{"id":3868,"date":"2023-06-04T17:34:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-04T17:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themuellerfamily.org\/htr\/?p=3868"},"modified":"2023-06-05T17:35:20","modified_gmt":"2023-06-05T17:35:20","slug":"week-28-exploring-oregon-and-washington-with-our-daughter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themuellerfamily.org\/htr\/2023\/06\/04\/week-28-exploring-oregon-and-washington-with-our-daughter\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 28 Exploring Oregon and Washington with our daughter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

June 4, 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were excited to spend a week of adventures with our youngest daughter who flew in from Houston. We let her choose some of the places she wanted to see and tailored our trip this week around those choices and we had a great time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5\/29- Left Portland, Oregon and headed toward the coast where we plan to spend most of the week. We had booked a stay with a Harvest Host at Blue Heron Cheese Factory in Tillamook, Oregon. This Harvest Host was very different than ones we have stayed at before. They had a huge field with numbered markers and you could choose which spot you took. Instead of room for just one or two RV\u2019s to visit their field could have held about 25 rigs. There were about 10 there while we were there. Once we got our spot picked and our RV set up we headed into the Blue Heron to check out their gift shop and have lunch. They had all sorts of cheese and we all decided we wanted one of their grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. They had gluten free bread so that meant I could have a sandwich too. You could add extras to your sandwiches so Hana and I both added bacon and Frank added bacon and tomatoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 Then it was time to do some exploring. We headed off to Cape Meares but hadn\u2019t gotten very far down the road before we found out part of the loop was closed due to a slide so we backtracked and headed there from the opposite side of the loop. Cape Meares lighthouse went into service in 1890. Due to volcanic flow the coast of Oregon has rocks cropping up along it\u2019s coast and Cape Meares was one of several lighthouse built in the late 1800\u2019s to protect ships from the danger there. https:\/\/friendsofcapemeareslighthouse.com\/history<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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While hiking around the lighthouse we saw a sign for a trail leading to the Octopus Tree so we wanted to see what it was. We hiked up a hill and found a large spruce tree with multiple trunks coming out of it. No one knows why the tree is shaped the way it is believed it might have been created by the Indians or it may just be a natural conditions such as extreme weather.  It has multiple names such as Council Tree, Monstrosity Tree and Candelabra Tree.   https:\/\/www.atlasobscura.com\/places\/octopus-tree-of-oregon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As we were heading back to our campsite we came across a bench labeled Happy Camp Lookout so we had to stop and enjoy the view and our daughter snapped a picture of us there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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5\/30- While Frank was working this morning Hana and I headed off to Cape Lookout Park. We hiked along the beach and explored. It was a cool, partially foggy morning but we had a wonderful time there. https:\/\/stateparks.oregon.gov\/index.cfm?do=park.profile&parkId=193<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Then it was back to Tillamook to visit the Tillamook Cheese Factory. We had tried to go yesterday but with Memorial Holiday the place was packed. Hana and I went over and made reservation for a tour and then went back to the RV to pick up Frank. There is a self-guided tour of the factory that anyone can take and is free, but we choose to book a guided tour with a tasting of special cheeses at the end. It was only $15 each and was well worth it. https:\/\/www.tillamook.com\/visit-us\/creamery<\/a> Our guide took us around the observation deck of the factory and explained each station and how the cheese came from milk delivery to cheese packaged and ready to go out the door. Then it was time for our cheese tasting where we got to try cheeses that had been aged for multiple years. Since none of us had tried aged cheese we were excited and thrilled to taste it. The flavors really varied by the year it was made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We also enjoyed dinner there and visited the gift shop before heading back to The Blue Heron to pack up and move to the Astoria-Warrenton-Seaside KOA and hour and a half up the road. Often when we are gone from our RV I worry what would happen if we are in an accident and do not return right away since we have our furbaby with us. I found a sticker to put on the window to let everyone know Teddi is inside. We have the RV set up with the generator to go on if the temperature outside reach over 70 degrees and the air conditioner will keep him comfortable. He also has food and water every time we leave but he lets us know how displeased he is with us every going out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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5\/31- Somehow I lost my glasses, I think that they might have fallen into the garbage and which had been taken out and picked up. For now I have my sunglasses I can wear but we will have to see if we can find a place to get some new glasses made as we travel. It was a busy day for us with lots of stops and lots to see. We started off the morning by driving up to the Astoria Column which was dedicated by the railroad in 1926. It was built to rival the Eiffel Tower and is 125 feet tall with a 164 step spiral staircase that leads to the top which allows amazing view of the area. The paintings on the outside of the Column show significant times in history.  https:\/\/www.nps.gov\/places\/astoria-column.htm<\/a> I was not able to climb up but Hana and Frank scaled the Column and enjoyed the views of the area while I explored the grounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Before leaving town we tried to track down some of the sites used in the movie Goonies for our oldest boys who were big fans of the movie growing-up. We were never able to find the Goonies\u2019 house but it was not from a lack of trying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One of the views Frank and Hana saw from the Column was the Astoria\u2013Megler Bridge that crosses from Oregon into Washington. Then we were off over the Austoria-Megler Bridge which stretches 4.1 miles across the Columbia River. The bridge’s main span is 1,232 feet in length and is the longest “continuous truss” in the nation. https:\/\/www.travelastoria.com\/trip-ideas\/the-astoria-bridge.html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Once we got into Washington we headed to Long Beach, Washington where we wanted to visit and drive on the \u201cWorld\u2019s Longest Drivable Beach\u201d. Although they claim to be the longest there are longer beaches in the world but this is the area where Lewis and Clark ended their adventure to explore the nation. https:\/\/explorewashingtonstate.com\/longest-drivable-beach\/<\/a> We were excited to drive the entire 28 miles in our Jeep but found that certain parts of the beach were blocked off on each end so were only