The Brown's Scrapbook: Pacific Northwest Family Summer Vacation - Day 4 - Rockaway Beach, Cape Kiwanda, Lincoln City

Day 4:

Waking up to the sound of the Pacific Ocean, sleeping with the sliding door wide open was wonderful. No one has AC around here, you don’t need it. As I sat on the patio at 6:15AM, gazing at the beach that morning, I watched and listened to the waves crash and looked up and down the Oregon coast line. I told Blake, the night before, it felt like this town and beach motel are out of a movie or a novel you would read, with the overcast skies and the crisp air and the constant natural ocean sound machine. We saw a seal from our patio as the kids woke up and it made us rush outside to the beach. We explored Rockaway Beach, just outside our motel door, and had the whole beach to ourselves. We found our first full sand dollars and cool shells with snails in them. We even found a dying large crab on the beach. Carter found some shrimp caught in the pools when the tides had reversed. There are so many amazing things when you just walk around with your eyes open and such a reminder of how kids see so many things that us adult miss.

We packed up and headed south, back through Girabaldi, right at the mouth of Tillamook Bay and did a U-turn and stopped at a Myrtlewood Store on a whim. We learned all about Myrtlewood and how it is only found in this section of the US coast in Central and Southern Oregon, very Northern California and Israel. We bought book ends to remember this part of the tip and from here on out, Carter became quite the expert in identifying Myrtlewood, even later, when we were deep in the Redwood forests.

We kept driving south, with a quick stop at the air museum in Tillamook, which is the home to the largest free-standing, clear-span wooden structure in world. We then got to Cape Kiwanda, which ended up being so amazing for multiple reasons. It has the largest natural sand dune on the Oregon Coast, at 240 feet tall, which we climbed and tumbled down! We spent a couple of hours exploring and watching the Dory boats return from fishing and be trailered, directly on shore. It wasn't until we were leaving that we found information about the rich history this specific beach and history of Dory boats that are built to launch right from the beach. It was so cool to watch and we talked to a local young guy that worked for the state and learned all about the common fish they were catching off shore, like Rockfish. We even saw a gray whale spouting water multiple times and it's back, so close, right off shore. It was truly amazing! The kids found their first orange starfish in the tidal pools. This was another place we could have stayed all day.

Just a few miles south, in Lincoln City, we stopped for lunch. Rockfish caught off this beach is what we had for a late lunch at Blackfish Grill, as we were heading to Depot Bay. The kids ordered rock fish was it was truly delicious. They also tried clam chowder for the first time and liked it!

Once we heard about Guinness World Records, "shortest river in the world," we had to make a quick stop in Lincoln to check out the "D River." We will always remember it as where Carter saved a little girl's kite that had been blown away into a parking lot. Carter even tasted the D River water to make sure it was fresh water as they were in disbelief that this was the shortest river in the world.

Then, it was on to Depot Bay, which is known as the "Whale Watching Capital of The Oregon Coast," where we saw whales - several spouting in the bay!

We made it to Yaquina Lighthouse, where we saw hundred of common mures and harbor seals on the rocks below. We learned how bald eagles are commonly are seen in this area and fly over the gigantic rock and all the mures jump off the rock to escape the Eagle and leave their spotted eggs vurnerable for sea gulls. But while we were there they had had around 150 baby birds on the rock, which is considered a huge success, this season.

We had had such a memorable and adventurous morning and early afternoon but the problem was we had only traveled 65 miles since we left Rockaway Beach around 9AM and had 108 miles to go, which is around 2 or 2.5 hours if you are traveling along the gorgeous coastal highway of 101. The coastline around Yachats was absolutely the most breath taking and intense with the absolute highest views. The highway is literally is on the edge. I saw why people say this area of the coast is just as beautiful as Big Sur but without the crowds there in Southern California. There were SO so many places that we saw that I had read about for nearly a year - such as Devils Churn, Cape Perpetual and Strawberry Hill, but we had to let them pass as it was already 6PM and we had 2 full hours of drive time ahead of us to Bandon and our next beach motel reservation.

We caved a made a couple of more stops and checked into our adorable beach cottage - The Windermere in Bandon, just as the sun was setting. Due to the intense curves of the highway, Carter experienced his very first case of bad car sickness in his life in the last 20 minutes of the drive. While we unpacked, the kids were able to play outside before we crashed after a truly wonderful day.