After not seeing my brother and his wife for close to 3 years due to COVID, we planned a big family vacation out west on their turf. My parents flew out on Friday the 15th so that my dad could go with my brother to his autocross race on Saturday. Scott, the boys, and I flew out on Saturday the 16th and landed mid-morning Portland time. My mom picked us up from the airport in her rental minivan and we went to Eric and Ana's house to pick up Ana and park the car. From there we walked to Mt. Hood Brewing Company that was right by the train tracks and had cute train cars you could eat in. We got pizza, cheesy bread, salad, and beers that were all delicious. And then we were off to OSMI for a few hours.
OSMI is the science museum in Portland that's walking distance from Eric and Ana's place. We spent some time in various sections, but the favorite this time was the ground floor with lots of hands on experiments. We also got tickets to go inside the submarine again (Sean was 3 last time and Evan was too young to go in it).
At this point we were pretty tired from traveling all day, a time change, and being at a museum. We went to our hotel to check in and rest. We were supposed to go to dinner with the whole family at 7pm, but we made a decision to just stay at the hotel, get settled, let the kids swim and grab carry out for dinner. Scott and I walked a ways to find some food trucks to bring food back for the boys and it was an early night to bed.
Sunday morning we needed to be up and ready to go over to my brother's. He was making breakfast for everyone and also needed us to bring all our camping gear so we could park the cars. He served bananas foster french toast and yummy bacon. It was "Christmas in July" as my brother and Ana passed out gifts for everyone like camping towels, knives, and shirts. It took a bit to pack up the cars, but we were able to get everything in with ease. While others got ready for the day, Scott and I took the boys down to the riverfront by Eric and Ana's place to explore a bit. We got some Blue Star Donuts too.
Once everyone was ready, we headed out for the day on the street car. We walked around downtown Portland and made our way to Punchbowl Social - a fun bar/restaurant full of arcade games, bowling, table tennis, and more. We opted to bowl for an hour and buy videogame cards. We had some appetizers and drinks. It was a lot of fun!
We then moved on to Breakside Brewery for dinner and finally on to the Timbers game. The game was a lot of fun and they ended up in a tie with Vancouver. The boys got to see the Timbers score on a penalty kick and the energy at the game was electric!
Monday morning rolled around quickly and we checked out of the hotel and brought our remaining luggage over to my brother's. We hit the road around 9am, grabbed McDonald's outside of Portland, and continued the long drive to Olympic. We made another stop at Lake Quinalt to get out and stretch and take in all the scenery.
Our last stop was in Forks, Washington (where Twilight was set to take place even though it was technically filmed in Port Angeles). We got gas in the van, grabbed Subway for a late lunch, and headed to Rialto Beach for our first leg of camping. This was the night we had to backpack out to find a campsite. There are no official sites. You get a permit and just find a spot you want to call home. It was about a mile long hike in the sand, rocks, and high tide, but we found a spot within 30 minutes of hiking. We set up our tents, found driftwood to make a fire, and Eric took the boys to the stream nearby to filter drinking and cooking water.
Once we had water and the fire going we were able to make our freeze dried foods for dinner. We were pleasantly surprised with how tasty they were. The boys split chicken and noodles and wished we had more! Scott and I shared some chicken teriyaki and rice and some beef stroganoff. My brother even brought freeze dried desserts! We cleaned up the dinner dishes and the boys played by the water. There was so much kelp washed ashore and lots of good skipping rocks. We even saw some sea lions playing by the shore! The sunset was amazing and we were all ready for bed after an eventful day.
The next morning our breakfast consisted of coffee, hot tea, oatmeal, and various granola/protein bars. The kids had some noodle soup. We flew our kite and rolled up sleeping bags and pads in preparation for moving to the next campsite later in the day. We walked a bit down the beach to "Hole in the Wall" for low tide to see the tide pools and they did not disappoint. We saw lots of anemones, starfish, and mussels.
We walked back to our campsite, packed everything up, and hiked back to the car. We were ready to grab lunch in Forks before heading to our next campsite at Hoh Rainforest!
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