Day 96: Pacific City Pelicans
We all woke up pretty rested after our parking lot overnight stop. It was going to be a short drive day which, we were all looking forward to. The boys had an awesome morning getting caught up on school work, and Rob was able to get some work done, too.
After the initial crazy fog, the first hour of the drive was smooth sailing, and it was really fun to get off of the main highways for some small town roads again. The last half was a crazy windy, tall, moss-covered trees along a river kind of drive. Absolutely beautiful, but definitely more work. It was also raining continuously, which was quite different than the quick rains we experienced in Florida.
Our luck continued as the RV park was available for early parking after the sun broke out from behind the clouds just as we arrived. Everyone wrapped up their calls, and we hit the beach.
I had talked about the sand dune climb for a while and Nicholas was SO excited to get out there and tackle it himself. It is a 200 foot climb in a quarter of a mile. We did it as a family, and then when we were checking out the tidepools afterward, the boys asked if we could go back up. We said “yes” assuming they would change their minds, but after the tidepools they were adamant, so I joined them while Rob hit the Pelican Brewery for a beer. It is his favorite brewery, and it’s his birthday week, so it only seems fair to give him that awesome relaxing time.
On our second time up we did more climbing around at the top and saw a paraglider. After telling Cooper I had done that, he is pretty sure he needs to try it out too someday. After heading down the second time, both boys were thrilled that they fell less running down the hill this time. Nicholas said he fell only twice instead of five times and Cooper didn’t fall at all the second time down. They were running fast and hard; it is so much fun to do! We headed back to the RV for full hookup warm RV showers and then joined Rob on the patio at the brewery for a 4:30pm dinner.
After sneaking away to recreate a photo from our first family visit here six years ago, we caught the sunset and enjoyed a chilly dinner on the patio (apparently today is the last day the patio is open for the season).
With such an early dinner, we decided to mark the day with another first: a beach bonfire (including s’mores roasting). We had a bonus surprise: the skies were filled with the most stars we have seen this entire trip, thanks to the waning moon. It was so cool to take in the sounds of the waves, crackling fire, and whistle buoy in the quiet night air.
After the first round of s’mores, the water sounded like it was getting closer, and the boys and I started to get restless. The waves never ended up reaching the fire, but what was 200+ feet away when we started got closer to 20 feet away when we were motivated to move our things. After moving our stuff, we were able to settle down again and enjoy standing around the fire.
As we should have expected, it’s impossible for the boys to be at the beach without playing in the sand. Tonight they took to throwing sand on any embers that came out of the fire. They were thrilled when we let them cover up the whole fire in sand when we were ready to head back to the RV.
