The Redwoods

Friday, August 24 was sadly our final day in Oregon.  While we were in Medford, we went to see the Medford Temple:

Had to add another mission picture of Russell at the Medford Temple.  The Medford Temple is one of the smaller temples so they don't have a visitor center and it is only open at certain times or by appointment.  On Fridays the temple doesn't open until 3 or 4 pm so it was closed when we were there.  This temple had been dedicated a little while before Russell went on his mission so it was still pretty new when he was there. 

We had originally planned to drive halfway home this day and make it to Lake Tahoe and see the sites there but instead the Hartshorn's convinced us to go to the Redwoods since we were so close.  I am so glad we did that instead because these trees and forests were amazing!!  So we headed back toward the coast near Crescent City, CA.  This is were the Redwood National Forest is.  The park ranger said the best place to go was a place called Stout Grove.  It really was an excellent place to see so many huge Redwood trees.

These pictures do not even come close to showing you how big these trees were.  As you can see though we look like miniature people standing next to them.  The tree in the last picture was the biggest one we saw.  Colby and Emily look so tiny compared to the trunk of that tree.  This tree had a trail going around the trunk like people had just constantly walked around it looking at its grandeur!  This tree was probably bigger around than my whole dining room!

There were also some fallen redwoods so we could see just how big their root base was.  Once again we look like minis compared to these huge trees.

Below is a picture of  growth on the side of on of the trees.  We thought it looked like a monkey or something so we took a picture of it.

Here is a little comparison picture of what redwoods look like when they are smaller.  The tree in front, next to Emily, is a young Redwood.  The tree behind it is an older Redwood.  It is amazing how big they can get.

The trunks of these trees were bigger than our car!  Our car looks like a Matchbox car next to them.

After exploring the Redwood Forest for quite a while, we realized we better get moving because we had a long drive ahead of us if we were going to make it home by the next day.  As we were leaving the park, a black bear ran across the street right in front of our car!  It was so cool to see and the bear was running so fast we almost missed it.

As we left the forest, Paul Bunion and Babe the Blue Ox bid us farewell and waved goodbye to us. 

We drove and drove and drove until we reached Willow Creek, CA were we stopped for dinner.  This little town is, I guess, known for Bigfoot sitings because everything was decorated with Bigfoot paintings.  The restaurant we ate at was actually called Bigfoot Cafe!  Everyone there was really nice and they were amazed we had travelled so far and still had a long trip ahead of us.  After eating, we got the kids into pajamas and settled in for a long all night drive again.  The park ranger at the Redwoods said that Hwy 44 (the road we came up on) was closed because of the forest fires and said we would have to take I-5 clear to Sacramento and then up to Reno to get home.  We prayed this wasn't true because it would have added 2 hours onto our drive.  When we got to I-5 and Redding, CA, we stopped for gas and checked the California road conditions website on my phone.  The website said Hwy 44 was open and the only closures were north of where we would get onto the road and we were going south!  We were so glad that we were able to take that Highway home instead of detouring clear to Sacramento.  We drove all night while the kids slept until we got to somewhere outside of Reno and couldn't go anymore.  We stopped and slept in the car for a few hours until the sun woke us up at 6:30.  Then we continued our long boring drive through Nevada...  Like I said before, there is absolutely nothing in Nevada but sage brush and a few cows.  I was so glad we drove during the night on the way to Oregon because I don't think I could have handled driving through this desert twice.  This area through Nevada is where all of the military do all of their missile testing and what not.  It is also Area 51 where all of the aliens have been sited.  In fact the highway is actually called the Extraterrestrial Highway!  When we drove this road at night you could see why it was called that because it was kind of creepy and I swear we saw flashing lights in the sky as we drove!

After driving for what seemed like FOREVER, we finally made it out of Nevada and back home to sunny St. George on Saturday, August 25.  We had an amazing trip and saw so many fun things.  This trip was well worth our time, money, and effort to get it planned and worked out.  The kids had a blast and are still talking about it.  We took over 300 pictures during this week and it has been fun going back through them and deciding which ones to keep, post, and delete the duplicates.  I wish we could travel all of the time and just see everything in the world but unfortunately we have to go to work too.  Once again we had a blast!  Now to plan our next trip... hum... any suggestions?

