first vacation of the summer.

For the past week my family and I have been in central Oregon and northern California. We had the greatest time ever, like always, and I'm kind of in post-vacation shock right now. It feels weird to be in my house, driving my car, going to work (even if I did only go in for a half day.) Reality sucks. But my time away from it was a good one. From the trip overall, I learned I need to do the following three things:

1. Kayak more.
2. Move out of Utah.
3. Buy an old-school Schwinn and combine all three.

Here is a quick rundown of the things we saw, did, and ate.

Sunday, June 5.

Derek, Dad, Clara and I left early in the morning for Boise. Mom was already there since she had some properties to visit for work. The drive was relatively uneventful (I know this is shocking to you, since it's western Idaho) EXCEPT that we stopped at Shoshone Falls (the "Niagara of the West," apparently), saw the Twin Falls Temple, and stopped at a gas station that had some crazy alpacas. Yeah, Idk on that last one. Here are some photos from that drive:























































































We arrived in Boise that evening and just chilled in our hotel rooms. I guess you can't beat both a Sister Wives and a Hunt for Sasquatch marathon when you've been trapped in the car all day.

Monday, June 6.

The next morning we geared up for the drive to Oregon. Nothing much to say there...lots of sleeping and a random pit stop--the details of which will remain a family secret til the end of days.


We arrived in Bend, Oregon, in the early evening and stopped at the grocery store to get some food for the week. Derek and I were in charge of dinner the first night (grilled hamburgers, relish tray, watermelon, chips, oh yeah). We got our stuff together and headed to our cabin in Sunriver. I was really surprised to find that the cabin was actually part of a resort, which turned out to be awesome. For some reason I had imagined it as being isolated on some mountainside. Meh.

We arrived at the cabin and immediately everyone was involved in unpacking the truck and completing recon missions to scope out the best room and sleeping area to throw down their stuff.



That night we ate dinner, mom and dad and I went to the small country store to get some necessary caramel popcorn supplies (indeed I did make homemade caramel on a foreign, electric stove. Beat that!), and we watched a couple movies. We were pretty beat after the long drive so we all went to bed.











Tuesday, June 7.

After breakfast, Cara, Mom, Clarence and I went to the community's swimming pool. It was pretty warm in the afternoon, even though the breeze was chilly. It was kind of trippy to be swimming in a pool in the mountains, but trippy can also be synonymous with awesome, such as in this case.



We all got pretty burned, as we found out later that night. We played gin rummy as a family, at which I sucked so bad I might as well have been playing with Go Fish cards. Don't worry, I redeemed myself the next night with an overall score of 140. Yup.

Wednesday, June 8.

Wednesday we had a five-mile hike to Benham Falls. The weather was perfect and the best part was there weren't any crowds, so we were able to enjoy the scenery. That night Derek and I went on an epic bike journey in search of the path to the store. Apparently the family needed ice cream RIGHT NOW so Derek and I threw on our adventure packs and totally came through. 'Cause we do that.




Thursday, June 9.

Our last day in Sunriver we went kayaking on the Deschutes River. It was my first time and I loved it! Derek's already looking into kayaks for us to buy here so we can go on our own. It was fairly easy going, no Class 6 for us at this time, but I think it's only a matter of time...



That night we went to dinner at the lodge restaurant--super fancy and delicious. We walked back to our cabin and had the final round of the week-long rummy tournament. Mom won it all, of course, but that's only because she (a) keeps track through the entire game of who's going for what and everything they discard and (b) has a hidden contraption in her sleeve that allows her to get the card she needs at the last minute. It's easy I guess if you have no qualms victory dancing in your children's faces. Jk mom...you know I'm kidding!

Friday, June 10.

On Friday we packed up and headed out for Crescent City, California. We stopped in Union Creek at Beckie's for lunch and YES you have to stop there if you happen to pass by someday. It was so good. The drive got even more beautiful the farther along we went, getting closer to the coast and redwoods country. I love that area so much. It makes more sense to me than desert-y things do.



We got to Crescent City, checked into our hotel and set out in search of dinner. We landed at the Chart Room, right on the pier, and had a great view of the sun setting over the ocean. The coast is always beautiful.



Saturday, June 11.

Saturday we had a lot of driving and adventuring ahead of us so we got an early start. We drove through Redwoods National Park, which was awe-inspiring, even if it does conjure images of velociraptors jumping out of the trees at any moment to devour your family. Still beautiful. And just...enormous. One of the pictures below is of Clarence standing on the roots of a fallen tree. That's just THE ROOTS, people. We saw so much that day I have a hard time remembering it all, but at some point we ended up at Cafe Nooner in Eureka, California, which was freaking off the charts delicious, before heading over the Willow Creek, home of Bigfoot (over 10,000 sightings in this area alone). After checking out the museum at Willow Creek, we headed to Redding, over to Sacramento, through Tahoe, and sometime around midnight-ish ended up at the Grand Sierra in Nevada. Our hotel room was the nicest I've ever been in and it wasn't long before we were trying to figure out how we could get the beds back home.









Sunday, June 12.

It's a long way home from Reno to Salt Lake when you've already been driving for the better part of two days. Especially that desert, nothing drive where every time you come around a bend, you're pretty sure you've been on that stretch of road. Twice. For hours. Luckily I had my Sherlock Holmes to read. But eventually we made it home late last night. It was a great trip and I only wish I had time to upload all of the pictures we took between all of our cameras. On to the next!

Did I mention my family is the greatest?