I'm still at the Hilton Garden Inn lobby the morning of 7/31 writing this while my family sleeps.
Oregon was such a great time. We had many "mini vacations" in one - actually a little of everything. Here were the highlights:
Day 1 - Woodburn
The drive to Woodburn was relatively uneventful. We had a lot of traffic in Renton and in Tacoma, and it was pretty clear. I was advised by the reservations agent at the Salishan to bypass Portland by taking I-205 around Portland. While it didn't necessarily look like a shortcut on the map, we blazed right through. My wife and I took the mental note that we had to remember to come back up I-205 when we return!
By the time we got to Woodburn, the kids were hungry. After doing a bit of surveying, we decided to let the kids eat at McDonald's. I tried the new Fiesta salad - it was good (not low carb, but tasty). The kids had Big Kids meals with some really cool little Beanie Baby toys. We thought we might collect these toys up and down the coast! The McDonald's in Woodburn had a play are that our kids wanted to play on. However, the rules required that kids wear socks, and our kids were wearing their slip-on sandals with no socks. We promised them instead that we'd play at the hotel swimming pool after we went shopping.
The Woodburn Company stores were very good, but other than some underwear I bought at Jockey, we didn't take advantage of having no sales tax in Oregon. There were some good stores - Polo, Tommy Hilfiger, Cole Haan, Banana Republic, et al. The issue was that they were still clearing summer fashions, and we have actually been doing a bit of shopping this summer while I've been unemployed. My wife got tired of being an "out" mom, so she's been updating her wardrobe as of late...
Because we were headed out to the Coast, we chose to stay in Salem, OR, where highway 22 takes you West. We stayed at the
Holiday Inn Express there, which was right behind a Costco. The swimming pool was on the first floor, and seemed a bit claustrophobic. That said, the kids didn't care, and they had a fun time in the pool. We were there with a family (Mormon?) that had six kids - five of which were girls!
The hotel had a 10% off deal with the Applebee's at the Lancaster Mall. They'd made special room keys. I decided I like Applebee's. The kids loved the pasta with marinara sauce, my wife enjoyed the veggie patch pizza, and my barbeque chicken salad wasn't bad either. The meal was also very reasonably priced.
On the way to Applebee's, we noticed that there was a
Residence Inn in Salem. It looks like a better hotel than the Holiday Inn Express. I'll keep this as a mental note in case we ever return to Salem.
Day 2 - Enchanted Forest and the Beach
On Day 2, we got up, ate a breakfast at Denny's, and head over to Enchanted Forest. It was a storybook land with kiddie rides. The place was very well done with not only displays but also many little buildings and caverns for the kids to explore. My younger daughter started getting a bit scared by some of the dark places, but I also suspected she was getting a bit tired. My older daughter loved the slides they constructed and took multiple trips down the slides.
In addition to the general admission fee, we also had to pay 75 cents per ticket, and we burned through 36 tickets for kid rides. The favorites:
- Kid bumper boats - we hadn't seen these before. The kids for the most part did donuts and didn't figure out how to really get them to go where they wanted to, but I think they enjoyed floating on the water
- Kid ferris wheel - this is like the ride at Remlinger Farms near home
- Frog Hopper - this is the favorite ride of my younger daughter, and she's done this at Wild Waves near home. My older daughter won't ride this...
- Bumper cars. Unfortunately, my younger daughter wasn't tall enough to do the bumper cars, so I did this with my older daughter twice. I probably had even more fun than she did. The cars were circular, and they were controlled by two levers. To turn left, you pull the left lever backward and push the right lever forward. To turn right, you pull the right lever backward and push the left lever forward. To move forward, you push both forward, and to reverse, you pull both backward. The backward motion is much faster than the forward motion, so the best bumper action is to reverse into your prey!
All fun times!
From Enchanted Forest, we decided to return to Applebee's for lunch. My wife wanted the Veggie Patch pizza again, my kids wanted the pasta marinara again, and I decided to try the Bourbon Street steak (which was too salty for me...)
The kids also suggested the strong move of going to Cold Stone Creamery nearby where I probably had the best dish of ice cream I've ever had in the United States. I had a peanut butter ice cream with crushed almonds. Cold Stone's peanut butter ice cream rocks!
Our server at Cold Stone Creamery was a super nice guy, too. He was very friendly, and we found out that he's going to go to Cornish next year in Seattle.
The drive to the Coast from Salem isn't bad at all. Our hotel room at the Salishan lodge wasn't ready when we arrived. (Check in time is 3pm, and we arrived by around 2:40pm). We decided to down to the beach access, which is a short walk along a "nature trail." Prior to taking the walk, I had to use the bathroom, so my wife and kids perused a toy store where we purchased a kite for the beach and some souveneirs (key chains that they can put on their school backpacks).
A note on the kite. There were two kites that were affordable - a 6 foot "shark" kite that I thought was really cool, and a lower priced stunt kite. My wife thought the shark kite was cool, but too big, so I bought the cheaper stunt kite. Unfortunately, I haven't watched the DVD that came with the kite yet, and I still can't really figure out how to fly it...
The beach was great. It was empty with the exception of one other family as far as we can see. That section of beach is private to a residential area with access to the resort. It's a good thing that there weren't other people around. I couldn't ever get the stunt kite to stay in the air, but I did get it to almost spear my younger daughter. The thing dives really fast!
The food at the Salishan is great! They do a great job deep-frying - the kid's chicken strips and fries were awesome. My wife and I ended up sharing a couple of appetizers - an order of spicy chicken wings and seared ahi. I had a salad, too, which wasn't that great. For breakfast the next morning, I had steak and eggs. Also solid...