Oregon Coast Aquarium & Lighthouses

During our second day in Newport (Aug 23), we went to the Oregon Coast Aquarium and the lighthouses.

The Aquarium was really fun.  It is one of Oregon's main attractions.  We started our tour of the Aquarium outside were we saw sea lions and seals, sea otters, and many different sea birds.  We even saw a giant octopus.  The kids loved the sea lions and we watched them swim around their tank for quite a while.

Then we went inside to the Shark Encounter tanks:

These tanks were so cool.  Basically we walked through this glass tube and we were actually inside the shark tanks and fish tanks.  We could see the sharks and fish swimming above us, to the sides of us, and even below us!  Emily and Colby liked to lay on the floor and watch the fish swim under us.  Both of them would run up to the glass and point to the fish as they swam around and yell at us to "Look at that one! That is cool!"  They loved it.

After coming out of the Shark Encounter tanks, we went into the Shark gift shop where we found this cool old scuba diver helmet and Russell and Emily had to try it on.  Then we went inside the mouth of Jaws the great white shark.  That mouth was HUGE!  No wonder they can swallow people whole!

Then we when into the different rooms of the Aquarium that had all of the tanks of creatures.  We saw jellyfish, crabs, starfish, shrimp, and a bunch of other fish and sea creatures.  There was even a little pool of creatures like starfish, urchins, sea cucumbers, and anemones that we could touch and pet.  It was so interesting to touch all of them.  Some were slimy, others rough, and most of them were squishy.  Emily loved touching the starfish

Also in the Aquarium there was a little play area for the kids called "The Sea & Me."  Here Colby and Emily got to drive a ship and catch big fish off the side of a boat.  They also got to hide in a beaver hut.  They loved this part of the Aquarium; they wanted to stay and play for a long time.

After seeing everything in the Aquarium, we decided to drive down Hwy 101 down the coast and see as many lighthouses as we could. 

OK this isn't a light house but this is the Newport Bay Bridge.  It runs 6/10 of a mile long over the ocean and the Newport Bay.  We drove over this bridge a few times a day to get to our hotel and to all of the sites.

The first Lighthouse we went to was the Yaquina Head Lighthouse:

This is still an active lighthouse and the light is on all of the time.  We got to take a tour of this lighthouse along with about 50 other people.  They only let a few people in at a time so we had to wait outside in the cold wind.  Because the lighthouse set on a hill right above the ocean it was really windy and cold.  Finally we were able to go in.

Inside we climbed clear to the top of the light house to see the light at the top.  As you can see there were a lot of steep stair to climb.  They wouldn't let us take Emily or Colby up because they were too small so Russell and I had to go one at a time.  Inside we learned that the light from the lighthouses shown for 20 miles so lighthouses were placed every 40 miles along the coast.  That is something I didn't know.

As we were walking to the Yaquina Head lighthouse, we looked down at the ocean and saw this sea lion chilling on the rock.  We were excited to see a some more of the natural wildlife of the coast.

The next lighthouse we drove to was the Yaquina Bay Lighthouse.  This is an older lighthouse and isn't in operation anymore.  The Yaquina Head Lighthouse took it's place.  This lighthouse is right by the Newport Bay and the Newport Bay Bridge.

We decided we had better get heading down the coast if we were going to make it to our next destination, Medford, OR, before it got too late.  As we drove down Hwy 101 we could see the ocean out our right window and the forests and trees out our left window.  The road was fun to drive but I kept wanting to look out the window at the ocean instead of keeping my eyes on the winding road.  At some points there were sheer drop offs into the ocean; it was awesome.  As I was driving, I noticed a house on the left side of the road and the owners were setting out on their porch gazing over the ocean and they had the lush forest in their backyard.  I thought man that must be the life!

