On June 21st, John and I celebrated our 4 year anniversary! We took a trip to the Oregon Coast! When people ask what we thought of the coast, our answer is this-"It was gorgeous!" Or-"Those waves were incredible!" This was the first time we left Garrett at home! He wasn't even awake for us to tell him goodbye! :( That was sad! He stayed with John's parents for a few days and then stayed with my parents for a night. I kept getting texts reassuring me that he is doing great and having a grand time playing with cousins and swimming! :)
We headed out Sunday morning (June 17th) and drove as far as Portland. The drive wasn't too terribly long and was scenery enough. We drove along the Columbia River the majority of the way, and about every 5 miles or so we saw these huge barges that carry imported goods down the river. Very cool!
About a half hour before Portland, we stopped at Multnomah Falls. Wow! And I thought Mesa Falls was beautiful! It doesn't even compare in my opinion.
This is one of many scenic views of Portland. John and I both agree that the bridges are something else! You start in Oregon on one side of the bridge and end up in Washington on the other side!
Monday, June 18th: Astoria, Fort Stevens and Seaside-Our favorites of the trip!
We woke up Monday morning and drove about an hour to Astoria. Once there, we went to the Flavel House Museum. It's an old Victorian-style mansion with 14ft. ceilings and about a dozen rooms with an amazing garden/yard area outside! Now, that's my kind of house! It was awesome! We were told that the house is in it's original condition except for a few pieces of furniture. Remember, this mansion was built in the early 1800's.
After the Flavel Museum, we drove to the Column. It's the highest building in Astoria. I'm not sure how tall it stands but you can go inside and climb 164 stairs all the way to the top, look down and about pass out realizing how high you just climbed!
The boat tour took about a half hour and then we went back inside the Maritime Museum. It was huge! So many displays of different fishing boats and marine life and the equipment they used back then to navigate. There was even a exhibit about the Coast Guard.
After the museum, we headed to Seaside/Fort Stevens. We splurged a little bit and stayed at a Bed and Breakfast with an ocean view. The lady was super nice and actually gave us a deal at half price! Nice! Once we checked into our room, we drove to Fort Stevens to a beach that had the remains of a shipwreck right on the beach!
This is the jetty! Look how close we were! It was awesome! And the mist from the ocean was freezing-as was the weather the entire week of the vacation!
Tuesday, June 19th: Seaside Aquarium and Cannon Beach
After dinner last night, we walked the teeny-tiny streets of Seaside and window shopped the downtown area. We decided that after the Aquarium, we'd actually go inside the shops and get souveniers for Garrett and babysitters! At the end of the day, the plan was to make it all the way to Coos Bay since we only had a day and a half left of our vacation!
We got free admission tickets to the Aquarium in Seaside. We got to feed the seals! They were hilarious! They would get so excited wanting a little anchovie you tossed to them!
Cannon Beach: We walked up down the beach barefoot! That was fun! We got there around "high tide " time and it lived up to the name! Those waves were huge!! And lots of em!
On our way to Coos Bay, we stopped at Depoe Bay. We walked around for about 30-45 min. This is what we saw:
They had these boat ports everywhere! We thought they were pretty cool since you don't ever see this type of thing in Idaho!
And a couple of seals playing in the water! Hey, where are the whales that I was told I would see?? Disappointing to have traveled clear to the ocean and not see one whale! :)
We arrived at Coos Bay around 9pm and checked into our hotel. We went out for dinner at "Bellinis"-an Italian restraunt, went back to the hotel, got our swimming gear on, went swimming for about half hour, then called it a night....man! we're lame-o's! Who goes on vacation to sleep? We do, apparently! :) In our defense, there was really nothing else to do in Coos Bay! Everything closed down at 6pm.
Wednesday, June 20th: Coos Bay
The next morning, we wanted to make our drive to Coos Bay worthwhile, so we drove up to Sunset Bay.
We both agreed that if we were to take this trip again, we wouldn't go out of our way to travel clear down to Coos Bay. It was fun, but not a lot to do there, so we started the road trip back home! We figured Boise was about halfway, so we stopped there on our final night of the vacation. Reality came back all too soon...
Thursday, June 21st: Boise Outlet Mall/Home
That pretty much sums it up for Thursday! We got up, checked out of the hotel, went to the outlet mall and shopped for about an hour. 4 hours later we were at my parents house, picked up Garrett, gave a quick recap of our trip, had some dinner and headed home!
The vacation was definitly needed, but it's always nice to be home in familiar elements. We missed Garrett and talked about him constantly! We were so happy to see him and vice versa! Thank you so much sitters! We really appreciate you guys taking care of Garrett while John and I were away.
John, Happy Anniversary! The past 4 years have been wonderful, albeit a bit rocky at times. We've shared a lot of happy times and made some great memories thus far. You make life exciting and I love how you enjoy every minute of every day. I love how you never raise your voice at me or with Garrett at the times when we are being most difficult. Patience-something I'm learning from you. You are a hard worker and put in a LOT of hard, long hours at work. Very much appreciated! :) So many wonderful things that are YOU!! I love you so much! Thanks for shairing the years with me! :) Here's to an eternity more!
