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.