The Johns Family Road Trip of '08

Since this last weekend was so hot, Aaron and I decided to get a hotel room at the beach and take the kids away! We haven't had any vacations this year and don't have any planned, so this was considered our vacation of the year. A little pathetic considering that we could only find a cheap little hotel in Pacific City, OR to stay in! Hey, I'm not complaining though, we had fun. The ironic thing is, there was an airport.....or more a landing strip right behind our hotel. So I spent the entire night thinking, "Now that one is going down for sure, it sounds like a vacuum cleaner". Anyways, our journey started off on Hwy 6. We past the landmark of "Papaw & Nana's house" and felt like we were on our way when I hear the little voice of my daughter say, "Have to poop Mommy". Great! So I call my Dad to make sure they were home and let Chloe do her thing and we are back on the road! Woohoo! I took the above picture just outside of Tillamook on Hwy 101, yes this is a highway. You can only see this in Tillamook. There were about 200 cows, we had to wait for about 10 minutes while they stopped and looked at us and then slowly meandered their way to the other side.
Aaron then wanted to show me where his Grandpa's land was on the beach, so we took a 5 minute detour. Now when I say 5 minutes, that is more like 30 minutes to the rest of us. Aaron was just a little off! We finally made it to our hotel after 2 1/2 hours in the car. Good Old Pacific City! We unloaded our car in the 65 degree weather and headed to the beach. It was windy! We sat there and froze for about 5 minutes and let the kids run and around and then went back to the car and drove 20 minutes to Lincoln City for dinner at Mo's.

My son's favorite dinner is clam chowder, or anything seafood. So he was very excited to get his cup of clam chowder and so was I. Mainly I was excited to get out of the car, because I was about to pull my hair out from all the arguing.

The beach outside of Mo's was not windy at all and there were 5 seals swimming in the water. The kids got a kick out of it. After we were worn out we headed back to our hotel and took showers and went to bed.

The next morning we headed out around 11 and headed up Hwy 101. We didn't want to go home until late, so Aaron had scoped out several
spots we could stop at along the beach. Our first stop was a lookout thing, that turned out to be a view of some houses and bushes. Really, we could make out the ocean if we looked really hard. We continued up Hwy 101 where we kept running through little towns that made me say, "Oh, this is where Happy Valley is" or "This is where Nestucca is".

Our next stop on the Johns family road trip of '08 was Munson Creek Falls. Its just a mile walk up a path and you are supposed to see this amazing waterfall. We hiked up the trail, only to have it caution taped off because of the fallen trees. Note to Oregon State Parks.....a sign at the beginning of a rocky trail would be appreciated!!

Luckily for Aaron and his hopes of broadening our children's view of Oregon, our next stop was a guaranteed success. The Tillamook Cheese Factory! We ate lunch, checked out the cows and headed up the stairs to the viewing area to watch all the cheese be made. Oh, but wait, it was a Sunday! And who wants to work on a Sunday?? No one apparently! We just got a view of the vacant work floor and the non-moving conveyor belt. Payton was like, "Wow...can we get some ice cream now?". Of course we got ice cream and I just have to say, it is so much better from there than in the store!

With their bellies full, we loaded them up and headed to Cannon Beach. They fell asleep somewhere in between, and Aaron and I enjoyed some uninterrupted talking time! Very Nice! When the kids woke up we bought some wood and walked to the beach. It was a beautiful day. We started a fire and roasted hot dogs and marsh mellows. Payton and I walked up and down the beach and collected enough firewood to last us until 8:30pm. That's when we decided we should drive back and deal with the heat! We arrived back at our house at 10:30 and it was still 83 degrees! It was so hot! I was grateful that we were able to get away from it while we could. Its not Disneyland, but it will have to do!