The Internet access at the Salishan is a bit weak. There are public terminals that you can use for free, but the access is slow. There is also in-room service for $5.95 (which I used), and it was weak as well...
The pool at the Salishan is great. It's a large pool with an area for kids; it also has an adjoining weight room that is very well equipped.
Continuing the night of 7/31 while my wife is shopping and my kids are asleep...
Day 3 - Marine Life and Arrival at Seven Feathers
We started Day 3 with our first session at the Salishan pool and ate breakfast there. We finally checked out of the hotel around 11:30am.
That morning, I asked around about whether Sea Lion Caves was worth a visit, and to my surprise, none of the hotel staff we'd spoken to had been to the caves. All reported that they heard the trip was good, but none had been there personally. Also, all of them thought that Florence was at least 2.5 to 3 hours away. (We got there in probably less than 1.5 hours...) While I was surprised at first, I also must admit that I haven't been to any of the places highlighted in the AAA book for my own suburban home town...
We purchased the Oregon Coast Aquarium tickets in advance at our hotel. The place is very well done. In addition to the animals themselves, there were also a number of educational exhibits. The seasonal exhibit was about bats, and while they didn't have many bats, there was a lot of information there about bats in the displays which we didn't get to enjoy because our kids moved us right through the aquarium. The same is true of the more permanent exhibits there. I'd like to return when the kids are older. The one thing I did note also is that the aquarium is really set up as an outdoor venue. The place would be a bit miserable during inclement weather.
Sea Lion Caves was quite a spectacle, but we didn't spend long there. For $19.50 admission for the four of us, we went down an elevator where we could see a cave through a relatively small portal that was home to about 75 sea lions. The cavern we were in had the stench of ocean life. There was also an outdoor sea lion lookout where we could see about a dozen sea lions. It was very windy there. After spending the admission fee, my wife was determined to buy something at the gift shop to prove we were really there but didn't even find anything that could inspire her.
On the way back to I-5 we stopped at BJ's ice cream in Florence, OR. The place was recommended to me both by someone I spoke with at the Salishan and a worker at Sea Lion Caves. The ice cream there was very very good (I liked the Peanut Butter & Chocolate), and we purchased some salt water taffy that was also quite impressive.
The drive to Seven Feathers was pretty straightforward from there. My older daughter picked Seven Feathers because of the picture of the swimming pool in the AAA guidebook. We were not disappointed by the pool.
We arrived on a Monday night, which was karaoke night. There was a young girl who sang from outside the bar, and she was very good - she had a beautiful voice (but at times slightly off key). The first two contestants for the $50 pot that night were also excellent. We didn't hear anymore because we had to eat dinner, but on the way back from dinner we heard someone that wasn't so great as we were passing by the bar. The winner of the night was to be invited back to compete for the $500 cash prize in the finals.
The food at Seven Feathers for dinner wasn't great. Not terrible, but not great either.
My older daughter was very disappointed that kids don't get to play video poker because she knows how to play 5-card draw...
Continuing on the theme of the locals not visiting tourist attractions, it turns out the concierge and a couple of people at the front desk had not been to Crater Lake. Wild!
Day 4 - Crater Lake
Day 4 started with a session at the pool and breakfast at Seven Feathers. Again, the food wasn't great, but I did "cheat" and sample both the girl's butterhorn and cinammon roll. Yum.
We got off to a late start, and drove to Crater Lake through Roseburg and across 138. We returned via 62 into Medford. We did about 1/3 of Rim Drive (from the North Entrance up by Diamond Lake exiting around Mazuma Village).
Crater Lake is BEAUTIFUL!
The other observation that I made is that on the way to Crater Lake I was a passenger. My wife offered to drive that morning, and I took her up on it given how much driving we were to do later in the day. On the way up to Crater Lake, I felt a bit of a sensation above my ears (the site of psychic hearing) as well as later on the top of my head (the site of psychic intuition). I would be very eager to return to Crater Lake and run psi experiments. I am wondering whether being in the presence of unadulterated nature may enhance levels of consciousness.
My younger daughter that day was a bit defiant. She had expressed at the beginning of the day that she didn't want to go to Crater Lake, and when we got there, she refused to take pictures with the family - even running away when we had a fellow tourist take a picture of our whole family. She refused to visit the gift shop at first as well. I offered to stay in the van with her while big sister and mom went ahead. I first shared a piece of her saltwater taffy with her and then later explained how this situation was similar to the story of Pig Will and Pig Won't (see
Richard Scarry's Please and Thank You Book). Just as Pig Won't missed out on the all the fun at the boatyard, she might miss out on the fun at the Crater Lake gift shop. She then agreed to go join her big sister at the gift shop and she made a nice recovery!
The roads on Rim Drive are kind of scary. You could drive right off the cliffs with no guard rails or anything! I can see why Rim Drive is closed in the winter months.
Unfortunately, all the backroads driving from Crater Lake got me in the speeding mode. I accidentally kept the speed up through Shady Cove, OR, and I was pulled over by a police officer for speeding. He was actually very nice though and let me off with a warning. I think he might have appreciated my situation with my van full of people and stuff.
After the police stop, I proceeded cautiously down to Medford, ate at McDonald's, and took a slight backtrack up I-5 to hit 199 (The Redwood Highway). From there, we skipped over The Oregon Caves (too late and my younger daughter is too small for the tour anyway), and we gunned it through the Redwoods past all the parks and even past the Paul Bunyan / Blue Ox statue in Klamath, CA. Our destination was McKinleyville, CA, where there was a three-diamond rated Holiday Inn Express. There isn't really much between the Redwoods and McKinleyville.
Anyway, that was Oregon!
