To The Pacific

June 30 - July 3 - The longest we have stayed in one place since we left NH on June 12 is 2 nights, so 4 nights in Vancouver, WA seemed like 2 weeks (in a good way)! The girls were thrilled to spend so much 1-on-1 time with their Grandma, Grandpa & Uncle Michael. It was a packed 4 days with lots of love.

Next stop was Bend, OR where I needed to visit Cascadia Vehicle Tents (CVT) headquarters. Coincidentally, my cousin and family were vacationing 15 minutes away in Sunriver, so this made a perfect next stop.This trip has been the perfect mix of roughing it and living the good life. (Though really, as I type that, they seem to go hand-in-hand).

CVT's showroom was awesome. It was hard to not want every toy they had. The fact that we bought ours sight unseen and then to go there and see all their options was overwhelming (and reassuring that we did in fact put ours on correct). And the fact that Tom & Susan walked away with one to have adventures of their own made me so happy!

It was a perfect couple of days hanging with family. And running in to a friend from Bozeman was an added unexpected treat!

CANNONBALLLLLL!!!!

I'm not sure why I added this one, I just think it's super cool.

Running in to Erin Renna was so much fun! Brief, but fun!

The girls hanging out with half the kid clan from Susan's family. Lots of giggling.

Friday we packed up and headed south. I was unsure until the very last minute whether or not we were going to include Crater Lake in the mix, and although it was literally a drive through, I'm stoked we did! It only added an hour to the drive time (what's an hour anyway?) and I figured we might as well. It's tough to literally drive through a park knowing all the exploring that awaits in all the hidden places where few people actually get to see. Instead, I'm seeing exactly what everyone else sees. The upside, at least I'm getting to see them.  A few stops along the way for some beautiful pics, but the goal was the OR coast that night. Crater Lake provoked a lot of questions, (which Google has been a blessing) like why is the lake so blue, why is it so cold, and Mckenzie's: does hot lava or water come out of it (that was tough for Google to decipher exactly what she was asking.... welcome to my world).

It's amazing how many pictures one can take in such a limited amount of time

This might have been slightly forced

The wild flowers are abundant and so beautiful

We headed for the coast (via hwy 138) and again, the drive was beautiful. It's striking how quickly the scenery changes from high desert, to lush coast, to volcanic remains and sand dunes - this country is spectacular. Each time we see new vegetation I try to ask the girls, specifically, how does it look different from yesterday. I used to get answers like "it's sunny" or "no houses", but now they know what I'm looking for and look a bit deeper in to bigger differences like the type of trees, or no trees and what the landscape looks like. Admittedly, I'm not one of those people who see every teachable moment with bugs, the weather and the landscape, but I'm trying. I'm trying to make the most out of this whole experience.

The blazing temps of inland, high desert (no comment on me taking pics while driving.... it's all good)

The temperature at the coast.... lovely

 I knew I was looking for the Oregon Sand Dunes State Park, but it hadn't occurred to me that I didn't know where in the park I wanted to be. I was thinking it might be slightly more obvious (which it wasn't) and the park is long with plenty of different areas to check out. Knowing I was running out of time (story of my life) and I still had to think about dinner and camping for the night (again, shocking) I just pulled in to the first access spot we could find. Disappointing it was not. It was a mile walk to the actual beach and along the way there were dunes and Secret Garden-esque walkways. It was awesome. One can melt away hours on the OR coast without a care.

The 1st thing you do when you reach the softest sand

The fun mile walk to the shore

I don't know what the story was with this Love Rock, but it was very cool to find on the beach

As we drove down 101 I started to get the feeling that every campground was booked. I guess it wasn't a feeling, per se, more just the reality that every place was booked solid. I mean, it is the OR coast and it was 4th of July weekend. It was to be expected. I just wasn't sure what plan D would entail. It had occurred to me, as I drove, that things have suddenly changed in the pace of the trip. I have noticeably less push to move from destination to destination, but at the same time, have less "wiggle room" - meaning it's becoming more populated and deeper in to summer with more people out and about. As we started to run out of camping options (and I almost started to panic just a bit) a ranger at our last campground option (Sunset State Park, for the record, which is supposed to be beautiful) told me my options were to pull in to a rest stop somewhere, or I could try Bastendorf State Beach, just up the road a bit, where you can camp for 24 hours at a time. "It gets pretty loud there and can be crazy, but you can check it out." And so we did.

I'm not gonna lie, as we pulled in and started to set up I could hear several friends in  my head yelling at me "Are you kidding Tori? Get a hotel room! This is crazy!" (I'm looking at you Trish :-) A few locals were on there way out for the night so I thought I should double check with them - am I crazy for staying here? "Keep an eye on your kids and pets, there are some crazies here" - oh great! Maybe I should rethink this! "9 months ago there was a shooting - but it was super random and they were out of towners" - OK.... I'll start packing NOW! Then the boyfriend chimed in "you'll be fine, just people having a few drinks, they get rowdy but you'll be fine, they patrol here regularly" - I guess that was all I needed to be opportunistic about the situation. We would be fine. I didn't sleep. It wasn't bad. We made it to sunrise, though couldn't see it (that's what we call Oregon sunshine).

I did a great job of not getting any of the revelers in the pics

The sunset made it all worth it

In hindsight, I should have taken a picture with all the other cars parked around, this makes it look empty, which it wasn't, at all.