4 Radical Roadschoolers and a Fat Cat

Two Amazing Days in Victoria Canada

Posted on October 7, 2017 by Heather Gebbia

When we were parked in Port Angeles, WA we were right near the Black Ball Ferry Line that goes to Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. It’s much cheaper to walk on the ferry than drive on, so that’s what we did. We headed out bright and early, packed with a couple of overnight bags and walked on the ferry to sail across the Strait of Juan de Fuca and enjoy a super fun couple of days in Victoria.

Grampa and his boys waiting to set sail.

We’re on our way!

Arriving into the port at Victoria

Watching sea planes take off.

Victoria is a very pedestrian-friendly town where it was easy for us to get around without having a vehicle. And Chris sure was glad he didn’t have to drive the big truck for a couple of days! Our first order of business was to walk a couple of blocks to our hotel to drop off our luggage. Then we headed out to catch a bus to our first destination, the Butchart Gardens. On the way to the bus I just couldn’t get over the lovely architecture of this beautiful city!

Parliament Building

The Empress Hotel

Our bus driver informed us that we could enjoy afternoon tea at The Empress for a mere $75/person. Oh my, I think we’ll pass. Besides I don’t even like tea.

So it was on to the lovely Butchart Gardens.

I hope I didn’t bore you with too many flower pictures. They were all just so pretty it was hard to decide which pictures to use!

Later that evening we walked down to the Fisherman’s Wharf to eat dinner. All of the shops and restaurants in this area were literally floating!

Fisherman’s Wharf

Even the homes float! It was really fun to walk around and check out the charming little floating homes.

Chris may or may not have wanted to get this for the grands. 😉 Just kidding, Mom and Dad!

We spent the night at the Royal Scot Hotel which had very nice large suites and an indoor pool and hot tub. That hot tub was wonderful after all the walking we did that day!

The next day we rode the hop-on-hop-off Big Bus Victoria all over the city, getting off the bus at times to explore.

One of the stops was in Chinatown.

Fan Tan Alley in Chinatown is the narrowest street in Canada.

Another quick stop to see this view of the bay.

We even stopped to see a castle!

Craigdarroch Castle

After our bus tour we shopped for t-shirts and souvenirs, had dinner and then it was time to go catch the ferry back to Port Angeles.

View from the ferry dock.

Then we sailed off into the sunset, literally. We enjoyed a spectacular sunset on our way back across to Washington, and then later a full moon!

Oh my goodness, we had such an amazing time in Victoria! And I just have to thank my Dad for doing the trip planning for this part of their trip to see us. He arranged the ferry tickets, hotel rooms, and trip to Butchart Gardens. It was so nice for someone else to take care of the plans for a change since I spend so much time all year long trip-planning. I don’t mind really, but it is a lot of work! So, thank you Dad! I love you!

Categories: Washington | Tags: big bus victoria, black ball ferry line, british columbia, butchart gardens, canada, ditching suburbia, fan tan alley, full time rv'ing, fulltime families, port angeles, rv travel with kids, strait of juan de fuca, victoria, Washington | 4 Comments

Olympic National Park

Posted on October 1, 2017 by Heather Gebbia

After 10 wonderful weeks in Oregon we moved on to Washington where my parents would be joining us for a couple of weeks. Our first stop in WA was Port Angeles in the Olympic Peninsula. My parents flew into Seattle which was about 3 hours away but the closest airport for them to fly into. We had a fun day of planes, trains & automobiles (and ferries too!) when we went to pick them up. I will write a separate post about Seattle later.

While we were in Port Angeles we visited Olympic National Park. This park is huge and takes up most of the northwestern part of the state. It includes mountains, lakes, the ocean and even a rain forest!

Port Angeles is near the Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center so our first adventure at Olympic was hiking up to Hurricane Ridge. The views were spectacular! We were blessed with a beautiful, clear day and could see Victoria, British Columbia across the water where we went the next day. Stay tuned for a post about that amazing city.

After the strenuous climb it was time for a snack break!

Later that week we went to visit some other areas of Olympic that were close to Port Angeles including Marymere Falls and Lake Crescent.