The next Lighthouse we saw was the Heceta Head Lighthouse.  We couldn't get close enough to take a picture of it, we just saw it from the road.  It was weird looking though because it was like a black dome instead of the typical lighthouse look.

The last lighthouse we saw was the Umpqua River Lighthouse.  This is an active lighthouse ran by the Coast Guard.  There were Coast Guard housing all around this lighthouse.

We continued on our drive down the Coast until we reached Coos Bay.  This is definitely a logging town.  There were logs and logging ships and trucks everywhere.  We stopped here for dinner at Abby's Pizza.  It was really good.  Then we continued across Oregon to Medford where we stayed for the night.

The Oregon Coast

We finally made it to our main destination the Oregon Coast.  We stayed in Newport for two days.  Wednesday August 22 was spent on the beach.

This was the first time Emily and Colby had seen the ocean and they loved it.  As we were looking out over this lookout, we could see whales surfacing just beyond those rock.  It was cool to watch because you could see them come up and blow water out their spouts and then go back in the water.

We went to Otter Rock to explore the tide pools during the morning low tide:

Emily and Colby had a blast running from pool to pool seeing all of the sea creatures they could find.  The whole trip Emily kept asking when we were going to see the starfish in Oregon and finally we found some.  We saw a lot of starfish, some sea urchins, little fish, some little crabs, and many creatures that I don't know the name of.  It was so much fun exploring.  Colby and Emily also had a good time gathering shells.  Emily filled her bucket full of colorful shells and we took them home with us to remember the coast.

Emily even caught herself a huge starfish!  We found this pool that a lot of starfish were in and some of the starfish were not connected to the rock wall so you could grab them and pick them up.  Russell and Emily both caught one and had to show them off.  Emily wanted to take hers home but I told her we couldn't.

While at Otter Rock, we also saw what's called the Devil's Punchbowl:

The inside of this rock formation is only available to see during low tide.  Otherwise it is under water.  We saw even more starfish and some other kids showed us how to find little crabs by digging in the wet sand.  We had to be careful though because even though they were little, the crabs could pinch really hard!  Inside the Punchbowl the wind was blowing so hard and it was so cold!  Newport was only between 65 and 75 degrees so I was freezing all of the time but the wind just added to it.  We could see the tide was starting to come back in so we pet the starfish one more time before heading back up to the car.

We went back to the hotel to eat lunch and take a nap while it warmed up a little outside.  Then we went to South Beach to go swimming in the ocean.

Emily loved the ocean!  Despite the cold temperature of the water, she ran right in and chased Russell around the water.  She played for quite a while without mentioning the cold.  Colby on the other had was not so sure about the water.  He wanted to play with Sister and Dad so bad that he would run down to the water but every time he saw a wave coming toward his feet, he would turn around and run the other way before the water could get him.  Colby loved playing in the sand though and so did Emily.

We built the coolest sand castle village while we were on the beach.  Some ladies even took a picture of it when they walked by.  We should have built it a little further up on the beach though because a little while after we finished building it, a huge wave came up and demolished it!  We were sad but we were also getting ready to leave so it wasn't that big of a deal.

I love this picture of me and my boy walking along the sandy beach.  I love how the waves on the ocean add to it too.

Russell got a little daring and went chest deep into the freezing water.  He said it took his breath away every time a cold wave hit him.  The longer we stayed the braver Colby got too.  He finally did go walking in the ocean by himself.

The ocean and the beach was so fun to play on.  After our sand castle got demolished, we decided it was time to head home.  We were all freezing by then.  We weren't ready to get out of our swimming suits yet so when we got back to the hotel, we decided to go swimming in a heated pool.  We swam for about an hour when we realized we were hungry.  We got cleaned up and went to Mo's restaurant for dinner.  We had some really good clam chowder and other fresh seafood.  It was so good. 

Just outside of Mo's was this awesome picture of whales painted on the wall of the building across the street.  I thought it was amazing and it looks so real.  We walked along the Newport bay for a while and saw some people fishing for crabs off the pier.  We could also see all of the boats coming in and docking in the bay.  It was a really adventurous day on the coast.