our trip to oregon - day 4

shortly after midnight (which qualifies as day 4) we arrived at a campsite that was not full (unlike the other 5 or so we'd already tried). :) we set up our tent. the light of the moon was not quite enough in the dense forest, so we used our headlights. the kids were not really aware of what was going on, but they woke up in sleeping bags in a tent!

in the morning ky asked - "are we going to oregon?" - for the hundredth time and i got to say, "we're in oregon!"

i cleaned up camp while the kids & daddy went on an exploratory hike up to the top of a huge sandy hill right behind our campsite. it was the beginning of the oregon coast sand dunes! scott took some photos with his phone. it's amazing and beautiful!

i stayed back and broke camp. we had breakfast when everyone came back then ONCE AGAIN we started up the 101.

this time we headed toward sand lake, but we weren't positive of the directions (too much technology - 2 gps's & google maps - can be a bad thing) so we just continued on to tillamook to visit the cheese factory and have lunch. on the way my cell phone died so, at the factory, when we got separated (in a pretty small area - it's a cheese factory, not disneyland) we spent a good hour trying to find each other. normally we'd just call each other and voila! - problem solved. but this time it was different. in my plan, my husband remained still. since he was the one who walked away ( to take one child to the bathroom), when he came back and i was missing (taking another child to the bathroom), i thought he'd wait there for me. but i should have known this would not happen since he has a history of wandering around and enjoying the sites while lost (ex: at disneyland when he was 6). SO... you'd think after the first time this happened i'd learn, but i did not, so we repeated the scenario less than an hour later! what a crazy trip - over 3 hours at a cheese factory! who knew you could spend so long there! at least we were still in good spirits when we left. :)

to top it off, we stopped at some random gas station on the way to tillamook and bought new batteries for my camera. i took 7 photos and the batteries were dead! ughh. i was so annoyed. consequently, less photos. :(

we did drive over to sand lake afterward to see the broncos (no photos). there were MANY broncos, but we couldn't go out on the dunes where most of them were because my mini-van (despite many tries) does not offroad!

we finished off the day DRIVING! surprise, surprise. (seriously, our kids were amazing on this trip since we spent - in 4 1/2 days - 25+ hours in the car! )

we ate dinner in the state capital of salem. then drove a short distance to eugene to spend the night at aunt marlene's home.