Marymere Falls

Lake Crescent

It was quite smoky in the area that day due to wildfires in the northwest so it’s hard to get a good idea of just how clear this lake is. Standing over the edge of the dock the water was so clear you could see straight down to the bottom which was probably over 8 feet deep at that point, but it was really hard to tell.

We took an overnight trip over to the town of Forks, WA where the Twilight novels were based. This is the western side of Olympic but quite a drive from Port Angeles which is why we decided to spend the night instead of driving back and forth 2 days in a row.

Our first stop on this side of the park was the amazing Hoh Rain Forest. Near constant fog and mist in addition to 12 to 14 feet of rain each year result in this lush rain forest which has been designated one of the 7 wonders of Washington state.

Hall of Mosses

The boys earned their Junior Ranger badges at the Hoh Rain Forest Visitor Center.

Next we headed over to Ruby Beach which was beautiful and so much fun!

I love looking for colorful sea creatures in the tide pools, but I didn’t find any here, probably because the tide was coming back in.

Jake decided to build a raft out of driftwood and float down the waterways. Jesse decided to join him. I nicknamed them Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. 🙂

Grampa liked skipping rocks.

The next morning we woke up to a rainy day. I know that is not uncommon for the Pacific Northwest, but we had been very blessed with mostly beautiful days for the entire summer. Anyway, we weren’t going to let a little rain keep us from searching the early morning low tide pools at Rialto Beach.

At first it was just a little drizzle and fog, not too bad as we hiked to Hole-in-the-Wall and Split Rock.

Split Rock

The rain picked up and we all got soaked, not to mention we were freezing! I don’t know about the rest of my people, but for me it was worth it. I saw the most beautiful and colorful starfish there. These were the best tide pools I saw in all of our time in the PNW!

I had been searching for a purple sea urchin for weeks and never did find one, but I did see this beautiful purple starfish which was good enough for me.

We saw lots of these green sea anemones everywhere!

Chris and Jesse hung in there with me for a while longer after Gramma, Grampa and Jake decided they had enough of the cold and rain and headed back to the truck.

Jesse collected lots of rocks.

We made it to Hole-in-the-Wall, looking just a little bit like drowned rats and feeling just a little bit cold!

Hole-in-the-Wall

It was worth it to me at least. Look at this wonderland of tide pools just waiting to be explored! I could have stayed here all day if we weren’t wet and freezing.

After this we walked/ran as quickly as we could back to some dry clothes and a warm truck. We had planned to go up to Cape Flattery next, the northwestern most point in the lower 48 states, but since the weather wasn’t cooperating we headed back to our cozy little home back in Port Angeles.

Up next… 2 beautiful days in Victoria, Canada.

Categories: National Parks, Washington | Tags: ditching suburbia, forks, full time rv'ing, fulltime families, hoh rain forest, hole-in-the-wall, hurricane ridge, junior ranger, lake crescent, marymere falls, olympic national park, olympic peninsula, pacific northwest, pnw, port angeles, rialto beach, ruby beach, rv travel with kids, tide pools, Washington | 4 Comments

Cape Disappointment was NOT Disappointing

Posted on September 24, 2017 by Heather Gebbia

Cape Disappointment – what an unfortunate name for such a beautiful place! On July 6, 1788 explorer John Meares named Cape Disappointment because of his disappointment about not finding the Columbia River. Ironically Cape Disappointment is on the northern side of the mouth of the Columbia River.

We visited Cape Disappointment when we stayed at Fort Stevens in Oregon. Cape Disappointment is actually in Washington, but Fort Stevens was the closest we would be to it so we crossed over into Washington before actually “moving” there with our house.

Astoria-Megler Bridge to Washington

Don’t worry, I was not driving while taking this picture. We were actually stopped for one lane traffic due to road work on the bridge.

This park has 2 lighthouses! The Cape Disappointment Lighthouse was built in 1856 to watch over the entrance to the Columbia River.

Cape Disappointment Lighthouse

View of Visitor Center from lighthouse

The Cape Disappointment Lighthouse came into view too far south to warn ships approaching from the north so a 2nd lighthouse (North Head Lighthouse) was built in 1898. This is the only location on the west coast with 2 lighthouses within 2 miles of each other.

