We have this little tradition. Every year on the Labour Day weekend, we pack up our tent trailer and head out for a nice long camping vacation - lasting about 10 days. We pick this time of year because all the kids are back in school (tourist stuff is not very busy) and the weather is still pretty decent and not too cold at night. This was our 4th annual trip. And probably our last. Max will be in Grade one next year and we don't really want him to miss his entire first week of school. It was nice while it lasted. I guess next year we'll just be joining the throngs of families on vacation during the summer vacation months!
With our recent move preoccupying all our spare time, we didn't do very much planning this time. We just knew that we wanted to head down to the California Redwoods, spend some time on the Oregon Coast and then finish off in central Washington. And that's what we did. Every morning we would pack up the trailer and pull out for a new destination...deciding on the way, where we would go. It was rather fun being so spontaneous! This is what our itinerary/destinations ended up looking like:
Saturday, August 30 - Mount St. Helen's, Washington
Sunday, August 31 - Fort Stevens State Park, Oregon
Monday, Sept 1 - Redwood State Parks, California
Tuesday, Sept 2 - Cape Blanco State Park, Oregon
Wednesday, Sept 3 - Umpqua Lighthouse State Park, Oregon
Thursday, Sept 4 - Cape Lookout State Park, Oregon
Friday, Sept 5 - Yakima Sportsman State Park, Washington
Saturday, Sept 6 - Yakima Sportsman State Park, Washington
Sunday, Sept 7 - Headed back home to Kelowna
Unfortunately when we were at Mount St. Helen's the clouds were completely covering the volcano, so we were unable to see it up close. We did spent some time at the Interpretive Centre - it was very interesting. Max definitely is interested in Volcano's now. He's concerned about Mount Rainer (he heard them say in a movie we watched that they are keeping an eye on it because it's the most volatile one in the area) and has lots of questions daily about when "volcano's interrupt" (he means erupt!)
We also spent some time at the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Centre near Fort Stevens. If you're a history buff then you'd enjoy that as it's all about explorers.
The Redwoods were absolutely amazing. We were blown away by how big they get. We stayed at a State Park located in the Redwoods. It was pretty primitive (no hookups) but at least they did have showers. (For those of you who don't know me well - there are two "must haves" when I go camping - hookups and showers!) Just ask Keith...this is usually a deal breaker! So for me to give up electricity for one night to stay there - that was huge my friend! But it was totally worth it just for the experience. A bit eery at night because it's so QUIET and DARK and the trees are SO BIG! The following day we heard about a place called "Stout Grove" that we checked out. We saw some pretty majestic trees there. Definitely was a high-light of our trip!
I'll be posting a million and one photo's of our vacation. I've sorted them into various categories to make it easier. Stay tuned...more posts coming.
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