OREGON

PART 1

8/20

We are doing a two part trip through OREGON.  Our first trip through will be in the Eastern part along route 84.  We left Idaho and traveled this route up to Washington state.  About half way up route 84 we stopped at a place in Baker City called The Oregon Trail Interpretive Center.  It was a really cool place that told the story of the migration of people to Oregon, and the Oregon Trail.  The wax figures were incredibly detailed.  Right down to droll and flies on the horses and oxen used to pull the wagons.  It was actually a very educational, but sad story.  Sad, because of all the deaths and stuff the pioneers went through.  It took them up to and around 5 months in travel time from Missouri  to Oregon.  At a speed of two miles a hour. Some of the pioneers belongings are still left ago the trail.  In some places the trail looks much like it did in the 1840's.  The distance between Baker City and Portland Oregon took them about four weeks to cover.  It now takes us only a few short hours.  Many of the wagon wheel ruts can still be seen even today, that's how worn the path is.

         The rest of the day we traveled along route 84 to get into Washington state.

                  We will come back to this state in a few weeks. so please look for updates.

                                                 NEW PAGE STARTED 9/5/02

9/5

Hello we are back in Oregon.  This time we will be staying for a few weeks.  Our first stop SEASIDE OREGON.  We are now in a new campground that looks to be really nice, with all the goodie's included.  INDOOR HEATED POOL, JACUZZI, SAUNA, FULL HOOK UPS, and of coarse a great PLAYGROUND. you can even get spots with satellite dishes for television if you want to pay $1.50 a day extra. The beach is only a few blocks down the street.  We got a great site also.  The Ranger told us there might not be any space on this side of the campground but I was expecting a blessing.  Just as we were about to give up, we found a nice spot.  It had a chair and a hose in the space, we thought it was occupied.  This man with a 5th wheel next to the empty spot told us someone was trying to hold it for someone.  He said, hey first come first served, it's been empty for three days take it.  So we did. It was the only spot left unoccupied on this side of the street.  We really like the couple next to us. He is a former Math teacher from Maryland, Full timers on the road enjoying life.  It's to bad that they are headed out, but hopefully we will meet up with them when we get close to Arizona.  They told us they have a lot they own out by Sedona. We really liked Sedona, so God willing we will meet again there.

9/6

This morning we all headed for the beach.  This area is really nice, and the beach is great.  While at the beach we watched this guy round up some crab.  He had a tent and a fire going, right on the beach.  He cooked the crab he caught, right there on the spot.  That was cool to see.  Later we went to the local super market to get our food for the week.  We also went to the library.  Michelle picked up some books and a few movies for the week.

There is a 3 day car show happening in town this weekend.  After dinner we all went back to the beach to see sunset.  While there I headed to take some pictures of the cars, before the sun went down.

9/7

Today we headed back into Washington.  We went to Vancouver to meet up with Michelle's cousin Diane and her husband Dave.  Their son Nick was at work, and we didn't see him until later in the evening.  For lunch we all headed for The Country Buffet.  Dave and Diane took us to our first one eight years ago, so we just had to go back.  We were going to head back to the campsite early to catch the cruise that was happening, but that didn't happen.  We were having so much fun the time flew by.  We had stopped at a farm stand to pick up some fresh vegetables, before heading back to Dave and Diane's home.  The kids had a lot of fun playing with their dogs and jumping on the trampoline.  We ended up staying there until around 11 p.m.  It was really cool hanging out with family and people we know.  We invited them to come spend the day with us, and to see our new home on wheels.  Dave works during the week so we hope they can make it.  Maybe we will even take a stroll to the beach.

9/8

Today we woke up to a damp and rainy day.  I headed out at 10 to see if I could catch some of the cars before the show ended.  To my surprise there were still over a couple hundred still parked on the streets.  People were walking and looking at them even in the rain.  I ended up taking about 185 pictures of different cars.  There was a convention center here that also had about 25 or so inside.  Some of them were considered to be the best cars in the country.  Although a lot of them were Bucket T and Roadsters, there were still a lot of really cool cars.  A couple of my favorites were there too like the'49-'50's Mercury's, the old Willy's, Impala's and the Led Sleds. There also this really cool 1939 GMC tractor trailer truck.  I'll try to put some pictures of them on the website.

When I got back to the campsite Nikole and Michelle were making homemade beef stew. Yummy!!! Michelle's cousins were on there way over also.  It takes about a hour and a half from Seaside to Vancouver.  They ended up staying with us until around 8 p.m.  We think we will meet up with them one more time during the week before we head to our next campground.  Our next stop will be in South Beach Oregon. It's probably about 100 miles or so down the coast.  The coastline of Oregon starts to become really cool further down.  It has these huge mountain parts and rocks jetting out of the water.  Eight years ago Michelle and I stopped at this roadside petting zoo, that we will be stopping back at also.  They rescue animals and raise the babies by hand, so the animals are really tame.  They have lions, tigers, and bears ohm my.  Actually they are boasting to have over 150 different species of animals, and to be one of the largest petting zoo's in the country.  Last time there I got to play with two baby bear cubs, hopefully the kids can do the same. 

9/9

Today was a really fun day.  While Michelle did school work with the kids I went and did 8 loads of laundry.  Yes eight, we've been busy.  Bigger loads because we've been wearing heavier clothes. 

