Oregon--Lava Caves--Home!

 After Washington we began our drive south towards home, with a week stop in Oregon. On our way to the Oregon Coast we stopped at the International Rose Test Gardens in Portland on a beautiful, sunny afternoon. The girls had fun smelling the different varieties of roses and taking pictures. 

That evening we arrived at the worldmark in Gleneden, Oregon. Our condo had beautiful views of the ocean and it was fun to watch the waves roll in. We knew the Oregon coast would be chilly, but it was much colder than we were expecting! We ventured out for a walk on the beach one morning but didn't last long! It was so cold! We spent time in the hot tub at the pool, found a cool used bookstore and had fun shopping there, went to the movies and played games in our condo.

One of our days on the coast we visited Yaquina Head lighthouse and tide pools. It was windy and freezing, but we had fun exploring the tide pools, finding starfish and sea anemones and trying to walk up hill in piles of black sea rocks. We visited the museum and tried on colonial clothing worn by the settlers. We picked up clam chowder for lunch and had a picnic at devil's punchbowl beach and enjoyed some warm sunshine! The beach there is protected from the wind by cliffs, so it was a pleasant afternoon to run around and get our feet wet.

Kate and Gwen got to blow their own glass balls. They had fun learning about the process of blowing glass, choosing colors, watching the fire heat and shape the glass. And now their beautiful creations hang in their bedrooms! And we spent a morning at the Oregon Coast Aquarium.

After the coast we made our way inland and south towards Crater Lake. We drove along the gorgeous highway 138 through the Umpqua National Forest. We drove through trees and next to rivers. It was a very scenic drive. We stopped along the way at a drive through safari park where we saw zebras, giraffes, elephants and Kate was tormented by her fear of large birds. 

We found snow at Crater Lake and enjoyed a short hike to some pretty lookout spots. It's a beautiful blue lake that has visibility of 130 ft because there are no rivers or streams feeding into it. 

We spent a few nights in Klamath Falls a took a day trip to Lava Beds National Monument.  It was a cool and freaky experience to hike in the pitch black caves formed by volcanic lava. The temps dropped to freezing in the caves while outside it was blazing hot. Some of the caves required climbing down a ladder to enter and then crouching down to fit through the passages. It felt a bit claustrophobic to me but it was a unique experience. Gwen and Paul got lost in the crazy 8 formation at the end of one of the caves. Thankfully Kate, Clara and I bailed early and weren't there for that! 

And finally, home. After 4500 driving 4500 miles there is no place like home! We had an amazing trip, no major injuries or illnesses, the car worked properly, the girls were great travelers and we were blessed to be able to have these experiences together. 

San Juan and Victoria Islands

After Idaho we drove west through the beautiful state of Washington to meet up with our friends, the Nelsons. Have I already said that meeting up with friends and family along the way was one of the best things about our trip!? We loved spending time with each of them and helped the kids to have others to interact and play with and made our long drives more enjoyable when we were looking forward to seeing familiar faces at the destination. 

We met up with the Nelson's at the ferry terminal and our Chocolate Chica rode a ferry for the first time! We crossed the Rosario Straight and had views of several other smaller islands on our way to Friday Harbor. The kids had fun playing telestrations on the ferry. Once we arrived we grabbed mexican food for dinner and made our way to the beach with tons of driftwood and black charcoal sand for a picnic dinner.

After dinner we drove to Maria's parents property on the Island where they graciously hosted us. It was so beautiful and our poshest camping experience yet! They have set up a guests paradise on their property with a hot tub, slack line, fire pit, beautiful gardens, archery and shooting range, all surrounded by forest.

We spent a morning shooting archery and guns. My first time shooting a real gun and the kids, too! Maria's dad is in the military and gave us good instruction and safety lessons. We went out for a hike and explored the harbor. 

That evening we took another ferry and crossed over to Victoria Island, Canada! We had fun walking around the wharf and seeing the small floating houses and touring the parliament building. We spent the afternoon at Butchart Gardens. This has been on my bucket list for a while. It was soo beautiful! The kids filled out little explorer guides and loved seeing all of the flowers, statues and different styles of gardens. They were not impressed with the sticker prize at the end. We found arches of roses, stepping stones in the Japanese Gardens and secret passageways all around. It was spectacular.

Brownies, Ice Cream and S'mores by the fire for Clara's birthday!

Our final day back on San Juan Island we took the older girls out on a zodiac boat for a whale watching trip. They suited us up in heavy rain gear and we all looked like sumo wrestlers. It seemed like maybe overkill with all the gear until we got out onto the water and the boat was going 60 miles per hour in the rain out to drive out to find the whales. After about an hour drive being possibly the coldest we've even been, we were rewarded with a pod of orcas! We saw moms and babies swimming together, blowing water and jumping. It was amazing! And freezing! But quite the adventure and I'm glad we did it. Clara stayed with Maria, Hazel and Crew and got to visit the lavender fields and playground. We had a great time with the Nelsons in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.

Glacier and Coeur D'Alene

For our next stop on the trip we made our way up through Montana to Glacier National Park and met up with Mimi and Papa! We spent the first two nights camping in East Glacier. We enjoyed skipping rocks after our hike to the waterfall and playing games, exploring and eating s'mores at our campground. 