North Head Lighthouse

North Head Lighthouse is under construction while Washington State Parks restore it to its original 1898 look.

We learned a lot about lighthouses while visiting the Oregon coast and later the Washington coast. Each lighthouse has its own unique signature or light pattern so ship captains can verify their location. The North Head lighthouse’s signature is 2 white flashes of light every 30 seconds. Yaquina Head Lighthouse that we toured a few weeks earlier in Oregon had a pattern of 2 seconds on, 2 seconds off, 2 seconds on, 14 seconds off. I thought it was very interesting how each lighthouse is unique and how ship captains use these signatures for navigation. I’m sure this was especially useful before the GPS was invented.

The Visitor Center had a lot of interesting information about how lighthouses work and also a lot of cool Coast Guard exhibits.

While we walked between the lighthouse and the visitor center we found a lovely little cove nestled between the cliffs. It was so warm there being sheltered from the wind so we spent a long time just enjoying the beach here.

Cute little driftwood forts were built on the beach too!

Mr. Meares probably had no idea that the “disappointment” name would last for over 2 centuries, and I wonder if he ever found out that he really was so close to the Columbia River. I would definitely not call this place disappointing. 🙂

Categories: Washington | Tags: cape disappointment, ditching suburbia, full time rv'ing, fulltime families, john meares, lighthouse, north head lighthouse, rv travel with kids, Washington | Leave a comment

Two Forts in Astoria, Oregon

Posted on September 24, 2017 by Heather Gebbia

We spent a total of 10 amazing weeks in my new favorite state of Oregon this summer, and we saved the best state park for last. Fort Stevens State Park is in the northwest corner of Oregon near the beautiful city of Astoria. This was my favorite state park we stayed at in Oregon. It was huge and so many of the sites have some trees and privacy. But the best part of the park was the miles of paved bike trails and historical places to visit.

Awesome paved bike trails!

Roadschooling one day consisted of touring the fort and a shipwreck on the beach. Fort Stevens was in service from the Civil War to World War II and guarded the mouth of the Columbia River.

The Peter Iredale ship ran ashore in 1906 and the wreckage is now a tourist attraction on the beach at Fort Stevens. The boys loved climbing on this shipwreck.

Peter Iredale shipwreck

The northern tip of the state park has beautiful views of the Pacific and the mouth of the Columbia River. You can also see the state of Washington across the river as well as the city of Astoria.

One of the lookout points at Fort Stevens

Early in our Oregon travels we met a family back in Chiloquin that we have met up with at a couple of different places since then, one of them was Fort Stevens. We had a great time with them touring another fort (Fort Clatsop) and Astoria.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition camped at Fort Clatsop during the winter of 1805-1806.

The boys earned new Junior Ranger badges with their friends.

After touring Fort Clatsop we explored the beautiful city of Astoria and had lunch at Mo’s. How is it we did not eat at Mo’s until the day before we left Oregon? There are several of them along the Oregon coast and they have the best clam chowder. Next time we’re in Oregon we’ll have to go there again.

We climbed the 164 steps to the top of the Astoria Column where we were rewarded with gorgeous view of the Columbia River and the Astoria-Megler Bridge that goes to Washington.

Astoria Column

The kids enjoyed running and rolling down the hill outside of the column.

It was a bittersweet day knowing it was our last day on the Oregon Coast. I thoroughly enjoyed our time exploring that part of this amazing country. I really hope to return again someday.

Categories: National Parks, Oregon | Tags: astoria, astoria column, ditching suburbia, fort clatsop, fort stevens state park, full time rv'ing, fulltime families, junior ranger, lewis and clark, oregon coast, peter iredale shipwreck, rv travel with kids | 3 Comments

Cannon Beach and Nehalem Bay

Posted on September 17, 2017 by Heather Gebbia

If you are old enough to remember any movies from the 1980s you may remember the Goonies movie. Some scenes from that movie were filmed at Haystock Rock in Cannon Beach. This is an enormous rock surrounded by beautiful tide pools at low tide.

The first time we went there the tide was coming back in so we didn’t get to see many tide pools, so we went back again to try to time the tide right and ended up being able to see a beautiful starfish and some sea anemones.

