Drive Home

I made dinner Wednesday night while Doug took a nap for the drive home.  Brian’s birthday is on March 20th, so I made a pan of brownies so we could enjoy a treat and remember Brian.  I found candles in the house, so as a bribe, I offered the kids that finished dinner a candle to blow out in memory of Brian.  Doug was packing the car and we were doing dishes and trying to say goodbyes.  We left Wednesday night so we could spend some time together before we went back to work.  It was hard to leave our friends, but we had a long drive ahead of us.  We left at 8:30pm and got home at 7:00am.  We took a 3 hour nap and then headed out to pick up Ruger – another 3 hour drive roundtrip.  We were SO tired!!  We stayed up since Ruger had a puppy class at 7pm.  Most of the afternoon and the puppy class is a blur.  I ended up taking a couple pictures on the way home. 

Our view the entire trip:

We were eating carrots, trail mix, beef jerky and taffy to stay awake all night – we avoided the laxative peanut butter fudge:

There were some pretty lights in the nearby cities on the way home:

We also saw dozens of elk a couple times on one of the roads.  I didn’t get a picture because they would run off the road quickly.  As we got closer to the state border, it started to snow and then it was foggy and snowing like crazy.  That was fun.  Yeah right!  We were going about 20mph on a 55mph freeway and the road was covered in rock and salt, so it sounded like we were off the road.

It’s a very good thing we left when we did because we saw a news feed that said the freeway was closed.  If we waited until the morning to leave, we would have been stuck waiting for the road to reopen.

Picked up the monster:

He slept the whole way home:

Vacation Day 3

Tuesday night was really windy and rainy.  It was difficult to sleep through it, but it didn’t help that I was up sick with a stomachache most of the night.  I skipped breakfast in the morning and tried to relax in bed.  When everyone was up and ready to go, we went to the Tillamook Air Museum.  Can you tell it was a cold, wet and windy day??

This is a big, fat airplane that you have pay an extra $3 to go inside.  Kids can get in for free, so Paul paid the $3 and took the older kids to check out the inside:

I didn't get a picture, but the back portion of the hanger was filled with RVs.  We were guessing that they use it as a storage unit too.  It was strange to walk into the hanger with jets, helicopters, airplanes and then dozens of RVs.

While we were out we stopped at the Country Smoker Smokehouse and bought some beef jerky.  The smokehouse had a huge freeway sign that said 2 FEET FOR $1!!  It was a joke through the week about buying their 2 foot long meat sticks for a dollar, cutting them in half and then send the kids through the neighborhoods reselling them for $3 as a fundraiser.  Of couse we had to stop and get some!

Tillamook

We went to the Tillamook Cheese Factory on the way back to the house.

 The blocks of cheese started out as a huge block:

 Cutting into smaller blocks:

 Wrapping:

 Tillie the cute cow:

 Ready to go:

I should have taken pictures of their ice cream!  It was delicious!!  They have an ice cream parlor inside and a large selection of flavors!  If we didn't have an 11 hour drive home, I would have bought a lot of ice cream!

I JUST heard that the Tillamook factory has a garlic white cheddar that is to die for.  SHOOT!!  That's what I get for not talking to Lisa before we went!

Beach Trip

We went to Cannon Beach, Oregon.  It was interesting to see the tsunami debris sign posted in the area. There was a lot of drift wood pushed really far up the beach:

Friends enjoying each other’s company:

Scenery:

We walked up the beach to a tunnel in the side of the cliff and it was a passageway to the next beach.  Very cool!  We ventured through it (I cheated and used the flashlight app on my phone because I didn't want to be the ding-bat that fell), but on the way through the beginning of the tunnel there were air holes, or light holes… we’re not sure what they were, but they made for neat pictures:

The other side of the beach:

I wondered off to climb one of the large rocks and check out the far side of the beach, but I couldn’t find any neat tide pools to explore.  I found a couple muscles hanging out, but that's not very exciting:

 More scenery:

 Paul thought a cave out in the ocean might be manmade, so I zoomed in to get a closer look.  The rocks were covered with sea lions! 

 Nothing like a little clear cutting to make the trees look beautiful.  Ugh: