sightseeing – thosecoolkims

KimTrippin: Pacific NorthWest — Day 18 (Avenue of the Giants, Humboldt Redwoods State Park)

There’s not much you can say about the Redwoods outside of gorgeous, stunning, amazing and humbling. We all were very excited to explore and we specifically targeted the Avenue of the Giants in Humboldt Redwoods State Park to see the wonder of these giant trees. The Immortal Tree and Founders Grove are there along with many other notable attractions. It was over a two hour drive from our cabin in Klamath, but it was well worth it. We woke up early to get there and spent the entire day.

Pictures don’t even do it 1/100,000th of justice, but we tried anyway:

As most people know, Ruby is completely obsessed with Star Wars, and since the Ewok land of Endor was filmed in the Redwood forest, she represented in her ewok shirt!

After a long day of exploring, we hit up the legendary Lost Coast Brewing Company in Eureka for dinner. It was the final brewery of this long tour! I even made an exception and ordered a sample of beer myself (I’m not a beer drinker!).

We wrapped up the day with a stop at the beach on the way home. It was freezing water, but this kid begged for a beach stop the whole day. She loves it!

KimTrippin: Pacific NorthWest — Day 17 (Oregon Coast and the Redwoods)

The road from Florence to the Redwoods included some of the most beautiful scenery of the entire trip. It was so varied – we stopped for Elk sightings and ocean rock formations all in the same route!

Here are a few highlights:

Ed is Elk-Spotting at the Dean Creek Elk Viewing Area in Reedsport, OR.

We made the most of the coast and stopped to see Face Rock and had lunch at a chowder shack in Bandon, OR.

It’s a side profile of a woman looking up towards the sky. Can you see her?

Fresh chowder right at the seaside!

We also made a stop at Arch Rock Brewing Company in Gold Beach, OR. One of the guys that works for Ed asked us to stop by and show some support — the brewery belongs to his sister & brother-in-law. Of course, we were more than happy to oblige and Ed was able to pick up a growler!

We wrapped up the day in Klamath, CA – right inside the Redwoods National Park. We took my parents’ suggestion and booked a cabin there for two nights. It was perfect and you couldn’t beat the location – it was less than a mile from the kitschy roadside attraction we were dying to see, Paul Bunyon + Babe the Blue Ox!

We were hungry for more Americana, so after saying hi to Paul Bunyon, we made a beeline to the Tour-Thru Tree to get our pic before it closed for the evening!

Our cabin had no wi-fi and our phones had absolutely no cell reception, so we were truly off the grid! We actually had to pick up pamphlets and read them … haha. We had a low key evening in the cabin – Ruby slept and we caught a Golden Girls marathon on TV!

KimTrippin: Pacific NorthWest — Day 16 (Oregon Coast)

We had a blast driving down the coast today. After leaving Astoria, our first stop was Seaside. It was fun and old-school and everything you imagine a little seaside town to be. We did the Tilt-a-Whirl and the bumper cars, we played some arcade games and we even bought some salt-water taffy.

We also were interested to find that Seaside was where Lewis & Clark ended their adventure. Ruby has been asking lots of questions about Lewis & Clark on this trip!

After leaving Seaside, we made a quick stop in Cannon Beach to see the infamous Haystack Rock. It’s been in lots of movies, most notably The Goonies, so it was a chance to squeeze in one last Goonies Geek-out.

Next stop, Tillamook. As everyone knows, I am absolutely repulsed by cheese, but I was a good sport and went along with the stop at the Tillamook Factory. :)

It actually ended up being pretty neat inside. Ruby was fascinated by the factory and was thrilled to try ALL the free samples! I was quickly compensated for my cheese tolerance as there was also a creamery on site serving some of the best ice cream I’ve EVER had (and I’ve had a lot of ice cream …) Thank goodness Tillamook doesn’t sell their ice creams at our local grocery stores!

After stopping in Tillamook, we still had about 2.5 hrs. to go before hitting our final destination for the night — Florence, Oregon. The miles between Tillamook and Florence were the most gorgeous of the whole drive. Farms, ocean, forest – no pictures can capture it, no words can describe it. Ed + I were able to enjoy this part of the drive as Ruby snoozed. We listened to several albums back-to-back and just took in all the beauty.

Tonight is our last night in Oregon. It’s off to the Redwoods in the morning!

KimTrippin: Pacific NorthWest — Day 15 (Astoria)

Greetings from the Oregon coast! We left Vancouver this morning at 5:30am and we were having breakfast in Seattle before 9:00.

Our final destination today was Astoria, OR. For the next few days we’ll be traveling along the coast, and it’s gorgeous already. We are staying at the cutest little motel and the view is incredible! There’s a scenic courtyard and they even have a hot tub overlooking the ocean.

Astoria is also the town that the iconic ’80s movie, The Goonies, was filmed. We got to see the house that was in the film along with the “jail” and the Jeep featured in it, too.

We’re looking forward to another beautiful, leisurely day again tomorrow as we head further south.

KimTrippin: Pacific NorthWest — Day 14 (Vancouver)

We fit a lot of things into our last day in Vancouver. We started the day in Gastown, which is the historic center of the city. The shops are cute and the restaurants are cool. We found a very hip spot called Bao Down (yep, you guessed it – specializing in amazingly creative takes on the steamed chinese buns called bao) and we couldn’t pass it up. Ed + I ordered 3 bao and shared them for a light lunch. It was so good!

(Those tasty bao from L-R: The Flip Side, Two Worlds Collide, Bao Chicka Bao Bao. seriously, click the menu link for the description – YUM!)

We loved this french woman selling her crepes on the street. We didn’t try any, but how cute is her vintage trailer?

After Gastown, we headed for Granville Island which is a neat little place to shop. They even had a Kids Market and Ruby loved that there was her own special Kids Door to enter through. She got to spend a little of her souvenir money and we even went to a pet gift shop and bought something for Jimmy.

The main draw was a free waterpark in the center of all the action, but unfortunately, it was closed. This was a major disappointment for our waterbaby, so we did some quick, on-the-spot research and found out Vancouver had a ginormous outdoor saltwater pool that sat right on the beach. We hightailed it right over to Kitsilano Pool. It’s probably the biggest pool we’ve ever seen!

As Vancouver is still experiencing their record-breaking heat wave, it was a pleasure for all three of us. :)

This was the view of the beach from the pool deck:

We swam well into the early evening and then it was dinnertime. Ever since Ed arrived in Canada, he’d been jonsing for an authentic poutine. We found one of the most recommended spots, Mean Poutine, and Ed reports that it hit the spot! Ruby + I opted for something else than the french fries drenched in gravy and cheese curds (ewwww!), but were happy that Ed got his fix.

We wrapped up the day at Stanley Park (kinda like New York’s Central Park). We wanted to show Ruby the totem poles and we wanted another chance to bust out the selfie stick and get a family pic with the Vancouver skyline behind us. Check and check!

It’s been a great two weeks on the road. This was our furthest destination as we went North, and tomorrow begins the trek South towards home. So far, the trip computer in the car tells us we’ve driven 2243 miles and have spent 55 h, 56 m in total travel time.

We’ll have a big driving day tomorrow, but we’re planning to leave very early. Hopefully, we’ll beat all that traffic at the border. We’ll be driving the coast and sleeping in Astoria, Oregon tomorrow night.