Day 1: Left home and traveled across most of Wyoming. We spent the night in Evanston, Wyoming where the overnight low hit somewhere around 32 degrees. There was frost on our tent camper in the morning and it was really cold. We noticed that somewhere along the way we’d lost the license plates on the trailer, but we couldn’t do much about that, so we just continued on.
Day 2: Traveled from Evanston, WY to Winnemucca, NV. This wasn’t as far as we’d hoped to get that day because we lost some lug nuts along the way. The lug nut story is this: We were traveling along I-80 and just where I-84 takes off we started hearing this really strange sound coming from the trailer. So, we got out and looked and couldn’t see anything wrong, so we got back in the car and went a few more feet and still heard the noise. We got out and looked again (this happened a couple times) and finally my mom noticed that three lug-nuts were missing on one of the wheels on the trailer. So, we unhitched the trailer and she stayed with it while I went to the nearest town in the van with the kids and got some bolts (because they didn’t have lug-nuts) and came back, put them in, drove to Salt Lake City, got lug-nuts, put those in, and proceeded on our way. We then stopped and checked lug-nuts every few hundred miles (or more) to see if they’d come loose again (which they hadn’t) and after 5 days of that I finally said I wasn’t checking lug-nuts anymore.
Day 3: Drove from Winnemucca, NV to Coos Bay, Oregon. This was a LONG day. Amid the rolling hills and green pastures of southern Oregon, my youngest daughter looked out over the hills and said “look, an antelope”, we dutifully all looked.. and all we saw was sheep. We teased her mercilessly about not being able to tell the difference between a sheep and an antelope, and since she wants to become a veterinarian, this was quite humorous. So, for the rest of the trip, whenever we saw sheep, we’d say “hey look, antelope”. Once in a while, we’d do it when there really WAS antelope, just to mix it up a bit. We saw Crater Lake this day. It was 33 degrees at the top of the mountain and Crater lake was crisp and beautiful. I started to realize this trip was going to just be dang cold. This was also our Outback Adventure day. After going to Crater Lake, we headed toward Roseburg, OR. We had planned on staying the night there, but couldn’t find a campground that we really wanted to pay that much for, so we decided to keep going to Coos Bay. We picked what looked like a direct route on the map, but ended up being twisty windy roads that actually turned into dirt roads for about 20 miles. We saw some beautiful rainforest type country though, and waterfalls and were really thrilled to get back to civilization and actually see streetlights and mailboxes again. We ended up spending the night in a Best Western hotel in Coos Bay and I was grateful for a real bed, hot breakfast and the kids enjoyed the swimming pool.
Day 4: The kids get to see the Oregon Coast for REAL. We drove to Shore Acres State Park which is a botanical garden. It was Beautiful!! Then the kids and I hiked down a path to Simpson Beach and saw Sea Lions and Seals. On the way, the trail led to a little cove where the kids all raced for the ocean for the first time. They each actually tasted it. We then headed up the coast a bit and stopped along the Oregon Sand Dunes where the kids got to actually get out and play in the surf and start their collections of seashells. I think I’m still finding sand in their clothes from that day. This was the closest to a ‘real beach’ that we got. We headed further up the coast and stopped along lighthouses and other scenic sites along the way. That night we stayed in a beautiful state park with beach access and the kids got to go explore and play some more.
Day 5: More lighthouses! Also the Hatfield Marine Science Center where the kids played with sea urchins, sea anemones, eels, skates and got to do a lot of hands on projects. We arrived in Wheeler, OR at our friend’s property overlooking Nahalem Bay. We were grateful for real beds and for a warm house and TV. Day 6: We did laundry, because we needed it. We also bought salt-water Taffy, went to the Tillamook Cheese factory drove to Cape Meares and did some other ‘touristy’ stuff around the area.
Day 7: We had intended to leave this day for the rest of our trip to Yellowstone and then home, but looked at the forecast and decided that we didn’t want to camp in snow, since we’d just had our fair share of rain. So, we decided to stay at the coast for another day. We drove up into Astoria and across the huge bridge to Washington State and did a bunch of Lewis and Clark stuff. The kids are now ‘sergeants’ in the Junior Ranger Program for Lewis and Clark. I also got to see Cape Disappointment Lighthouse (which is aptly named after the 1.5 mile hike to get to it, although the view was gorgeous) Which brought my total number of lighthouses for the trip to seven. We spent one more night at our friends house and prepared to head back toward home the next day. We intended to just drive through Yellowstone, rather than staying, but this plan soon changed as well.
Day 8: Left our friends house about noon and headed toward Portland with the intent of staying near Lewiston, ID that night and making Bozeman, MT the next. When we got to Lewiston, ID we looked at weather forecasts again. It was raining hard in Lewiston and was miserable, so we got a hotel room and stayed dry. I checked the forecasts again, as well as got information that parts of Yellowstone were closed because of injuries that happened to a tourist and we all decided we were really ready to just get out of the cold weather and go home. I was also worried about my house because of the number of severe storms we’d had while I was gone, and wanted to make sure my house was ok, so I was anxious to get home.
Day 9: A really LONG day of driving. Idaho is really a beautiful place. It’s amazing how they farm across the rolling hills. It was green (from all the freaking rain!) and lush and beautiful. We arrived at Snowville UT (which doesn’t sound very warm, but it was better than we’d hoped and by this time, we’d learned to put ALL your coats and jackets on before going to bed to stay warm.) The RV place we stayed at was small, and smelly, but cheap and we knew we were almost home.
Day 10: Drove across the bottom of Wyoming again (all day) where it actually snowed on us. We didn’t actually thaw out until after we got across the Colorado border and close to Greeley, CO. Then we started feeling warm again and were glad to finally get home.
So, there you have it, the story of our trip. The kids had a lot of fun, I got to see a lot of lighthouses and the dogs survived staying in one crate together the whole time.
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