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Astoria Bridge

Astoria Column

After our wonderful stay in Washington we have finally moved to the coast of Oregon. Our first stop was Seaside which is just down the road from one of our favorite places, Astoria. This is the city where the movies Goonies and Kindergarten Cop were filmed. This is where Laura is begging that we come to live for a while after we go off the road. Since we have not seen a winter in this part of the country yet I am still not sure. The coast from Astoria to Newport really is beautiful and is in the top 5 places I would like to settle for a while. We drove over the Astoria bridge into Washington to check out a couple state parks over the river and went out to the Astoria Column to throw balsam wood gliders and watched them for about 10 minutes while they glided on the currents.

Astoria Sea Lions

Goonies House

Next stop for the Hamilton Clan was the Goonie's house, where a nice man from Germany took our family photo. We ran across town and checked out the jail house and got to see the vehicle from the movie which we watched our first night in the area.

The car from the movie with the bullet holes! See our traveling friends too? That is the Traviglino Clan, so fun to travel with others!

Fort Clatsop

Lewis & Clark National Park

We took a couple hours to learn more about one of grandpa Hay's favorite topics  Lewis & Clark. Now we have been to this area of Oregon several times over the past 8 years but this is the first time we had spent so much time. When we were here the last at Fort Clatsop, the boys were younger and we got a picture with Sacajawea which I wish I had with me.

Rollin down the River

Seaside Beach

Haystack Rock

Laura and I had a great lunch in Seaside several years ago and during this trip we took a walk by that restaurant and around downtown. We stopped at the end of the street where you could walk out on the beach and check out the sea life. We were also able to run down to Cannon Beach to check out Haystack Rock where they filmed another part of the Goonies. We walked along the beach for a couple of hours and then had a great bowl of CHOW DA at one of Oregon's staple restaurants, Mo's. We stopped at ever Mo's in Oregon on this trip just because we love the chowder that much.

We had to take several trips into Portland while staying in Seaside due to a computer drive going bad and having to go back and forth to get it repaired. While in Portland we checked out the legendary food trucks which are spread out all over down town. We also went to Voodoo Donuts for a dozen and Stepping Stone Cafe for some 12" pancakes. now I know you are wondering about that stuffed dog, that is the Full Time Families mascot Rambler which families take on their outings for the web page. We stopped a the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry where we took a tour of the first fast attack sub the USS Blue Back. I think the boys thought this was a pretty cool thing to see but they have seen so many cool things its hard to tell anymore.

USS Blue Back

USS Blue Back interior

First attempt at catching a clam

We visited a couple state parks in the area and saw the remnants of a ship wreck from 1909. The kids got to play on a shipwreck! AMAZING!!!!  Of course had to try our hand at clamming near Cannon Beach which was fun but non productive. People who sell the gear should be required to give tourists information like, it is not a negative tide so you won't be able to get to the clams! That is great information that one should know before adventuring out. not to say it wasn't a great sunset and a blast to try but we came up empty. Don't worry about us though, we got clam chowder at Mo's to ease the pain.

Cool shipwreck at Fort Stevens State Park

Mt Saint Helens

After leaving Seattle we took a quick trip south to see Mt Saint Helens before heading to the coast of Oregon. One of my memories from childhood was a trip that dad, James and I took to Oregon after the eruption in the 80's to gather some of the ash. This National Monument was really cool to see 30 years later and the fact that it is still active made it even more interesting. Of course there was a badge for this great park that the boys were able to get by helping the ranger demonstrate how this volcano blew out. We spent the day with the Traviglino's and the Arnold's here and had yet another wonderful day