The Vacation

Omar, Joel, Erica, Bryan, Sarah, & Rachel outside of Wings.

Sarah, Sam, Dan, Erica, Joel's arm, & Aunt Conni @ Erica & Joel's.

During Tillamook Head Hike.

I had to lift this so we could continue on the trail!

'Nuf said.

I'm posting all of the pictures at once, so they'll probably show up in some random order. I'll try to post captions once they're all up. We had a great time on the trip. We started out last Saturday and drove about 8 hours to my cousin's house in Auburn, CA (about 30 minutes East of Sacramento). We spent the evening with family, catching up, sharing stories of preparing for treatment, and overall, just having a great time. The next morning, we ate breakfast at my Aunt's restaurant, Wings, before making the 13 hour drive up to Seaside, OR. By the way, if you're ever in Auburn between 7am and 2pm, stop by the restaurant. [Plug!] Exit Bell Road from the I-80, go North. Turn right on New Airport Road. Wings is at the end of the street on the left.

We arrived at the resort Sunday night at 11:45. After checking in, hauling our stuff to the room, and solving a toilet issue, we were able to finally relax and get some sleep. Monday started off with a snack of an Elephant Ear (the best I've EVER had). We bought 2 to share between the four of us, one original (cinnamon & sugar and one with Bavarian Creabrought a trip to the grocery store and a hike at Tillamook Head, that was supposed to only last an hour or two. Instead, my dad and I went on a 3.5 hour, 5.5 mile expedition that would have made Lewis and Clark proud. The best part of the hike was being able to see two Bald Eagles soaring over the ocean and beach. Rachel & my mom made it through the first mile before turning around and going back to the car. If you look at the map from the link above, we started where Sunset Blvd. ends and walked all the way to Indian Beach. We returned to the resort, started to walk the "main drag" of Seaside and found that many of the smaller restaurants and all of the stores closed by 7:00. We ate dinner at Fultano's Pizza and watched UNC beat Michigan State in the NCAA Championship before returning to our room for the night.

We were able to sleep in Tuesday morning and then drove about 45 minutes south to Tillamook and the Tillamook Cheese Factory. The TCCA is celebrating 100 years as a farmer-owned co-op. It is an amazing story, especially in the corporate takeover world we live in. We ate LOTS of samples and spent a lot of time touring the upstairs of the facility, where you can look down at the employees and watch them make and slice the different cheeses. If you ever get a chance to head to that area of the country, this is a definite "must stop" location. Oh yeah, they have a cafe right on site and the tour is FREE! There are also two ice cream shops that sell Tillamook's own ice cream...of course, we couldn't leave without trying some of that, either.

Wednesday was a relaxing day around Seaside. We walked (in a light rain/mist) down the main business thoroughfare, stopping in at little shops along the way. One store sold over 200 different types of bottled soda. The store next to it sold chocolate covered bacon, twinkies, and Pringles chips. Another store had 170 different flavors of Saltwater Taffy! We also visited the outlet stores (didn't buy much) before returing to the room for a relaxing evening.

We spent all of Thursday on the road and a good portion of Friday. We spent Thursday night @ Erica & Joel's and had dinner with them, Aunt Conni, & Sarah. Friday morning, we woke up and went to Wings to put some food in our stomachs before the long ride home. Speaking of long rides home, if you are ever on a long roadie try counti semi-trucks. On the way up to Seaside, we counted Wal-Mart, UPS, & Fed-Ex trucks. On the way back, we added Swift trucks. Just imagine the damage they could've done if we had been counting them from the beginning!

Going There:

Fed-Ex: 44

Wal-Mart: 33

UPS: 8

Coming Home:

Fed-Ex: 91

Wal-Mart: 97

UPS: 63

Swift: 100

I hope to post more pictures tomorrow :)

-bw