Our roadtrip continued along the Oregon coast, specifically the Lincoln City area.  

We met up with our daughter and grandson at Devil’s Punchbowl, a state natural area.

Looking the other direction, we saw the beautiful coastline.

We found our rental home and waited for my mother, aunt and cousins to join us.  There were nine people and two dogs.   The house was in a great location but was just adequate in other ways.

We could see one of Oregon’s Haystack Rocks.  This rock is larger than the other Haystack Rock near Cannon Beach.  However, the rock near Cannon Beach is closer to land so appears larger.  I learned there is actually a third Haystack Rock on the Oregon Coast, that one near Bandon in southern Oregon.  

We had an enjoyable week of visiting, eating, card playing, and foosball tournaments. There was one attempt at crabbing. It fulfilled our grandson’s desire to catch and eat a crab but that was the only one and it was missing some legs!

Additional activities included going on the Oregon Coast Scenic Railway.

My mother, Beverly and our daughter, Natasha, enjoyed the trip.

We passed by Pronto-Pup in Rockaway Beach, birthplace of the pronto-pup and home of the giant corn-dog.

Natasha enjoying the view!

The view was lovely!

Randy stayed home, babysitting the pups, Boyd and Paris.

Randy and our grandson flew a kite.

Cousins Lisa and Kylee and Natasha enjoyed a beach fire.  

I enjoyed cuddling with grand-dog Boyd.  I loved spending time with pretty girl Paris too, but she is a bit big for lap cuddling.

Natasha went in the cold Pacific Ocean most days.  I think she was the only one who did it more than once! It was a delightful week with family but soon it was time to go.  

Beverly, Natasha and our grandson had never been to the Evergreen Museum in McMinnville.  It is the home of the Spruce Goose.  Randy and I spent a couple of days there in early 2016 during our RVing days.   I wrote a blog post about that visit called The Flying Boat and Flying Fortress.  Click the link if you’d like to read a fairly extensive review of our visit to the museum.

This time, mom and I enjoyed a docent tour.  It was very well done.

Natasha and our grandson did their own thing, actually getting to go inside the cockpit of the Spruce Goose.

Randy and Boyd explored the planes outside as it was way too warm for Boyd to stay in the car.  

Following our visit of several hours, Randy and I took mom home to Vancouver while Natasha and our grandson went to Multnomah Falls.  Did you know Multnomah Falls has a timed entry system during the summer?  It was a good thing mom knew about it or they probably wouldn’t have been able to get in.

Randy and I stayed a night at Natasha’s in Boise and met our new grand-cat Lily!

Boyd and Lily were glad to be reunited!

We were able to see a few friends and accomplish a couple things on our short visit to Boise.  We enjoyed seeing Darrell and Cindy but didn’t take a picture.

The next morning, I was at the jewelry store for an annual check on my ring and earrings.  It is just something I always need to be aware of when traveling to Vancouver or Boise.  At least it is now annual and not every six months!

At the same time, Randy was buying a case of our favorite Idaho wine – Ste. Chapelle’s Soft Red.

We enjoyed a visit with our friend and former neighbor, Karen.

It was easy to drive by our old house.  The same owners are there since purchasing from us in 2014.  They keep it looking very nice.

We went to lunch with Debbie and Bryan at the only restaurant we ALWAYS go to when we are back in Boise.  That is Dong Khanh and we always get spicy beef!

After a busy 24 hours in Boise, we started the drive back to Phoenix.  We left about 2:00 pm intending to stop somewhere when we got tired.  We drove through Utah instead of Nevada so we’d have more options.  We ended up driving all the way through Utah and were still doing fine as we passed through Las Vegas.

Unfortunately when we did get tired nearing Kingman, AZ, it was past midnight and there were no hotel rooms available.  We kind of slept for an hour in the car at a truck stop. It was too hot to have the windows up and too creepy to have them down. We gave up and  Randy drove the rest of the way home. We arrived about 5:00 am and went straight to bed!

It was a great summer road trip and, as always, it was nice to be home.