It was foggy the second time we went, giving Haystack Rock an even more mysterious appearance.

Just a few miles down the road from Haystack Rock is Hug Point, another really cool place to visit on the Oregon coast with caves and tide pools to explore.

And yet another beautiful spot to visit in Cannon Beach is Ecola State Park. Amazing views from this park! There is no shortage of beautiful places to visit along the Oregon coast.

We stayed at Nehalem Bay State Park while in this area. This was a really nice park that included a paved bike trail which I loved. The park is in between the bay and the ocean. The beach side was usually very cold and windy, but beautiful to see. We didn’t spend a lot of time on the beach side because it was freezing!

The bay side was much warmer and during low tide there was plenty of room for Chris & Jesse to play baseball.

We were there during the week of the big solar eclipse. This park was at 98.8% totality which I mistakenly thought was close enough. I was wrong! Although what we saw was cool, it wasn’t nearly as awesome as what my friends in totality saw. Note to self: next time get to totality!

One other thing we did in this area was at the suggestion of my always thoughtful husband. He suggested I take the kids for a train ride on the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad between Rockaway Beach and Garibaldi. This was such a treat!

I am so thankful to God for these amazing experiences with my family. Making memories, that’s what it’s all about.

Categories: Oregon | Tags: cannon beach, ditching suburbia, ecola state park, full time rv'ing, fulltime families, goonies movie, haystack rock, hug point, nehalem bay state park, Oregon, oregon coast, oregon coast scenic railroad, rockaway beach, rv travel with kids | 4 Comments

Two Capes and a Cheese Factory

Posted on September 17, 2017 by Heather Gebbia

I am starting to get very behind on this blog and hope to catch up over the next few weeks. We have been really busy the past 2 weeks with my parents visiting us in Washington state, but before I can post about that I want to finish writing about the rest of the places we visited in Oregon.

After leaving Newport, OR we headed up to Tillamook — home to the famous Tillamook Cheese Factory. I was excited to take this factory tour as I have seen other Fulltime Families post about visiting this place. Unfortunately the factory tours were not available while we were there because they are in the process of building a new visitor center. In the meantime they have a temporary visitor center set up where you can still go and sample cheese and view the few displays that are set up. It’s still not the same as touring the actual factory so I hope to return to the area someday and try again.

Sampling cheese

Yummy ice cream!

While in the Tillamook area we stayed at Cape Lookout State Park. This park is right on the ocean and we watched some spectacular sunsets from there. It wasn’t a very big rig friendly park though, we barely fit in the site. We also felt a little uncomfortable being surrounded by tents and smaller RVs. People kept walking by our site and commenting about how big our RV is and wondering out loud why we would need something that big for camping. Meanwhile we were inside working or doing school hearing these conversations right outside the window, wishing we had a big sign up to let people know we are not camping, this is our house that we happen to take with us everywhere we go. I also heard people wondering out loud why we would take a cat camping. Yes, we felt like quite the spectacle at this place and were happy to leave there and move on to somewhere else where we fit in a little better.

This is a picture of our site. The pathway right next to us goes to the restroom so people had to walk by us often. Also, notice the sink waste disposal in our “yard”? That is where all the tent campers had to come to wash their dishes. It was awkward for them and us because they felt uncomfortable having to walk right into our site to wash their dishes. I made the best of it though while I was sitting outside and struck up conversations with everyone that was willing to talk to me. I actually met some very nice people that way!

It was during our stay there that Chris & I started considering that maybe we should downsize. We thought downsizing from a 2000 sq ft house to a 400 sq ft RV was good, but we could fit better at state parks if we were even smaller. Of course as soon as our kids heard us discussing this they immediately objected by letting us know how much they love their big bedroom. 😉 They love our home on wheels and to be honest, so do I.

Anyway, other than feeling like circus clowns at this park, we really loved the beach which was a short walk from our site where we enjoyed some gorgeous sunsets!

And while we were at Cape Lookout we drove a few miles over to Cape Meares to check out another beautiful area along the Oregon coast.

