Oregon Road Trip!

So I have about a million pictures of the road trip that Jasper, my mom and I took to Oregon, but I tried to pare it down to the good stuff. We left on a Thursday morning very early (6 a.m. and yes, that is very early for me) luckily just before a snow storm hit, and drove straight through Utah, Idaho, Oregon and onto Washington where my mom's parents live. Great weather the whole way for driving, yay! We stayed with them two nights and they were, as always, extremely generous. They live in Goldendale, WA and are surrounded by hundreds of windmills! Mom and I thought they were so beautiful, and Jasper was curious about them, so we stopped that first day in Washington to get close to one. After that, any time Jasper saw a windmill, no matter where we were, he would yell 'Meeeeeeel', and we would say 'Yes, a windmill'. Then, because there were hundreds, he would yell 'Meeeeeeel' again, and we would reply 'Yes, a windmill'. Imagine that for about 45 minutes on end, until we got out of windmill country....




Goldendale also has a very cool replica of Stonehenge as a WWII memorial that we stopped at. Apparently during important religious times, hundreds of druids come from miles around to celebrate solstices and such here. Luckily, there were no druids that day, just alot of wind.

Jasper was having a blast jumping off of what was, I'm sure, some sort of sacrificial alter... Again, luckily there were no druids. And don't make fun of my hoodie, it was COLD!

This is Jasper with Great Grandma Dori (Dorene). No, he's not trying to wiggle away, it was a steep little incline, and nowhere for the little guy to sit. He really fell in love with Grandma Dori by the end of the two days there in Washington.

My mom with Jasper at an old cemetery just a mile or so away from Stonehenge. Mom has this crazy obsession with graves, and loves to take pictures of them and walk through cemeteries. Oh well, Jasper looks like he had a good time :)

Grandma Dori has this awesome pond just a few hundred meters behind her house, and we took a walk over there to find some frogs... which all disappeared when we got close. But Grandma's land is beautiful, and it was a fun adventure for Jasper. Grandma Dori has this great swing in her back yard, but was having to shield her eyes from the sun... Jasper couldn't figure out what she was doing, but wanted to be included anyway, so he's "shielding his eyes" too. He's so cute, hu?

So after a few days with the Greats, we headed out to Tillamook, Oregon for some cheese! We used to go there often when we lived in Sherwood, and it was so fun to take Jasper there. Here he is being a cow, but he wasn't quite big enough to get up the the farmer cut out...

This is the factory where they make all the cheese and cut it into loaves and such. I thought it was pretty cool, but Jasper had enough after about 30 seconds.

A cow! How exciting!

Oh and by the way, if you've never had Tillamook Squeaky Cheese, you've never lived. It is so so good. You'll never go back to any other squeaky cheese again after trying it. It's seriously little nuggets of golden goodness. And it really squeaks when you eat it! Mmmm........ wish I had some right now.

After our stop in Tillamook, we checked into our hotel in Siletz Bay, and took Jasper to his very first time on the beach! Yay!

It was a bit of a blustery day, but we managed to spend out half hour looking at gulls and sand and seaweed before it got too cold and windy to be out any longer.

The next day we went to the Newport Beach Aquarium. It was alot of fun, and waaaay better than our aquarium here in Utah (for obvious reasons). We got a few great shots of the creatures there, and here is their huge octopus! It was moving around like crazy, and Jasper just stood so still and watched, and kept pointing to the suckers. A little creepy, but we were lucky apparently to have seen him so active... or so said a guide there.

Jasper also got up close and personal with the puffins in the aviary. Again, he stood so still and quite that the worker there said she was very impressed, and usually the birds stay far away from the little kids because they are so loud and move so much. Anyway, this particular puffin came within inches of Jasper over and over again, and at first I was afraid he was going to get his finger or nose tweaked by this guy, but they just wanted to check each other out. Very cool :)

We went through this great big tunnel that used to be where they kept keiko the killer whale, but they turned it into this underwater shark tank thing. Was fun to walk through, and Jasper really seemed to like looking at all the sharks and big fish and rays go by.

The aquarium had a great touch pool with alot of starfish and anemones (sp?). J was hesitant at first about touching anything, but finally got in there and had fun.

They also had some really cook jellyfish tanks...

After the aquarium we went to Historic Newport where they have a bunch of great shops and galleries and docks. Jasper decided he wanted a pigeon for a pet, but couldn't quite catch them.

There is this dock that has been there ever since I can remember, where the fishermen throw out their scraps and chum, and because of that there is this group of GIANT sea lions that hang out there just getting fat and happy. They were barking up a storm when we were there, and fighting each other off this little floating dock for good sun-tanning space.

We stopped by the 'Devil's Punchbowl' on the way back to the hotel. It was low tide unfortunately, but during high tide the water rushes in through that opening there and sprays up over the edge of the bowl and onto the people standing there. It is quite a sight when it really gets going, but we were glad not to get wet :)

Our last day there we were able to go down to the beach again for an hour or so. I was sad to leave, but ready to be home... I'm glad my mom was willing to go down there with me, and I'm glad I got to take Jasper to all these places I remember loving as a kid. He was SO good the whole time, I really would not mind doing it again next year.... maybe.

Anyway, there you have it, our great trip to Oregon. Glad to be home!