Tag: vacation

Day 3 (7/13) breakfast from the bin (cereal, bagels, etc.) and then some failed stops. No one wanted to walk the half-mile from the parking lot to see the Port Orford lighthouse, so we skipped it. We intended to stop at the Vines Art Glass gallery, but it was closed. We did pull over at “Something Awesome” but it gave off the vibe that someone with 5 teeth might come out and point a shotgun at you. It’s supposed to be a wood mill with sculptures. There were some sculptures visible, they didn’t seem to be in good repair.

So we continued on until we passed through Bandon and took a break at the Coquille River Lighthouse. The girls spent some time watching the waves crash over the rocks and then we walked along the beach a bit.

Lunch was further along in Coos Bay at a DQ Grill & Chill. This was when we discovered Oregon’s obsession with one-way streets. I expect to find one-way streets in cities, but Oregon seems to use them everywhere. In this case we were leaving the DQ and I made a right turn to head the direction we came from back towards 101, but on a different street than we had entered the parking lot. Neither the parking lot nor the road itself has any indication that the road is one way when entering it from the parking lot. So, I was going the wrong way. Thankfully there was no traffic for several blocks and it was immediately obvious I was on the wrong side and was able to turn around. If you’re going to use one-way streets you gotta keep them clearly labeled at all entrance points. So that was fun.

Continuing on, our next stop was the Darlingtonia State Natural Site. This is a prime home of Darlingtonia Californica, also known as Cobra Lilies, one of the few carnivorous plants. They’re pretty unique. They’re a pitcher-plant style trap in which insects get stuck in the digestive juices at the base. I managed to snap a picture of a wasp being lured into one. Following along with imitating the dinosaurs at Prehistoric Gardens, the girls gave me their best imitation of the Cobra Lilies.

7 minutes up the road from the Cobra Lilies is Sea Lion Caves (this is all just north of Florence, Oregon). They claim to be the largest sea cave in the United States and it’s home to sea lions. Take the elevator ride down to the viewing room and check them out.

Our stop for the night was Seagrass Oceanfront Inn in Newport, Oregon. We first headed for Oregon Coast Glassworks, but they were locking up early just as we pulled into the parking lot. So another glass-art facility missed. We checked into the hotel and then walked up the street to Yummy Bowl. It was delicious Chinese food with way-too-large portions. Even anticipating this and ordering only 2 entrees to share we had to leave a meal’s worth of food behind.

View from the hotel room:

Day 2 (7/12) Started with breakfast at the Blue Ox Cafe before packing up the van and crossing the street to Trees of Mystery. Benefit of sleeping across the street: it wasn’t busy / crowded yet.

Trees of Mystery is a patch of redwoods with trails, a gondola ride, a skywalk, and an obsession with Paul Bunyan. Take a picture with Paul and Babe out front; enjoy the peaceful quiet of the towering trees.

Our walkabout through the redwoods came to an end with the requisite exit through the gift shop. I decided I liked this wooden owl; he now watches over the family room from his perch on top of the bookshelf in the corner.

Now began our long drive up the coast on highway 101. We passed through a foggy section and I stopped so we could enjoy the ocean for a bit. Shortly after we said, “Goodbye” to California and crossed into Oregon.

Next stop, the Thomas Creek Bridge–the highest bridge in Oregon at 345 feet. There is a parking lot and some trails near the bridge, but there’s not really anywhere you can get a good picture, but I tried. We followed the trail down to an overlook of an isolated strip of coast as well. Turns out there is a lot of empty coastline from northern California up through Washington.

At some point along the drive we stopped for lunch at McDonald’s and we passed a myrtlewood gallery and took a look around, but didn’t buy anything.

Another ~30 miles up the coast we stopped at Prehistoric Gardens. This features life-size dinosaur sculptures along a trail through the forest. The girls enjoyed imitating the dinosaurs. To properly set the mood I played the theme from Jurassic Park on my phone when we started our walk.

Our home for the night was the Sea Crest Motel on the southern outskirts of Port Orford. Port Orford really didn’t have anything to offer in terms of dinner, so I took the girls to the provincially-named “Ray’s Food Place” grocery store and we bought some things to eat at the hotel, augmented it with the supplies from the van, and called it dinner. This included the world’s saddest “baguette.” It was soft, lightly baked, and inconsistently shaped with a consistency of sandwich bread. It would have made a French baker cry.