Octopus Tree

Cape Meares Lighthouse

Categories: Oregon | Tags: cape lookout state park, cape meares lighthouse, ditching suburbia, full time rv'ing, fulltime families, Oregon, oregon coast, rv travel with kids, tillamook, tillamook cheese factory | 2 Comments

Cape Perpetua and Seal Rock

Posted on August 27, 2017 by Heather Gebbia

This post wraps up the remainder of the places we visited while in the Newport area. If you missed the post about the lighthouses you can see it here: Yaquina and Heceta Head Lighthouses.

Cape Perpetua is best visited during high tide, while Seal Rock is best visited during low tide. I’m thankful for Trip Advisor where I find all of these useful tips!

Cape Perpetua

This park has some amazing displays of the Pacific during high tide. Sometimes pictures just do not do it justice and a video is a better representation, so I uploaded a couple of videos that I hope will display properly here.

The first one is Thor’s Well. This is a deep hole that fills and empties continuously during high tide. It’s really cool!

The second one shows the powerful surf crashing against the rocks and getting the camera operator (me!) wet. By the way, that’s not me yelling in the background; it’s some random stranger. 😉

We started the day driving up to the scenic viewpoint since we couldn’t find any parking at the Thor’s Well area. It was worth it for this view!

When we went back down to the parking lot we were able to find a spot, so we got out and explored the Thor’s Well area with all the incredible displays that happen twice a day at high tide.

Thor’s Well

The boys liked catching tadpoles in the tide pools.

Then we took the scenic walk over to the other section of the park to see the Devil’s Churn.

A little Peace and Love for the walk.

The Devil’s Churn is an area where the surf comes in and fills up this little inlet. By the time we got there the tide was not at the high point anymore so we didn’t see quite the display we saw at Thor’s Well, but still cool nonetheless.

Devil’s Churn

We even saw whales from here! It’s very hard to get a good picture of one, but can you see the spray out there? The grey spot under it is a whale and the spray was where it just spouted.

Seal Rock State Park

Seal Rock is best visited during low tide for the beautiful tide pools. Jake and I love searching all the tide pools for colorful sea creatures, while Chris and Jesse play ball on the beach.

Seal Rock

During our 3 weeks in Newport we had 9 straight days of cloudy, foggy and drizzly weather. It was also very cold for August! I can’t complain because other than those 9 days we had beautiful weather the rest of the time we spent in Oregon (a total of 10 weeks). But I can certainly understand how some people that live in dreary weather for extended periods of time can experience Seasonal Affective Disorder and depression. I was really glad when the sun finally came out when we moved on to our next stop at Cape Lookout which I will write about next time. Cheers to sunny skies!

Categories: Oregon | Tags: cape perpetua, devil's churn, ditching suburbia, full time rv'ing, fulltime families, newport, Oregon, rv travel with kids, seal rock state park, thor's well, tide pools | 7 Comments

Yaquina and Heceta Head Lighthouses

Posted on August 25, 2017 by Heather Gebbia

Oregon Coast lighthouses are incredible! Just before we came to Oregon I heard from the Road Trip Teacher about a lapbook/notebook study she has available about the Oregon Coast lighthouses. My kids did the entire study on all of the lighthouses in Oregon. We learned so much about the history of these lighthouses before even visiting them which made our visits that much more interesting.

This post covers 2 of the lighthouses we visited while in the Newport area.

Yaquina Head Lighthouse was our favorite and it is also the tallest lighthouse in Oregon. We were able to tour the inside which made it even better.

The tours are free, but if you go on a weekend (or possibly even a weekday in the summer) it’s not likely you’ll get a spot. We reserved a tour ahead of time online and when we showed up on a Saturday they did not have any spots left for anyone that had not reserved online. It costs $1.50/person to reserve online and I thought that was reasonable since we were planning to visit on a Saturday in the summer and it was nice to know we had a spot.

Anyway, the lighthouse tour was great! The tour guide explained the history of the lighthouse and its keepers. She explained about the oil they used and how much they needed at various times of the year depending on how much daylight there was at that time of the year. We were able to walk up to the top of the lighthouse and see the light going on and off.

It was incredible!

Outside of the lighthouse the views were gorgeous!

Just outside the lighthouse was a fabulous place for tide pools during low tide!

