Thursday, July 14, 2016

Crabbing, Sacagawea, and the Truffle Shuffle

It was a picture perfect morning. The front porch of our cabin overlooks a river lined with trees and lush greenery. I’m glad we stayed in a cabin instead of a tent last night, because we had a full day planned and wanted to get on the road in a timely manner. Of course when we realized there was Wi-Fi at the lodge on our way out, we stopped in our tracks, sat on the porch, and hovered over our devices catching up on texts and emails. Meanwhile the kids wrote postcards to their friends.

After driving along the pristine Oregon coastline we stopped at the Tillamook cheese factory for some ice cream. I love that there are so many random but fun things to do and see that keep popping up along our route. It just happened to be on the side of the road, so we pulled in. After a little more driving we reached Kelley’s Brighton Marina for some crabbing. We were obviously novices, but it was so fun! We liked it much better than fishing (one, because we actually caught things - and two, we could chat it up as loud as we wanted with each other and with our fellow crabbers on the pier without having to worry about scaring the catch away). Afterward the kids and I played a game of giant Jenga while we were waiting for our food. Turns out the food never came, even after placing the order twice! So we bailed. We had too much to do to sit around waiting for crabs to cook. 

Further still up the coastline we stopped at Cannon beach, where infamous scenes from Goonies were filmed. It was there that Clara FINALLY found sand dollars! That was the number one thing on her bucket list for this trip, and although we’ve been up and down the entire coast we haven’t seen a single one until today. It’s a good thing too, because tomorrow we start heading inland and the chance of finding sand dollars is nada. We also spotted jellyfish, which we haven’t seen on this trip either. After beachcombing Cannon’s picture perfect shores we ducked into Mo’s for my favorite meal of the trip so far. Their chowder actually lived up to the hype.

Up the coast we drove again, through the charming town of Seaside, followed by a visit to Fort Clatsop and a history lesson on Lewis and Clark. I learned the Pacific Northwestern pronunciation of Sacagawea, which was quite different than I’d heard before. I had to ask the costumed ranger wearing a coon-skin cap to say it a few times before I realized who she was talking about! Around here it’s SacAAAgaweya (mutter the last couple syllables fast and under your breath like they don’t really exist), not SacagawEEya.

Next stop was the town of Astoria, right on the border of Oregon and Washington. We couldn’t resist driving past the Goonies houses (Mikey’s and Data’s), inconspicuously taking a quick photo from afar, as the owner who lives in the house does not like tourists. Turns out the house is actually for sale. I’m not surprised.

Finally we made our way over the bridge into Washington, where we’re camping tonight. Unlike two nights ago, this campground is practically vacant. The showers and toilets work, and the views are absolutely stunning. I can’t believe such beautiful places really exist!


The last thing we did before bed was snuggle up in our tent and watch Goonies with the kids before they fell asleep. It was a perfect ending to a perfect day.