We left North Bend after a nice and quite unusual August rain. We took our blue Chevy Astro van and went to Pacific City, Oregon for a final family trip of the summer.
We crossed over the mighty Columbia river to Astoria, Oregon. It was moderately windy but we did see the sun.
As we were driving we saw this cute little girl sleeping in the back of a Volvo station wagon. Note her foot up on the rear window.
Then we arrived in Pacific City, Oregon, where we had a great view of the beach. We had two bedrooms, one with a king and one with bunkbeds. There were 3 couches or futons, a full kitchen, and washer/dryer as well. However, there are very few restaurants or stores in Pacific City. We expected more. There are no fast food restaurants, no supermarkets. Next time we would have brought more food with us, or stopped at Tillamook and loaded up on the way down. I ended up driving south to Lincoln City to find a Safeway to buy food. One does not just run down to the store here!
Here is the view from our balcony in the morning. With our windows open (we kept ours open all night) there was quite a roar from the waves. Down on the beach one hears one wave crashing, and then a bit of quiet until the next one. Up 150 feet the story is different: there is a roar — white noise — which is continuous. It was amazingly loud because there were usually four or five different waves breaking at any one time.
I brought my Leica 7x42 binoculars, which I used a lot.
Here is the sole vessel we saw one day. This photo was taken through my bincoulars. I watched the sailboat all afternoon as it traveled south along the coast. My guess is that it was about 8-10 miles away. One night we saw a light for a few hours. Overall there was very little activity.
After a morning at the beach Beth enjoyed reading on the deck.
Andrew was the Nintendo Gameboy Pokemon expert. He transferred Pokemon between Gameboys often. Andrew really enjoyed building a large sand castle at the beach, complete with moat.
Joshua enjoyed watching TV and going to the beach, 3 times in one day!
Rachel played with her horses and watched for seagulls.
Brigham enjoyed his Gameboy as well. What a character!
Latter in the evening after the sunset we enjoyed a snack and a crossword puzzle. Notice that Joshua is always moving!
One Herring Gull was very friendly. Rachel named him Fred. He hung around quite a bit.
The first night was cloudy, but the second night was gorgeous. What a nice sunset!
Here the sun looks more like an atomic bomb exploding, but it still is pretty.
Beth climbed down to the beach with the two younger boys and watched the sunset one night. (I had just gone down a bit earlier with the two boys myself.) Once the sun went below the horizon Beth and the boys ran for the sea. Here they are running. Our house was 150-250 feet above the beach.
On the way home we went through the town of Tillamook and went to the cheese factory. We got free cheese samples and bought great ice cream cones.
At the Tillamook factory we watched workers make 40 pound cheese blocks and then vacuum pack them.
Also in Tillamook we saw the World War II blimp hanger, just like the pair in Orange County and the one at Moffett Field in Mountain View. This one is now an aircraft museum. These three places watched for submarines with blimps in WW2 days, and later the Orange County and Moffett airbases replaced the blimps with airplanes. I grew up with Lockheed P-3 Orions flying overhead all the time.
At the museum is a "Pregnant Guppy", an oversized C-97 that can carry very large parts.
A nice biplane at the Tillamook air museum.
Another great trip!
Created: 25 Aug 2001 Modified: 22 Sep 2001