Yaquina Head is part of the National Park service so the kids were able to earn another Junior Ranger badge there.

After the lighthouse we drove up the coast a little further to Otter Crest Loop in Depoe Bay. We saw whales in Depoe Bay, but unfortunately no pictures of them.

Otter Crest

Dungeness crab trying to survive in the tide pool until the tide comes back in.

Otter Crest

Depoe Bay, Oregon

At Otter Crest we checked out the devil’s punchbowl which is a large rock hole that water from the Pacific fills in at high tide and goes out at low tide. It was really cool! We were there at low tide when it was nearly empty, but went back again on a different day at high tide.

Devil’s Punchbowl at low tide.

I was expecting to see it full at high tide, but it was not much higher than what we saw at low tide.

Devil’s Punchbowl at high tide.

We went to visit Heceta Head lighthouse on a different weekend. Like all Oregon lighthouses it was quite beautiful also.

These are some pictures of the surrounding ocean views from the lighthouse.

Oh my goodness, I could never get enough of the beauty of the Oregon coast! We visited some other lighthouses along the way, so stay tuned.

Categories: Oregon | Tags: depoe bay, devils punchbowl, ditching suburbia, full time rv'ing, fulltime families, heceta head lighthouse, junior ranger, newport, Oregon, oregon coast, oregon coast lighthouses, rv travel with kids, tide pools, yaquina head lighthouse | 6 Comments

Newport, Oregon and South Beach State Park

Posted on August 20, 2017 by Heather Gebbia

We spent 3 weeks in the Newport area where there is tons of stuff to do. I continue to be amazed by the beauty of the Oregon coast and the abundance of awesome things to see and do. This post will only cover the first week.

During our first week we stayed at South Beach State Park. I’ll admit this was not one of our favorite state parks because it was very crowded and noisy. Our site was on the corner of the main road into and out of the campground so there was constant activity right outside the door meaning we had zero privacy while sitting outside.

The thing this park had going for it though was the location. The beach was only a short 1/4 mile walk down a trail from the campground, and there were very nice paved bike trails.

One evening I checked out the bike trail that goes all the way to the Port of Newport fishing pier just under the beautiful Yaquina Bay Bridge.

Another evening I got my people to join me on this bike ride and we stopped at the Rogue Brewery for dinner and a tour of the brewery. The tour was really interesting and the kids got to try out some root beer while Chris & I got to try the real stuff.

The tour guide was very enthusiastic about his job and made the tour very enjoyable. I thought it was cool how they make these barrels.

Barrel making

Finished product

Part of the tour included a ride on this little train to go to different buildings. This was especially fun for the kids.

Riding our bikes back home into the sunset was such a treat!

The Hatfield Marine Science Center is also near the brewery which we went to on a different day. This is a small science center that is part of Oregon State University and it’s free to get in.

There was a beautiful display of sea creatures that you can sometimes find in the tide pools in the area. We learned about how you can touch the sea urchins and anemones and the spines will clamp around your finger. It doesn’t hurt, just feels funny.

Fat Cat had an adventure while we were at South Beach. We decided to take her to the beach one night to watch the sunset. Yeah I know, cats are not fans of going to the beach but for some reason Chris thought it would be a good idea. He wore her around his neck on the way there because she’s not a fan of walking on a leash.

At one point she was snuggled up under some towels and somehow a dog seemed to know just where she was hiding because the dog ran right up to her to start playing. She leaped into the air and hissed, then arched her back while her hair stood on end. It was quite a site to see!

We stuck around a little bit longer to see the sunset, but I can tell you Fat Cat was not happy and did not settle down to relax again.

Fat Cat is on alert for any other dogs.

To show you just how mad she was, I think we drove her to drink!

She’s considering it.

Oh no!

Now before anyone gets mad at me for letting my cat drink beer, I’ll let you know that she really didn’t drink any. She just sniffed it, so no worries!

And that was enough adventure for Fat Cat for a while. 🙂

Stay tuned for more fun things to do in the Newport area.

