Down the Coast with Amie

Because I'm terrible at remembering all this stuff, I have another random story from Kentucky. For a while we had some boxes against the wall next to our couch, with Z's chair in front of them. It created a nice little spot and Z just loved to hide there. Or just be there - we'd sit there and read books. If we couldn't see him right away, he was probably hiding there.

And a random story from when we drove up to the storage unit in Redding...Bob and J were in the truck while I drove the car with Z and Luke. Z was pretty needy, but anytime Luke would turn around to help him, Z would keep saying "all done." Even if Luke was giving him what he wanted. It was funny. For us anyway, maybe not so much for Zach :).

Anyway, Amie's spring break was the second week we were in Washington. We had originally planned for her to come out to KY for her spring break, but since we weren't there that wouldn't have been as much fun. So we decided that in lieu of that we'd take the scenic route down the coast for a few days and then she'd be able to see Paul and Maggie before flying home.

First things first, we had to hit the Tillamook cheese factory. I remember going there with Mom a lot (really whenever we were near the coast), but Amie had never been (well, didn't remember). It was pretty impressive, and the ice cream is always the best. Z had his first experience with an automatic flush toilet, and that was not the best. Jason had taken him to the bathroom and it kept going off. He's just now over his fear of public toilets - after that we always had to hug him while he was sitting. Something easier said than done as most bathrooms are not so clean!

We spent the night in Tillamook at a Shilo Inn that had the largest pillows I have ever seen for a bed. It was crazy. Literally 3x3 feet. It was intense. Our unofficial motto for the trip was "ah, the intensity of it all!"

In the morning we had breakfast at the Shilo restaurant which was expensive, not so good, and had crappy service. Then we headed to Lincoln City for a little tourist action. Amie didn't remember much from living there, so we drove by one of our old houses. I couldn't find the other one, and we didn't want to spend much time trying to find it as we had a trailer on the car. That's right, we had so much crap that we needed another trailer! And the smallest they had available was a 5x8 box trailer. I really wanted to try to go without, but we would have been crammed. Anyway, we walked along the main drag and got some salt water taffy. Yum! I really wanted to visit Catch the Wind, but I had a really tough time finding it. It appears as though the building it used to be in (years and years ago) is either torn down or completely remodeled and belongs to someone else. On the way out of town (after driving by several times) I saw a Catch the Wind sign in front of one little building, but it didn't look like much - no spinsocks or anything outside. So I don't know what the deal is with that, but it bummed me out. I had also told Amie about a shop that used to exist that had heaps of tie-dye stuff, but it's now a yarn store. Disappointment once again. At least we got our salt water taffy!

We also spent some time on the sand in the middle of town. It was so cold! But Z just LOVED the sand. He was a little wary at first, but then he kept digging his toes and hands in. He even loved to throw it. We had sand everywhere. Everywhere.

Someone's always got to do the "I was here" thing. :) She only did her name, so I had to finish the rest up for her.


Then we drove, drove, drove (a common theme with us lately). We made it to some small town just south of Crescent City about midnight. But the place we stayed at was so cool!! I had researched it on the internet (the interweb, if you will) and I figured for the same price we could get a room or a nice suite. This place had a full on kitchen (though a little small), dining table, bedroom, two couches and even a faux fireplace. It was neat, but the only picture we got came out pretty blurry. It was a bummer we didn't get to enjoy it more, but for the same price I figured it'd be nice to have a room to put Z in, even if we did have to sleep there with him.

The redwoods are just gorgeous, so we did just a wee bit of sight seeing. I had seen this guy driving to our hotel, so we headed back up the highway for a few minutes to check him out in daylight. Apparently Babe had a little problem. I think the story was that the head just fell off, but it seems like a murder weapon remains pretty close...But I overheard they were scheduled for a new head the Monday after we left.


We also wanted to see one of the drive through trees. Bummer that they probably killed it doing so, but we'll hope that it's still alive. From my understanding there are three trees in different locations that you can drive though. I'm pretty sure they're all privately owned and cost money. This one was on the honor system...we just had to drop four bucks in a box on the way up. Seems like that's not always the best system.

But here's us in the tree.

They had a sign that said no trailers, but that didn't stop Jason. It was a pretty tight fit, but it worked out.


Jason was taking these pics of Z running toward him. At first Z thought it was fun, but then after J kept telling him to go back and run over and over again, he got pretty bummed out. Guess he just wanted to play with his daddy!

I'm pretty sure we made it to the Bay area on Friday the 11th (still in April). It was a long drive, and it didn't help that we hit rush hour traffic just outside the city. We were all pretty much done with the car.

When we got taffy in Lincoln City I found Zotz and bought some for Luke. He likes old school candy like that. Problem was, we didn't see Luke for a while and Paul and Maggie like them too. So they had a few. We weren't sure there was going to be any left for Luke, so we took a picture to show him just in case (so you're not left in suspense, all of these actually did make it to Luke's).

Amie reading with Zach. He seemed to warm up to her relatively well.

We didn't have many days with all of us in Cali before Amie went home, but one day we went to an old apartment complex of Paul's and fed the birds. I don't think we're technically supposed to, but other people do it too, so we figured it was alright. As long as we didn't get caught :). They have this neat little pond in the middle of the complex that has birds, fish and turtles.

We've also seen wild turkeys there, as well as geese. And baby geese!

We were surprised at how close the ducks would come.


Amie took lots of pics for us, so here's one of Maggie with her large hat :).

We always seem to get some good shots of Paul and Zach. Z just loves him, and Paul's pretty good with him. They always appear to have the best conversations.

This picture is awesome! One day (no idea when) Paul, Maggie, Z and I went to the little kids' park they have in their neighborhood. Z likes the swings, and even more so since Paul taught him "yippie!" Paul would be facing Z pushing him, but every now and then he'd grab the swing and hold Z before letting him swing back. Maggie thought she'd try it, but from behind. Didn't work out so well as Z slipped forward in the seat, so she joked about not breaking the baby. This picture reminds me of not breaking the baby - his ankle looks like it's in the weirdest position ever! He didn't get hurt though - it just looks pretty crazy.

Everybody climbing on the rock!

Sometimes the shots from behind are the coolest.

And our clan.

Paul and Maggie had some things going on that weekend (it was still their race season), so I took Amie to the Oakland airport all by myself. And I didn't get lost! I've learned that you have to drive fast and brake hard to make it here. And it was the first time Amie got to fly by herself without an escort! I waited for her to get through security and we joked about "stranger danger." She did fine, though.