log entries for oregon coast

leg one

tuesday may 3 2011

two girls on the back bench, one dog in the middle and two parents upfront.

our neighbors came to wave goodbye and off we set.

the vw van was in great shape thanks to the most wonderful man i know and his crazy ability to learn and fix our long time friend. he truly did an amazing job and i am rather proud of him. i digress. onto our adventure.

we had a long drive ahead of us, most of the reason to set out so late. our hope was that the girls would sleep for most of it. we made two quick stops once we entered the states and then back on the road. our destination was a hotel in wilsonville oregon, just north of woodburn. the last leg of washington nearly got to us, but as we passed the "welcome to oregon" sign on the bridge we smiled at one another and had a renewed energy that we were able to do this. it was nearly midnight as we pulled up to our rest spot. tired, excited and ready for bed we finished the first day of our adventure.

wednesday may 4 2011

with an early start to the day we headed to the woodburn outlet mall for a quick stop...well somewhat of a quick stop! with a few bags of goodies in hand we enjoyed a beautiful day of sunshine and drove from woodburn to coos bay. at coos bay we headed further south to sunset bay, setting up camp at bastendorff.

thursday may 5 2011

[greeted by flowers]

[the beach at bastendorff]

we gathered up our beach buckets and packed a lunch then headed to sit on the beach at sunset bay. before getting there we decided to travel a little further south up the winding road to see where it would take us. at the top we found a pullout with telescopes and rocks covered in sea lions. we barked like them for a while and giggled at the girls. we then headed back to the beach where we had planned to sit and play, get wet and sandy for the rest of the day... and we did. we started out with coasts, hoodies and pants...we finished in undies. always a good day when you can finish in your undies. the girls built sandcastles taking only sand that they could scoop out of the water before the waves came and soaked them. they started out well, laughed a lot and then we hauled their wet pants around for the rest of the trip!

[our jumping spot...dude has mad hops]

[playing with daddy...always fun to be shoved into sand,

chased and thrown around and nearly scared of your dad!]

a hot dog dinner at the campsite followed by marshmallows was the end of this glorious day.