Categories: Oregon | Tags: bike trails, ditching suburbia, full time rv'ing, fulltime families, hatfield marine science center, newport, Oregon, rogue brewery, rv travel with kids, south beach state park | 7 Comments

Salem, Oregon

Posted on August 13, 2017 by Heather Gebbia

Have you heard of Amazon Lockers? We’ve been finding them very useful for ordering stuff on the road. Many RV parks/campgrounds will allow us to receive packages, but some don’t. We’re finding most in Oregon don’t so we’ve learned to make use of Amazon lockers. Amazon sets up lockers at various gas stations, grocery stores and other places where you can have your order shipped. Once your order has been delivered you’ll receive an email to let you know it’s in the locker. You can scan the bar code from the email or enter the number on the keypad and your locker opens with your stuff inside. It’s pretty cool, and a very convenient way for us to order stuff on the road.

What does that have to do with Salem, Oregon you ask? Well, we have been staying on the Oregon coast and there are no facilities with Amazon lockers out here. The closest one we could find was in Salem so it gave us an excuse to make a day trip there. Unfortunately the day we ended up going there just happened to be one of the hottest days of the year, a high around 108?? I didn’t realize it gets that hot up here in the PNW! It certainly isn’t hot on the coast; we’ve actually been quite chilly with highs in the 60s for the last few weeks.

Anyway, in spite of the heat we had a great field trip to Salem.

Our first stop was to the Riverfront Park to check out the classic carousel. This park was very nice. There is a playground, a splash park, a brand new bridge, paved bike trails and of course the carousel.

The carousel is made of hand-carved horses by local volunteers. It is a beautiful carousel and includes a game to catch the brass ring.

Jake trying to catch the brass ring

The volunteers were there that day carving a new dragon for the carousel. They were so friendly and welcomed us into their studio to watch the artists at work. Check out the detail in the carving and the designs on the wall.

They have been carving this dragon for over 2 years!

We also got to go into the painting studio to watch where they paint new horses and touch up the paint on older ones.

The carousel rides are only $1.50 each and the artists gave us some buy one get one free coupons so we rode a few times.

After the Riverfront Park we headed to the Gilbert House Children’s Museum. We were able to get in free because they are part of the ASTC Science Center reciprocal membership program. This museum was incredible! I thought we would only be there for 30 minutes or so because it sounded like it would be too young for my kids, but I was pleasantly surprised that they loved it.

They spent the first 30 minutes or so in the first room where they pretended to be street merchants selling fruits and vegetables. I kept telling them there were many other things to do at this museum but they didn’t want to leave this first room.

Main Street Market

Finally we moved onto the outdoor playground where there is a giant erector set, a giant slide and climbing walls

As I mentioned before, it was over 100 that day so we didn’t spend much time out there.

Back inside, the kids played in several other areas of the museum that inspire creativity.

Pretending to be veterinarians.

Pretending to be a farmer.

Pretending to be pilots.

There were real airline seats behind them, and Jake made sure I was buckled in for takeoff.

Putting on a show.

Pretending to be surgeons.

Building forts.

Building a playground.

This museum is named for A. C. Gilbert who was born in Salem in 1884. He created the Erector Set and made the American Flyer train sets famous. He also earned an Olympic gold medal in the pole vault and graduated from Yale with a degree in medicine. Quite an impressive individual! His passion for toys inspired this museum where there are so many opportunities for kids to use their imagination.

American Flyer train set.

The museum is in 3 separate buildings, and the outside is so colorful and cute!

We had such a fun day in Salem! Oh yeah, we picked up our Amazon order when we were done exploring and headed back to coast.

Categories: Oregon | Tags: american flyer train set, classic carousel, ditching suburbia, erector set, full time rv'ing, fulltime families, gilbert house children's museum, Oregon, riverfront carousel, riverfront park, rv travel with kids, salem | 2 Comments

Two Amazing Days in Victoria Canada

Olympic National Park

Cape Disappointment was NOT Disappointing

Two Forts in Astoria, Oregon

Cannon Beach and Nehalem Bay

Two Capes and a Cheese Factory

Cape Perpetua and Seal Rock

Yaquina and Heceta Head Lighthouses

Newport, Oregon and South Beach State Park

Salem, Oregon

Why You Should NOT Buy a Heartland RV

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