To Portland via Tillamook

With Keiko, Amaya, and Rachelle's flight back to Albany from Portland less than 24 hours away, we had quite a trip to make, yet there was a lot of beautiful scenery that we didn't want to miss along the coast. We set our course to continue North on Highway 101 toward Tillamook—almost at the Washington border—where would turn East and sail in to Portland. Since we were in a fancy schmancy RV resort, we decided to take advantage of the pristine shower facilities before shipping off.

Freshy Fresh!

It was pretty slow going up the coast, but it was beautiful, as expected. We stopped at a several coastal state parks along the way, but—not wanting to repeat a Trees-of-Mystery-type experience—skipped the Sea Lion Caves. At the places where we DID stop, Amaya didn't feel like crutching out onto the beach and Rachelle had had enough sight seeing for the trip. Keiko humored me and trekked with me down to the various beaches along our path.

Stumped, Keiko?

This was one of my favorite spots. The island was accessible by foot at low tide. We waded in in the surf for a few minutes and noticed that the water was full of brine shrimp (we call them Sea Monkeys (TM)). 

Tillamook, was a beautiful town/county with rolling hills. I love their cheese...

Our approach to Portland intersected perfectly with rush hour. That was a big shock after so many hours of driving off of the beaten path. We had chosen a campground (Jantzen Beach RV Park) pretty close to the airport because we had to pick up Neb, who was arriving at 7:30 that night, and would need to drop the girls off at 6:00 the next morning. We picked up Neb curbside in the giant RV, which must have been a pretty bizarre sight. We had done some research on an awesome place to have dinner during the last night of our time together and we went there right after we picked Neb up from the airport. The place was called Tasty n Sons, and I've never had a meal where EVERYTHING we tried was jaw-droppingly good. We were a little nervous about leaving the RV parked in a seemingly dodgy neighborhood during a late dinner, but it was still in one piece when we came out of the restaurant at 10:00. The girls were toast by that point and started to melt down. I had done it again. Mission accomplished?