Leavenattleorianewportland

Welcome to my trip photolog. We had an amazing trip down the West Coast in July.  Countless cool places to visit and things to do.  We fit in as much as we could without over-scheduling ourselves.  We decided what to do as we went along. ;)  Some amazing memories were made.

Stop 1 in our trip: Leavenworth, WA.

A super cool Bavarian town in a breathtaking area of Washington.  Fruit orchards everywhere, green mountains and beautiful rivers.  Pretty spectacular.

Stop 2: Seattle, WA

The Freemont Troll.  He lives under a bridge in the Freemont area of Seattle.  Look in his Left hand.  A VW beattle that he drug over. It is an actual car filled with cement.

The kids on his fingers. :)

Seattle Gum Wall.  We chewed gum for a while before to make sure it was good & sticky to add to the wall.

Sunday brunch @ Salty's on Alki beach.  Insanely good.  SUPER expensive...but insanely good.  It better be for $160!! lol

And our 'annual Pike Street Market Family Self Portrait'. :)  I fixed the direction, but for some reason Blogger won't keep any directional fixes. Just tilt your head to the right for better viewing.

And a beautiful upside down shot of Brian & I overlooking the sound in Seattle.  Stupid Blogger.

Stop 3: Astoria, OR

The town where much of Goonies was filmed. Yep. Couldn't miss it.

The sign @ the base of the driveway/hill where the Goonie house is.  I love that they welcome fans, even if the house is just someone's regular house.  They embrace the coolness that is their house.  It was a part of history! :)

Here it is!! The Goonie house/Walsh's house/GoonDocks.  I remember it being bigger...and the yard being much bigger.

That little sign that you can't read says The Goondocks.

And Data's house is right next door!! They didn't fake that one in the movie.

And downtown Astoria still has the old Clatsop county jail where Jake Fratelli escaped.  Remember the wall of fire...and a getaway in the Jeep.  Now it is a film Museum with a gift shop where we bought Goonies shirts for all the boys.  They didn't have any little girl shirts. :)

The jail cell where Jake Fratelli had a sign on his neck faking his own hanging.  You could just feel the history!!!! lol

Astoria is a very charming town and I love that there were tons of Goonies fans still stopping at all the movie locations.  25+ years later people still can't get enough Goonies.

Stop 4: Newport, OR

Beach time!

Another day of beach time!  We couldn't get enough! But Kimball was the only one brave enough to spend a lot of time in the water.

We of course had to do the buried thing with both boys.

We didn't ONLY spend time @ the beach in Newport. We did other stuff too...like the Oregon aquarium. And we ate out. A lot.

Isn't this guy UGLY??? It is a Giant Japanese Spider Crab.  HUGE.  An average leg span of 15-20 feet. NO THANK YOU. :(  He gives me the willies.

The underground walk through Shark tank.  This guy swam right over my head. :(

Now this is MY kind of sea life. Cute, adorable & friendly Harbor Seals.  This one hung out forever in front of the glass so the kids could "pet" it. It loved the kids rubbing the glass...probably envisioning what it would be like to actually be petted.

Holy cow.  This guy was huge too.  Again with the willies.  I'm not a huge fan of sea life (eating it or seeing it).  They are freaking cool...but really gross. ;)

Look at these cute kids.

And look at this poser.  We didn't tell her to sit like that for the picture. That was all her.  She LOVES having her picture taken.

And then, of course, more beach time.

The Yaquina Head lighthouse salt shaker. ;)

And I LOVE this picture. We have this same pose on this same wall from 2 years ago.  We'll have to make it a tradition now.

Beautiful.  Seriously.

Stop 5:  McMinnville, OR

We went to the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum there to see this:

Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose.  It is massive.  I LOVED going there and learning more about it. And this is not a replica.  It's the actual plane!  It was pretty amazing.  Makes me want to watch the Aviator again...even though I didn't really like it the first time. lol

It is still the largest WOODEN airplane ever built and the largest wingspan of any plane ever built EVER.

And of course we had to spend the extra $25 to be taken on a private secret tour of the cockpit.  Everyone else only gets to see about a 10 foot section of the belly of the plane and you're seeing it behind walls of glass.  We couldn't pass this up! After the guide telling us all about the plane and letting us check out all the dials & gadgets, we got our picture taken.  Brian is in the pilot's seat where Howard Hughes actually sat.  And since I had to settle for the co-pilot seat, I took the hat. ;)  I asked if this was actually Howard Hughes' hat, and he said no.  Then I asked if it was Leonardo DiCaprio's hat from the movie and he said no. Ha Ha.  He told us it was a hat that Disney made when they bought the plane to put on Howard Hughes' wax figure that sat in the cockpit on display.  When they sold the plane, it had to sit in a hanger for years since the new owner couldn't afford to move it.  When they got it out of storage to transport, wax Howard had melted and the hat was sitting on the chair. LOL  I'll just pretend it was the real hat. ;)

Stop 6: Woodburn, OR

Outlet mall stop.  No pictures. But we did get some INSANE deals @ the North Face outlet. ;)

Stop 7: Portland, OR

Portland Zoo! This polar bear was super show-offy. :)

They had a really cool Dino Walk at the zoo.  The dinos were all over the place hiding in the brush. It was pretty cool. They even made "dinosaur" sounds. :) My Rich nephews would have LOVED this.

The T-Rex.  After the fact, I realize we should have done a cool "scared" pose in front of the giant dino.  This is kind of posey and lame. ;)

Isn't that pleasant?

Back to the animals. 2 hippo bums.

And the goat brushing area.

The 3D "thrill" ride inside the zoo. Not that much of a "thrill" but Sloan looked pretty darn cute in those glasses.

So did they.

A freaking awesome food stop in Portland.  The Grilled Cheese Grill.  It's a food truck and all they serve is grilled cheese sandwiches in all their forms.  Any cheese you could think of to slice on bread...they have it.  Brian had the Cheesus: a burger with 2 grilled cheese sandwiches instead of buns.  I had the Hungry Kid: 2 regular grilled cheese sandwiches with fresh tomato soup.  Their menu was really fun.  I liked these: The Kindergartner (classic grilled cheese) and the Preschooler (classic grilled cheese but with the crusts cut off).  So creative!  And this double decker bus was the dining car.

Eating on the top deck.  The table tops had all the staff's old embarrassing school pictures.  I loved it!

Another must-do in Portland: Voodoo doughnuts!

They are the home of the most creative & insane donuts.  My favorite is the one on the bottom right: the voodoo doll.  Yummy chocolate bar with raspberry jelly filling and a pretzel stake. lol  Pictured just to the left of it: the bacon maple bar.  Check out their website to see all their creations.  Super fun.

That about ends our tour of the West Coast.  Definetly a fun road trip and I miss it already.  Re-entry always bites. lol  :)