It is time to sleep! It is time to recover! It is time for a vacation!! Oh wait.. that's right I am just getting back from my vacation. Ok, so I need a vacation... to recover from my vacation!
In case you are wondering about my absence from the blog, well, I have been on our annual family vacation to the Oregon Coast. This is the trip where my folks come out from Colorado and we all rent a beach house somewhere on the Oregon Coast to relax and have fun in. This year, after several years in the Pacific City area, we did something different and headed to the south coast, a place where none of us have been (and that includes me, an Oregon Coast lover who has lived here for 13 years... pathetic).
So this year, Bandon was our home base, with a great, two-story ocean front beach house overlooking the rocky beaches of the area. Highlights from this years vacation included:
A speed boat trip up the Rogue River. Beginning in Gold Beach Oregon we boarded Jerry's River Jets and headed east up the river. For those of you who have never had the opportunity to take one of these trips.. I highly recommend them! The speed boats do go quite fast, rocketing their way up river, in some places appearing only inches deep. In some stretches of water, the captain will actually spin the boat in circles, making for a fun (and wet) quick thrill!
The captains also know the rivers very well and provide area history and ample wildlife sightings. In our trip we saw deer, ducks, beavers (notice I say ducks BEFORE beavers...), a bald eagle actually pulling a fish from the water, and even a bear munching on some berries.
As we reach the midpoint of the journey, the boat stops for dinner as we picked from several restaurants. We chose the all you can eat, home cooked buffet. The food was outstanding and at the end of the meal, we all had to almost be rolled back down to the docks in wheel barrows from our over eating, and dessert bar trips.
Finally, as the sun dropped below the coast line in a spectacular sunset, we arrived back at the coast, a little sun burned, wind blown, wet and still full of dinner.
The other major trip of the week was down south to the California Redwoods. This was a first for the family, all of us having wanted to visit, but never taking the opportunity. After spending several hours in the van, we eagerly got out at a sign pointing to a "Big Tree". This made me smile... like they have to point out the big trees in this forest. Yeah.. Ok.
Well, they actually had a point here. This was one BIIIIIIGGGGG tree, my kids looked like tiny smurfs standing in front of the beast.
Also in the Redwoods was the "Lady Bird Johnson" trail, where the park was dedicated years ago. This was close to filming locations for "Return of the Jedi" thus dooming my kids to all my stories and comments and trivia about the little planet of Endor and its Ewok inhabitants.
And speaking of movie locations, we also visited locations from Jurassic Park: The Lost World. Most interesting was the "Fern Canyon", a thin yet deep canyon where both sides of the canyon are totally covered in ferns.
It is a strange, yet pretty site to hike through. (Movie fans will remember watching some poor hiker get chased and eaten by the Packies in the Lost World, filmed in this spot) After a day of hiking, it was time to head North again, back to the beach house.
The rest of the time was spent doing the simple things the family loves: building with sand on the beach, hiking, exploring light houses, roasting marshmallows on a beach fire, and card games lasting way too late in the evening. And after all were in bed, I finally had my few free minutes each night to finish getting through the final Harry Potter book.
And thus concluded yet another family trip. Now it's time to get back to work and all the realities of life. Now.. is it nap time. I have to recover from my vacation!
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