The Scenic Route

ROAD WARRIORS: On Saturday, we piled into the Honda, heading for Siletz, Ore. (about 20 minutes inland from Newport). On previous trips, we've taken I-5 all the way south to Albany/Corvallis and then headed west towards the coast. This go-round, we cut over to the coast at Olympia for a change of pace.

The scenery was different, which we appreciated. We drove through rain forests and crossed over many a river we'd never seen before. We caught glimpses of the ocean and saw a number of spots where Lewis & Clark and the Corps of Discovery had camped out generations ago. (CJ, especially, loved Dismal Nitch. For whatever reason, that name just delights him.)

We stopped in Astoria briefly. There, next to the maritime museum, we checked out a really big anchor and saw a Coast Guard ship, Columbia. It was so windy and c-c-cold when we stopped, the river had huge white caps and big waves breaking on the shore. Here's a photo of CeeJ and Bee freezing while not smoking on the dock.

Though it wasn't planned, we stopped at Gearhart, Ore., when we spied a McMenamin's (Sand Trap) sign along the highway. Lovely place- great food and they even had Purple Haze on tap. Mmmm.

We stopped again in Seaside, so the kids could get some arcade action in. Funland was hopping for a winter afternoon - I can only imagine what the place is like when it's the height of tourist season.

The drive from Seaside to Siletz seemed to take f-o-r-e-v-e-r. We did finally reach our destination around 5:30 p.m., I believe. We'd left home about 9:15 a.m. Long, long drive. We had a nice dinner and the kids enjoyed playing with their cousins. Oh, and they got to open some great Christmas presents, so they were very happy campers.

WHITE BLANKET: Imagine the kids' delight when they woke up to a snow covered landscape. Time for some sledding!

 

Good times!

WATER WORKS: Come Sunday, we went to the Rogue Brewery for lunch. There, CJ sampled his first Mountain Dew (actually, his first soda of any kind). He raved on and on about how much he loved it - how he wanted "boatloads of it." As it turned out, he only had about four sips, but he wanted desperately to like it since it's the unofficial drink of gamers everywhere.

 After lunch we went over to the Oregon Coast Aquarium which was wonderful.

I loved the nettles jellyfish.

 

These strawberry anemones were gorgeous!

It was cool being able to have sharks circling with no danger of becoming shark bait!