Vacation; Days 1-2

Since David is still considered a "young guy" after four and a half years at the railroad, he gets pretty much the worst vacation times. Usually he's lucky enough to get at least one week during the summer, but this year he had both weeks back-to-back at the beginning of this month. We thought long and hard about where to go for vacation, and Oregon won. We figured we could have the most fun for the cheapest, without being too much of a burden on friends and family. 

I took over three hundred pictures over the course of our ten-day trip (yay, digital cameras!), but many of them ended up in the Great Unknown that is the recycle bin of my computer. I still have plenty on my computer, but don't worry. I won't post them all. Just a few of the best from each day.

Day 1: Lots of Travel, and a Basketball Game.

We got up at 5 a.m. to begin our journey to Portland. I was so excited that I couldn't sleep. The kids must've felt the same way. They didn't sleep at all for the first few hours of the trip, and after that, only about an hour or so each.

This is my attempt at being artsy, as I watched the sun rise in the rear view mirror.

I loved how the sun was shining in my mirror, while the scenery in front of me was so gray.

I enjoyed a gorgeous sunrise while David took the boys in for a pit stop.

We stopped along the Columbia River just to get out of the car for a bit. We loved seeing the barges on the river, and seeing the cars driving in Washington on the other side. Simple pleasures...

I'm amazed that there are people smart enough to make things like this bridge. It lifts up, like it is in the picture, so boats can get under, then it goes back down and cars can drive across.

We actually made it to Portland in pretty good time; in time to go to the Trailblazers game with some friends. The kids loved that they could yell and cheer and, rather than getting annoyed, people thought it was cute.

Day 2: Portland, Some More Travel and Seaside

We spent the first night in Portland, then the next day we bummed around Chinatown for a while. I was sorely disappointed. I think we should have found a map before hand, because the GPS on my phone directed us to the quiet, boring part of town where we saw nothing particularly Asian-looking. Later, we learned that there is an actual entrance with a big gate and some dragon statues. There's also a garden that's supposed to be quite beautiful. But we didn't find it the day we were there. We did get a chance to walk along the river, and watch some people feed seagulls. It was still fun, and the kids had a great time.

After we saw everything we thought there was to see (boy, were we mistaken--can't wait to go back...), we headed to Seaside where we had booked a hotel room at the spur of the moment. We had heard Seaside is a great little town (and it's true!), so we figured we'd better check it out. As soon as we got there, we wished we had planned on spending more than one day there. The hotel was pretty empty, so when David called to make sure we got a room with two beds (the room in Portland only had one. Kids had to sleep on the floor),  the concierge told us that they had upgraded us to an ocean view room with a kitchenette. It was an amazing room, and an even more amazing view!

 

Below this balcony was a five-foot wide patch of grass, a five foot wide walkway, a rock wall, then the beach. And the ocean!

Our hotel, from the "back yard."

I like to take pictures of people walking from behind them. It's something I inherited from my Granddad. 

I also like it when the people turn around and walk back toward me. Especially the cute ones...

Some more pictures of the view from our balcony. I wouldn't mind living in one of those houses. Except that things seemed perpetually damp with all the rain.

After we got cold and tired from playing on the beach, we went to an arcade in town. Drew won a whale race (he was playing against Owen and Samantha, so basically Mom and Dad paid three bucks for that little penguin), and was very proud of his prize. He also loves making the peace sign in pictures suddenly; I think he got that from me. 

Day Three we traveled along the coast, spent a while at the Tillamook cheese factory, and ended up in Newport where we stayed for a couple days. More on that tomorrow!