at the same time:  Cars were parked half a mile down the road while people hiked to the falls, we were on a time crunch, pulling a trailer and the lack of A/C was beginning to be felt.  We just kept driving.  Thankfully, we found a pretty waterfall, Bridal Veil, another few miles down the road.  We saw a waterfall and ate lunch.  The world was good again.

We also made a slight detour and hit the Tillamook Cheese factory.   The big visitor's center was under construction and closed to the public but a temporary one was erected.  Free cheese samples and overpriced ice cream bars were not worth it to me.  Michael wanted to hit the Cape Meares Lighthouse and the Octopus Tree he visited when he was last at the Oregon Coast 25 years ago, but was vetoed.

We finally made it to our campsite at South Beach State Park (just outside Newport) around dinner time.  The kids were dying to go to the beach and to eat.  We have never set up camp so fast in our lives.  Within 45 minutes the tents, cots, sleeping bags and camp stove were set up and I was done making dinner!  Everyone quickly ate and then we got down to what we really came for.

The ocean!

It was cold and wet.  We were all worn out.  I expected it to be miserable.  I was wrong.  We stayed at the beach for at least a couple hours before settling everyone in bed for the night.  Everyone slept very, very soundly.