Friday to the Temple and Back to Eugene

This post is actually the 5th for our little get-away trip. 

On Friday we got up and drove to the "Pig & Pancake" for breakfast and then on to Portland.
We were able to have a chapel session with our Mission President and a Temple Presidency member and then go through a session.  It was a great way to end a wonderful trip!

Our Thursday With Laurel and Kids

We stayed in the town of Seaside which is about 7 miles from Cannon Beach where the Woolstenhulmes were staying.  We stayed in a lovely place called "The Inn at the Prom".  It is a smaller place snuggled between big condo complexes.  Our room was on the back of this building so not directly on the beach but just around the building.  The only problem with the room was that it had so many windows with only venetian blinds that we felt like we were in the "land of the midnight sun" with all of the porch lights on all of the units lit up. 

The grass butts up against a cement walkway that is 1 1/2 miles long called the Promenade (thus the Inn on the Prom).  Near the center of the walkway there is a turnaround that has a statue of Lewis and Clark.  They first saw the Pacific ocean from this point in 1805-1806. 

There was a photo in our hotel room of visitors to the Promenade long ago that I snapped a picture of.

We drove to Cannon Beach and loaded in Laurel's car to begin a wonderful day of letter boxing and sight seeing.  We headed north to Astoria and crossed the 4.1 mile Astoria -Meyler bridge going into Washington state.  It is quite the amazing sight!

Our first stop was a letter-boxing activity at an old cemetery in Loomis, Washington.  That area of the Columbia River had many, many ship wrecks and at one point a ship crashed near there and six unknown sailors were buried in that cemetery.  Laurel has located this story and letter-boxing activity on the internet.  It is so much fun to see her kids explore with her, find the hidden letter boxes, stamp their books and leave their stamps for the box owners.

Next we went down a walking trail and followed the clues to find the "curiosity killed the cat" stamp.

We went to the beach and saw a whale skeleton and models and then took a long walk on a boardwalk along the beach.

The man at the Chamber of Commerce was so irritated that people have been taking pieces of the skeleton for souvenirs.












Laurel had asked at the C of C where the best place for me to get crab was so we went to Ole Bob's.
Sadly they had no crab ready but the atmosphere right on the river was nice.

We saw one lighthouse across the way and then walked up to another lighthouse and the lovely homes where the lighthouse keepers lived.  One of them is now used as a guesthouse in the summer through the State of Washington. 

There was a letter-boxing spot up a trail near the homes and just past an old water tank for the homes.

  Laurel was reading the clues and she and Kate were looking in one area and I watched Eli digging into another tree and then call, "I found it!"  It is such a great family activity!

The stamps are all a part of the clues and stories for each letter box.  She finds them on the internet and they are rated for difficulty and quality. 

The last place we visited in Washington was Fort Columbia which was a fort from 1896 until the end of WWII.  The state also lets people rent rooms in the old hospital on the fort now for a night of history. 

There were big guns that the kids played on and then they found one last letterbox. 

Laurel took us back to their place where we said our goodbyes and thanks and went back to Seaside.
We decided to take a walk around town and we looked at a menu at Norma's and decided that we would try one more time to get crab.  We lucked out.  I got a wonderful crab appetizer and then a halibut steak so both of my seafood wishes were granted. 

Fun Evening With The Woolstenhulmes

After Russell got home we all piled into their car and went down to a place called Oswald West.  I had to quit taking pictures because my real camera was in our car and my phone battery was dying.  The trees were unbelievable, the ocean magnificent, the streams and bridge picturesque  and the company delightful!

Blurry picture but the trees were HUGE!!!

After exploring we went back to their rooms and had great chicken sandwiches and then headed off to our place in Seaside. 

Our Drive to Cannon Beach

My map with the names of all of the places that we saw along the way is out in the car.  I'm just going to take you on a photo journal of our drive. Hopefully they will be close to the order that we saw them in.

We decided that you couldn't drive through Tillamook without stopping at the Cheese Factory and having an ice cream cone so we made it our last stop before joining Laurel and the kids in Cannon Beach. 

Our Mini-Vacation

We had received permission to join Laurel and family in Cannon Beach for a few days last week but changed our plans a bit when we found the Medford Temple closed last week and our mission zone was doing a session in the Portland Temple on Friday.  We decided to drive up the coast on the way to see them rather than down on our return.

Our Chinese class was cancelled last Tuesday night so we made a quick decision and decided to drive as far as Florence, OR and spend the night there.  We stayed in a fine little motel right near the old town and the river.  It was interesting to walk into the room and the first thing you saw as a Tsunami Warning Card.  (Note that the dial on the "old" phone had buttons.)

We unloaded our things and then walked over to the old town to find a place to eat.  Unfortunately most everything was closed by that time of night but we did get a table in the old Mapleton Train Station called The Waterfront Depot.  It had very much the old depot feeling--old wood floors, etc.  As you went in the door you walked up three steps right past the cooks to the old depot waiting room.

When we got up in the morning we walked down to to street again and saw the famous Siuslaw River Bridge.   There are pilings left from the original ferry landing there.

We grabbed a donut from the office and headed out to see more of the coast.