Coast Trip

Let this picture go down in the annals of Barnhart Family History as yet another one where no one can look at the camera at the same time.  I've quite honestly given up hope.

We started the day off at the Tillamook Cheese Factory.  Foolish me, I thought for sure that on a non-holiday Monday, it wouldn't be terribly crowded.  Not.  I think every tourist of Asian, Russian and Norwegian descent was there, all at the same time.  I managed to snap off one shot, which turned out completely blurry, and I didn't feel like I could retake it because of the line of people waiting to pose their kids on the cow....  So this is what we have of the Cheese Factory:

In case you were wondering what their hours are, here's my PSA.  You're welcome.

Our next stop, Cape Mears lighthouse.  We checked out the Octopus Tree, which was pretty cool, and then Jake and I got to tour the inside of the actual lighthouse.

We went to the Aircraft Museum, with the intent of taking a tour.  Then I saw that it would cost $55 just to get in the door, so we said no thank you.  That's a a lot of money, just to look at stuff.  I did take some cool pictures from the road though.

We headed into Lincoln City about 3:00, and these 3 were already tuckered out...

Lincoln City, Mo's beachfront.

Camping

I don't do spur-of-the-moment well.

I am a planner, and a bit of a control freak, and just flying by the seat of my pants makes me a little squeamish.  So, when my hubs called from work a few Saturdays ago and said "Hey lets go camping tonight!" (meaning in about 4 hours) I started throwing out every road block I could come up with. Finally I relented, because dang it we haven't been camping in forever and he just wanted to go so bad.

It was worth it:

The property belongs to a friend of Brian's from work, and sits just outside of Philomath.  It's a huge open area, with a creek about 30 yards from our tent, plenty of tables, a rope swing, volleyball net and horseshoe pits.  It was quiet and secluded, and we spent 24 hours feeling like we were almost the only people on the earth.

 The creek was great for wading, and was the perfect hunting ground for boys looking for crawdads.

We forgot the air pump at home, and my sweet hubby sat and blew up our queen size air mattress, one puff at a time.

 The weather was so gorgeous, we left the rainfly off the tent and slept under the stars.