In the hotel the girls stayed in cozy bunk beds:

I’ve been wanting to take a trip through the Pacific Northwest for years, but it just never worked out amongst various family functions and COVID. But, this year was the year. We drove up the coast and took a ferry into Canada and then came back down I-5.

(I’m back-dating these posts to the day of the events for convenience of using the blog as a journal.)

Day 1, July 11, was packing up the car with enough supplies to trek the Oregon Trail and getting to the northern coast of California which required more than 7 hours of driving with a stop for lunch at a Wendy’s. Our destination for the night was Motel Trees across the street from Trees of Mystery. We had tried to visit Trees of Mystery back in 2017, but their power was out from a storm and they were closed.

We tried a couple of new things with the girls on this trip. First was entertainment. Although I prepared the Raspberry Pi with TV shows and movies as we’ve used on previous trips it only got used once. Instead, the focus of our driving entertainment was listening to the audiobooks of the first arc of the Wings of Fire series. Both girls had already read these books and like them. Jess and I were only familiar with whatever snippets we had read to the girls during bedtime reading. This worked out really well. Heather did some drawing while listening and Corinne mainly looked out the window. It passed the time and the car stayed calm.

The second was handling purchases. Rather than listen to the constant refrain of, “Can I get this?” at every gift shop and dealing with sulky kids whenever the answer was, “No;” we gave each of them $60 and explained that this was their money for both souvenirs and gas-station snacks along the way. They could spend it however they like, but once it was gone it was gone. This also worked out really well. They considered what things cost, how that related to how much trip was still ahead of them, and how much they liked the thing. They each ended up with souvenirs they were enamored by, snacks they enjoyed, and a little bit of money still in their pocket by the end.

But back to the trip.

Jess took some pictures along the drive of views that she liked. We stopped to watch some elk. And once we finally arrived at the motel, and after dinner at the Blue Ox Cafe, we walked down to “Hidden Beach” with hot chocolate. I got some pictures I really like on the beach. There were a lot of pelicans flying along the shore.

Our flight home was Aug 5. It didn’t leave until the early evening so we at least were able to have a leisurely day packing everything up. We popped back down to Amato’s for Heather to pick out a souvenir since she hadn’t picked gotten one yet. She had seen a “Spudster” stuffed animal in Canada, but we didn’t buy it. But, lo and behold, Amato’s had a whole line of Spudster creatures. She picked a cat and named it Potato.

After lunch we headed to Friendly’s for one last round of sundaes. After several layers of miscommunication we ended up with ~15 of us there. So it was quite the farewell party.

Somewhere along the way in Cromwell I picked up three boxes of Funny Bones to take home too.

We flew out of Bradley with a layover in Chicago. We landed in Chicago early, but then couldn’t get a gate until 25 minutes late. We had just enough time to get across the concourse, use a bathroom, and get on the next flight. So it was good that we were getting fed dinner on the plane.

Monday, Aug 4, we decided to take a trip down to Gillette Castle in Hadlyme. While I have vague memories of having been outside the castle I don’t think I had ever been inside before.

Due to traffic on the highway due to an accident and then construction we just barely missed our tour time, but then found out it doesn’t really matter. We were told the tickets were good for any tour time within an hour. So we got in on the next one.

Then Corinne was feeling ill and Jess took her back outside. And then she felt better and Jess got back in on the next tour time and caught up with us. So it was a rocky start.

Once inside things went more smoothly. Just barely a hundred years old it was built by an actor famed for playing Sherlock Holmes on stage. Although intricately constructed and detailed it’s not as large as it seems like it should be when looking at it from the outside. Wikipedia says it’s 14,000 square feet, which makes me think there were significant areas not included in the tour or maybe the design deceives the senses as to the size.

He built a narrow-gauge railroad around the property too and gave rides to visitors. Sadly the railroad was dismantled long ago.

After the tour we went to lunch at the restaurant next to the Goodspeed Opera House. They put a blue flower on my pasta dish.

That evening Megan and Chad ran another “The Price is Right” game for the grandkids (the one at the reunion was really for Grandma & Grandpa’s immediate children). They all had a blast. Heather won a surprise prize which is a ball on a string you’re supposed to attach to your head and punch. What could go wrong?

Corinne won a set of the hand paddles with a ball that have Velcro to play catch with. She and I played in the backyard for a bit, and eventually it was grandkids everywhere running around and having fun.