2013 – Winthrop, WA

May 4-6, 2013

When I was little my grandparents built a house in Winthrop, WA. I remember spending my summers there with my family and having the time of my life. I used to run through the alfalfa fields and catch gophers hiding in holes. Winthrop holds a special place in my heart and always will.wildwoodchapel

 

 

Photo above: I used to visit this little chapel on the way to Winthrop as a kid. I have many fond memories of this place.

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Photo above: Lucy swimming in the lake.

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Photo above: Here’s the store where we used to shop for groceries.

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Photo above: Sign in town

2013 – Mount St. Helens, WA

Friday, July 5, 2013

 

Mount St. Helen’s hiking.

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Woke up Friday morning with and itch to go for a drive. Destination… Anywhere.

Alex and I wound up dragging my sister and her family along with us for the day on this adventure.

We found ourselves heading towards the Ape Caves at Mount St. Helen’s. These caves are lava tubes that are walkable with the correct equipment. Sweatshirt, good shoes and a lantern or flashlight.

Sophie was a little hesitant at first because of the darkness and rugged terrain. But she came around and ended up having a great time. Sean was having a blast jumping out of the dark and scaring everyone as they passed him. Even the grown ups got in on the fun of scaring each other.

After the Ape Caves the Wilson’s had to head home.

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Alex and I went on looking for a suspension bridge that a worker told us about. We eventually found it and got some neat photos.

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2013 – Oregon Coast

Saturday, July 6, 2013OR1

 

 

Sea Lion Caves

Today I got to see the Sea Lion Caves, I’ve been wanting to visit this place for a few years now.
Now I can scratch another thing off of my bucket list.

The elevator ride was the smoothest I’ve ever been in before. I could barely tell we were moving. It descends quite a ways into the rock so it was hard to believe it could feel motionless.

At the bottom you can see directly into the cave. The largest sea cave in the world. It was pretty impressive. The sea lions were all over the rocks. The waves came barreling in and splashed up onto them on the rocks. This went on for a while and was very entertaining to watch.

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Outside there is a viewpoint that you can look down onto the sea lions from above. There were hundreds of them sunning themselves on the rocks. Even from high up you can hear them talking to each other. A few were in the water swimming but most were lounging around.

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Today we also came a cross a cute town called Yachats, OR. We stopped for lunch and then sat on the beach for a while.

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Of course I couldn’t resist drawing “Go Sounders!” in the sand.

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Funniest photo of the trip, below…

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Sunday, July 7, 2013

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Today we visited the Tillamook Cheese Factory in Tillamook, OR.
We saw how cheese is made and got to taste some samples.

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We ended our tour with 5 scoops of different flavored ice creams. My favorite was the chocolate and Peanut Butter.

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Total miles round trip from Seattle, WA to Florence, OR…. 690, though I think we ended up driving 700 +.

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2018 – Portland, OR

May 26-28, 2018

We headed out of town for Memorial Day weekend to explore the Rose City.

We love Portland for the extensive beer culture there. Everywhere you turn there’s a brewery, bar, ale house whatever you want to call it, there’s one on every corner.

We stop in to breweries and grab a quick flight then move onto the next.

In between beer tasting we like to discover new places. This time we visited the Rose gardens.

Many of the Roses hadn’t bloomed yet but we were able to grab a few photos of the ones that were out.

We visited the Chinese gardens as well which was another new experience for us.

We found a new brewery and pizza place we liked. Old Town Brewery. This place is supposedly haunted by a girl who fell down an elevator shaft.

On the way home from Portland we stopped at Multnomah Falls, neither of us had seen it before. It was very pretty. The trails were closed because of the wildfires last year but it’s a quick walk to the falls.

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Multnomah Falls, OR