Oregon Road trip! Lewis and Clark

Can you believe it? I cant! It has been 3 full weeks since I last reported anything! Oh man, I have so much to share... but I'm going to really try and stick to the highlights for this trip and post other things later. First things first..... when I last reported, we were heading out of town and traveling to Oregon for the weekend. Just me and the girls! 5 of us in all. Christian and RyLee were allowed to each choose 1 friend to come.

Ry and Jess on the way down.



Christian a bit hungry on the way down and thought Jessica's feet would fill her up.... This is Sam, Christians budd.



The drive down was interesting for sure. 1: we left about 2 and 1/2 hours late! 2: it was the week that the Pacific coast was to get some stormy weather as an after effect of some Typhoon. I cant remember where, but our coast lines were getting the tale end of it.... silly me! Not only did we drive through rain so think my windshield wipers could not keep up with the rain, but we literally drove into and through a thunder and lightning storm and then... get this... hail! Yes hail. The car in front of us spun out of control. He was way a head of us, so we were never in any danger, but it was so strange to see tail lights.... then head lights.... then tail lights again. At first I didn't understand what was happening.... but when we got closer... it all made sense. Someone else stopped to call 911 for them, and they were not hurt physically, but the car was.

We stayed at KOA camp in Astoria and arrived (finally) a little after 9 pm. It rained all night.... and early morning I was still hearing thunder and lightning. The first thing we did was get up eat breakfast, get ready and headed to Fort Clatsop!!

We had a great break in weather and I wanted to take full advantage of that. As we pulled up to Fort Clatsop, Christian began to remember she had been their before. I think it was 5 maybe 6 years ago now that we were their. RyLee only remembers getting to fold the Flag with her friend Silas. Nothing else seemed familiar. She was around 4 at the time... so I didn't expect her too. *Ü* Right when you walk into the museum portion of Fort Clatsop, they have dress up close. Here are the girls wearing coon skin hats and possibles. (side bags to us)They were called possibles because they put everything they passably could into them!



We then went and watched a great movie. It was about 34 minutes long and it was the Lewis and Clark trip from start to finish. Great refresher for my girls and good for their friends! Then we toured the museum portion a bit and hit the gift shop! *Ü* Here is a scale replica of the Fort they camped at. We read that of the 4 months they stayed here only 12 of those days were with out rain. Only 1 of 12 days did they actually see sunshine in the 4 months they stayed! Yikes! Pacific Northwest winter weather at its finest eh?

Chinook Indian woman and child: read here (Chinook Indians PN)

Most Chinook people had a flat forehead because babies spent most of their first year in a cradleboard. A cradleboard is something the put their babies in to reshape the babies forehead without hurting them. This is a picture of a Chinook cradleboard.



When we were about to leave the museum it was pouring down rain. I was so disappointed! So we went and made lunch in the van, and by the time we were all done, the sun actually came out for a bit and we enjoyed the fort and a good 2 mile walk down to Canoe Landing. Here are a few pictures of that walk and the actual Fort.



Here is a site where they an actual video to watch.

Lewis and Clark: then and now Its pretty long, but if you let it play and then walk away... after it has played you can skip back and forth to what you really want to watch. Here is another site of pictures of the museum and whats inside. Its easier to post this than all the ones I took.

Fort Clatsop Oregon Are ya still with me? lol Here are some pictures from our 2 mile walk. 1 mile to Canoe Landing and a bit beyond and then 1 mile back.



















After Fort Clatsop we went into Seaside. Its about 15 minutes, maybe 10. The weather was looking great for a bit, but soon began to rain again. We had shops and the girls were able to enjoy a few rides!









While in Seaside we also went to the aquarium. It was nothing like we thought... but it was fun. It was very small, and we felt sorry for the animals.... the sea lions were cute.... this little one below was a show stealer and new how to look cute!



We were in seaside for a long time... and the weather seamed to hold out... but alas... it began to rain again.... so we headed back to the cabin, ate dinner and the girls got to swim in the indoor pool that evening. The next day we packed up and headed to Astoria. We stopped at the Astro tower for a look. The Astoria colum is 125 feet high and has 164 steps! This tower was patterned after the Trajan Colum in Rome. This column displays 14 scenes commemorating important events of history in Astoria.






Once we finsihed our little tour, we had lunch and headed home!It was a good trip! Wish I would have braved a few more of the beaches...but I was happy with the trip, my girls had a good time and so did their friends... and we learned a few things along the way...