This afternoon was in the low seventies, so we headed for the beach.  We had no intentions of getting wet but, well we all ended up wet.  Everyone of us also had on sweatshirts, or coats with shorts.  It was a lot warmer than what we expected, so we ventured into the water.  Guess what yap the waves caught us.  We all ended up getting soaked.  We had a blast though, and ended up spending a couple of hours there.

After supper and cleaning of the dishes, the kids played a few games.  Tonight is Monday Night Football. Yahoo. Go Patriots.  Well not much else is going on, we are just chilling' and hanging' out.  We are leaving here on Saturday morning and I have no idea what we will be doing the rest of this week.

9/10

Today was slow day for us.  Michelle taught some schooling to the kids.  Half way through Zakary needed a break, so I took him to the playground for a little while to release some of his energy.  After lunch we all went blueberry picking.  We picked over a gallon of them.  We gave some away to the older people that went along to the patch.  It was only $3.25 for a gallon, that seemed pretty cheap to us. 

After dinner we went to the library again.  The kids read all the books they had gotten when we went on Friday.  We also picked up a book for Michelle and a few movies.  We then headed towards the beach but decided to go to find the custard ice cream place we spotted on the way into Seaside.  We found it but it was closed, bummer.  So we went over this really long, very high up bridge, that crossed over back into Washington.  We don't know the name of it but it was located in Astoria.  After that little ride we headed back to the campground to watch Lassie before heading to bed for the night.

9/11

                                   Happy Birthday Sharon, Lori, Jodi, and Uncle Tom.

                                                   Today is also our 9th Anniversary.

I woke up early and headed for the store.  while there I bought a chocolate cake, some garlic bread, and a card.  Then I headed to the egg farm to pick up a dozen eggs.  I also stopped by this nice older ladies house to buy some fresh flowers.  She had a cute little arrangement in a tiny basket for $1.50,  I left her $2.00. Everything is on the honor system here, including our fresh picked blueberries from the day before.

The kids did there school work, and for recess (ha ha) we went swimming at the pool.  We also enjoyed the hot tub and sauna while there.  After that the kids finished there work and we again head to the library.

After the library we headed up the coast to a new beach.  It was very nice, with huge rocks jetting out into the water.  I believe the name of the rock where we were was called Haystack.  That is what it looked like too.  We walked around and had a great time watching the kids get wet.

After the beach we headed back to camp to eat some pasta and garlic bread.  We watched a silly movie before the kids headed to bed.  I went to update this site and when I got back Michelle and I watched Camelot - W/ Richard Harris and Vanessa Redgrave.  It was my first time seeing it. 

9/12

Today will be the last day at this site.  In the morning we will be heading down the coast to South Beach Oregon.  It's where Free Willy Was held captive, and I guess they filmed the movies there.

9/13

Today was a travel day.  We cruised down the coast to our next campsite.  It only was 120 miles away, so it didn't take long.  We will only be here for a few days before we head to California and the redwood trees.  Our next journey will be a long day of driving, our longest in a long time.  But driving down Rt.101 is well worth the trip. 

Our campsite is only 150 yards from the ocean.  It's so cool to hear the ocean sitting in our home.  It's kind of chilly though, and we are all wearing sweatshirts. We can't wait to get into Southern California and some warm weather. 

Our planned out campsites will take us to the redwood trees, Lake Tahoe, San Francisco, Sacramento, Monterey, Big Sur, Pebble Beach, Hearst Castle, Yosemite, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, Disney, Universal Studio's, San Diego, Palm Springs.

After that I think we are headed for a brand new, just opened rv resort in Nevada.  It's located in  Las Vegas.  It's has just opened and is supposed to be state of the art, with high speed internet access at every site.

We are still wait to hear from the owner of Rushmore Shadows to see where we might be heading for the winter.  At last notice it was Arizona, New Mexico, Texas or Florida.  Hopefully it will be Florida, that way we could head home for Christmas, by way of plane. 

9/14

Today Michelle did some laundry, while Nikole and Zakary did a art project. After dinner we took a drive down the coastline.  We stopped at a place called Sea Lion Caves.  It was a huge underground cave that was filled with Sea lions.  We took a elevator down 208 feet into this cave.  When we got off all you could smell was something fishy.  We walked to a viewing point and you could see the Sea lions inside this massive cave right on the ocean.  The water and huge waves flowed right in to where the Sea Lions were resting.  Some of them were enormous like 450 pounds plus.  The cave was found back in the late 1800's by some explorer.  There were a few skeletal remains of some Sea Lions he had found and they were still on display.  They also had a skeleton of a Sea lion from back in 1982 that had been fatally shot by someone.  It was a very cool and interesting place.  They boast the cave as the largest sea cave in the world.  The walls were covered in a florescent green and white color that was all natural.  The height of the cave was over 12 stories and stretched the length of a football field. It was a natural amphitheater for the Sea Lions.

After that we rode down the coast some more to a town called Florence.  It seemed like it had everything that most towns have.  We stopped at a Fred Myers to pick up some food for the next few days.  We are leaving Oregon Early Monday morning.  We have had a lot of fun here in Oregon even though we only spent a few days here.  It's to bad the weather at this time of year is so chilly.  The one thing I would of liked to see would of been Crater Lake.  Maybe next time we come through this area of the country.  So for now It's goodbye to Oregon.  AND THANK YOU TO DAVE AND DIANE, IT WAS NICE SPENDING TIME WITH SOME FAMILY.

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