At the beginning of September, Gary and I took a week-long trip down the coast of Oregon until we got to the Redwood National Forest. The vacation idea was a three-way decision: A) Gary wanted to see the redwoods, B) Nugget loves the beach, and C) I saw some billboards for the Oregon Coast Aquarium and said, “Oh my gosh! I have to go there and get a poster like that to hang in our bedroom!” (Gary wasn’t so keen on the poster idea, but he thought the aquarium would be okay.)
First, we hit up Tillamook Cheese Factory for some ice cream. Cuz seriously, we wanted to start things out right. Then we drove to a campground in Newport. We tried to make foil dinners which of course failed as foil dinners are wont to do. After "dinner", it was too dark for the beach (beach + moon = romantic, but beach + no moon + mist + dark clouds + wind = haunted shipwreck eerie), so we went to bed.
The next morning, we walked to the beach, which was covered with a beautiful morning mist. I achieved my lifelong dream of finding a whole sand dollar (and then found 11 more), and Gary found some smooth flat rocks with holes bored through them. Nugget tried to catch a crow, but instead biffed it hard in one of those beach streams.
We showered up (except Nugget, who was the only one who really needed it) and went to the aqaurium. It was ruddy fantastic (heck yes, there was a shark tank) , but ended in monumental disappointment. I scoured the gift shop, but couldn't find one thing with a pretty billboard picture on it, let alone a poster. Even anti-poster Gary felt sad about it. But we asked a nice lady about it and she found us some promotional stickers that made up for it. They look like this:
The next morning, we walked to the beach, which was covered with a beautiful morning mist. I achieved my lifelong dream of finding a whole sand dollar (and then found 11 more), and Gary found some smooth flat rocks with holes bored through them. Nugget tried to catch a crow, but instead biffed it hard in one of those beach streams.
We showered up (except Nugget, who was the only one who really needed it) and went to the aqaurium. It was ruddy fantastic (heck yes, there was a shark tank) , but ended in monumental disappointment. I scoured the gift shop, but couldn't find one thing with a pretty billboard picture on it, let alone a poster. Even anti-poster Gary felt sad about it. But we asked a nice lady about it and she found us some promotional stickers that made up for it. They look like this:
We then drove for a while. I fell asleep, but Gary found this beautiful beach:
We also stopped by some sand dunes and got sandblasted. This is what Nugget looked like afterwards:
We camped at Sunset Bay Campground that night. It was very nice, very pretty.
The next day, we stopped at another beach that was FREEZING COLD, but it had a lighthouse.
The next day, we stopped at another beach that was FREEZING COLD, but it had a lighthouse.
We were driving down the coast when I saw a sign for a "walk-through safari". I made Gary stop and I'm glad I did, because it was possibly my favorite thing ever. It was like a wild animal petting zoo crossed with a regular zoo.
We also stopped at some "prehistoric gardens". We didn't go in, but we got this terrific video nonetheless:
He did the same thing when he saw a wooden statue of a Sasquatch when we stopped in Paul Bunyan's neck of the woods.
The next day, we went on a hike through the redwoods and a hike through Fern Canyon, which is officially my favorite hike of all time. It's so green and lush, it looked like we photo-shopped ourselves into some of the pictures. Then, of course, we had to drive through a tree.
Needless to say, it was a fantastic vacation.