able to drive about 20 miles on the beach. Speed limit was 25 miles an hour and often we had to go slower than that so it took us almost an hour to drive the beach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As we started to head back to our RV we saw signs for Cape Disappointment and North Head Lighthouse which were only a few miles from each other and decided to make a stop there to visit them. Cape Disappointment has a lighthouse but it also has the remains of military outposts from the Civil War and World War II which were interesting to explore. https:\/\/www.nps.gov\/places\/cape-disappointment-wa.htm<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Then we drove a short distance down the road to North Head Lighthouse which was quite different. It has all it original building which have been maintained and they even allow visitors to stay in the Lighthouse Keeper and Assistant Keeper\u2019s homes overnight. There is a story of a keeper\u2019s wife who died on its cliffs who supposedly took her own life.  https:\/\/www.lighthousefriends.com\/light.asp?ID=116<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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6\/1- Today was a long drive up Highway 101. It was supposed to take us about 4 \u00bd hours but due to the condition of the road it was a much slower drive of 6 hours. We arrived in La Push, Washington just outside of Forks which was made famous by the Twilight series of books and movies. At one time both my daughter and I were big fans and so it was fun to go to an area that we had read about. Our campground was on the Quileute Reservation near the shores of First Beach. Once we got our RV set up we enjoyed walking down to the beach to explore and see the giant redwoods which had washed up on the beach as driftwood. https:\/\/quileuteoceanside.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The View from our campsite<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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6\/2- We headed out to visit some beaches this morning. The first was Kalaloch Campground where the Tree of Life grows from the rocks. https:\/\/www.thekalalochlodge.com\/explore\/olympic-national-park\/tree-of-life<\/a> Although it appears that all the roots of the tree hang from a cliff and there is no way the tree can survive it continues to flourish. Many people believe the tree has some magical power and strive to touch the roots to ensure a long life. We all added our “rock eggs” to a Petrified tree on the beach<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Then is was off to drive up a short dirt road to see what was proclaimed the biggest cedar tree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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After that we went a short distance down the road to Ruby Beach. https:\/\/www.wta.org\/go-hiking\/hikes\/ruby-beach<\/a> We arrived at low tide and were able to explore where the river enters the ocean, the unique rock sculptures and the driftwood. We decided one of the rock sculptures looked like a wolf howling at the moon which only added to the enchantment of the beach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Wolf Howling<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Then it was back to Forks, Washington to get our Twilight fix. The town was visited by Stephanie Meyers when she was starting her first book and several things from the town became part of her story. The town has only a little over 3,000 people and have embraced the tourist that the series have brought to visit there. They have displays of movie props, and places to visit that represent where Bella worked, where her dad worked, houses of characters and more. As we returned to La Push we even saw the treaty line where no vampires are allowed to cross. Although Frank is not a Twilight fan he did enjoy looking at the motorcycles that were used in the movie. https:\/\/forkswa.com\/twilight\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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6\/3- Today was spent in part of the Olympic National Park. The last couple days we have passed through different parts of the Park. The Olympic National Park is almost a million acres and contains many areas that are a rain forests. We stayed at Quinault Rain Forest which gets around 12 feet, not inches, but FEET, of rain per year. https:\/\/citybop.com\/wa\/quinault-rainforest<\/a>  Because of the amount of rain they receive it is home to many giant trees. Right next to our campsite was the World\u2019s Largest Spruce Tree which was 58 feet in circumference and 191 feet tall and believed to be about 1000 years old. The lake by our campground is a tribal lake and protect from harmful species. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We visited a local museum on the natives who lived in the area and meet a woman there that ran the museum. She was 80 years old and had stories to tell and was fun to visit with. The had a unique violin crafted by one of the locals there. I had worked for years at a music school so it was interesting to see something I had never seen before. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Then drove up the road to Merriman Falls, a hidden treasure even Google had a hard time finding it but once we found it we enjoyed the beauty there. That evening we enjoyed a wonderful dinner at the nearby Salmon House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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6\/4- We had a long drive to make to Portland, Oregon today so we would be able to take Hana to the airport bright and early tomorrow morning for her trip back to Houston. It was fun having her here this week and being able to share the joy we feel in exploring new places and seeing new things. Before she left we had to go get our nails done together as it is one of the things we enjoy doing when I am in Houston. Then we took a short drive to Tomahawk Island where we visited the marina and checked out The Mermaid gift shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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After an evening of playing some games and watching a movie it is off to bed as we have to get up at 4:45 a.m. to get Hana to the airport.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

June 4, 2023 We were excited to spend a week of adventures with our youngest daughter who flew in from Houston. We let her choose some of the places she wanted to see and tailored our trip this week around those choices and we had a great time. 5\/29- Left Portland, Oregon and headed toward…Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/themuellerfamily.org\/htr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/themuellerfamily.org\/htr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/themuellerfamily.org\/htr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themuellerfamily.org\/htr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themuellerfamily.org\/htr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3868"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/themuellerfamily.org\/htr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4015,"href":"https:\/\/themuellerfamily.org\/htr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3868\/revisions\/4015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/themuellerfamily.org\/htr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themuellerfamily.org\/htr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themuellerfamily.org\/htr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}