Our second day in Glacier we hiked to St. Mary's Falls and then up to Victoria Falls. I think roundtrip it was about 6 miles of hiking. It was definitely our most difficult hike of the trip (sorry Mimi and Papa!) and the kids did an awesome job! We hiked through a burnt forest and then made our way to crystal clear turquoise streams and waterfalls all along the way. And the top we were rewarded with the Victoria waterfall towering 60 feet above us and splashing us in the face. The last mile of the hike was uphill in the heat back to the car and by the end we were so tired we could hardly wait to swim in the freezing cold glacial St. Mary's lake and eat an ice cream cone! 

That evening we drove to Many Glacier Lodge for a boat ride and dinner. We saw Moose from the boat and enjoyed a dinner cooked by someone else! 

Our second half of the trip to Glacier was spent in Apgar Village on Lake McDonald. To get there we spent a couple of hours driving the "Going to the sun road" on which it feels like you are going to the sun! It's only open a couple of months during the year because it's so high and snowy and it's a white knuckle driving experience with sharp turns and no guard rails. The view is worth it as you see waterfalls right next to you flowing on the road, amazing vistas and then we saw deer playing the river. Paul and Dad did a great job driving and got us to the other side of the park safely!

We stayed in a rustic cabin on Lake McDonald and had fun swimming in the lake, skipping rocks, hiking to more waterfalls and exploring the woods. Montana is beautiful!

We stopped on our way to Idaho at a Krispy Kreme shop where the girls got to make their own donuts and enjoy delicious treats! A highlight for them!

We stayed in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho and it exceeded our expectations! We rented a boat and was surprised at how warm the water was given that it's a mountain lake. We had fun looking at the beautiful homes surrounding the lake and the girls loved tubing. 

Mimi and Papa treated us to a couple of nights at the nice Coeur D'Alene resort and we felt so spoiled after having been camping! We enjoyed sleeping in, views of the lake, a fancy date night at a nice restaurant, shopping at the fun candy store and toy stores nearby and meeting new friends at the infinity pool.

And most importantly we celebrated our favorite 4 year old's birthday! She loved her princess cake, new books, clothes and toys. A few things about Clara at age 4. She is "joy"! We often say that she is like the character "Joy" from the movie Inside Out. She is usually happy and has a smile on her face. She adores her sisters and loves to play shopkins, barbies or legos with Gwen. She likes reading stories, especially "Fancy Nancy" and watching "Daniel Tiger" on tv. She says she doesn't like movies because they are usually "too scary". She still loves her purple "B" or blanket. She's a good eater and her favorite things to eat are pasta with red sauce, macaroni and cheese and applesauce. We love our Clare-Bear.

Yellowstone

I love reliving our trip through these photos. Yellowstone was such a magical, weird and beautiful place. It looked like mars, then heaven, then smelly, so many things! We had fun checking out the thermal pools and all the cool thermal features like hot springs, fumaroles and geysers.We couldn't believe the dragon's mouth was real. It was so smelly and weird. It felt like Disneyland, yet it wasn't made up--it was real! The colors of the landscape were unreal and it was definitely a highlight of the trip.

We spent 2 nights at the historic Old Faithful Inn. It was built over 100 years ago. We opted to stay in the original part of the hotel and it was comical how small our room was! They crammed 2 queen beds and a sink in it, and we walked down the hall to use the bathroom. Check out the photo of Clara in the claw foot tub in the "bath room". It was pretty cool! They had original writing desks throughout the lobby and a live piano player. We could see the geyser erupting from our room and imagined earlier generations staying their as they visited the park. It was an experience! 

After two nights at Old Faithful Inn we traveled to our first camping spot--Canyon Campground. The minute we got out of the car the kids took off building a "fort" with rocks and playing about. It was fun to see how much they love to camp and be in nature. We unloaded the car and finally had a chance to use all of our camping gear. Paul spent a lot of time researching tents and bought a nice, new, large tent for our family to use. We had already given it a practice run in Joshua Tree and it was a great tent. We began unpacking the poles, tarp, sleeping bags and rain fly... and couldn't find the actual tent. After searching frantically and scratching our heads, we concluded that the green tent bag was still in our garage in Fountain Valley. Needless to say, Paul was upset. I kept my mouth shut and tried to remind myself that it would be fine. No one was hurt. Maybe we could sleep in the car or all cram in Grant and Kelsey's tent. We said a little prayer and decided to see what they had for sale at the camp store. Just our luck, in Canyon Village at our campground there was a camp store with two four person tents left in stock! The saleslady took pity on Paul when she asked if he was a AAA member for a discount he said "how about the 'you forgot your tent'" discount. She gave him 10% off and $400 later we were the proud owners of 2 small tents that served us for the rest of our trip. The girls were happy to have their own "kid tent" and all things considered it actually worked out just fine for the rest of our trip.

Grant's hammock was a huge hit with the kids. Miraculously no limbs were broken after swinging in it. Grant and Kelsey's family were so fun to camp with. Hugh and Will had fun with the girls. We ate a lot of s'mores, sat around the blue colored fire, got rained on a couple of times and got really dirty. It was a successful two nights of camping and we all said we could have stayed at that campground longer.

Our hike to Yellowstone falls and the grand canyon of Yellowstone.

We spent a day driving through Lamar Valley and hiked to trout lake. We took Mumsi's fishing nets and the kids had a blast catching toads. They were so gross but the kids loved it and it was a picturesque spot for a picnic. The saw lots of bison and some even blocked the road and came really close the the car. Thankfully they just gave us the evil eye and kept on walking. Yellowstone is a beautiful place and I'm so happy we finally were able to see part of it!