Grandma met us for a week of celebrations in Astoria, Oregon, the first US settlement west of the Mississippi. Our first celebration was Jay’s fifth birthday. The day began early – as all our days do – with lots of balloons and presents, and the family birthday cup filled with chocolate milk.

Later in the day Jay enjoyed swimming in the pool at Grandma’s hotel, and eating his birthday cupcakes.

A few days later we celebrated Father’s Day. Andy planned the day’s itinerary, which included a visit to the Columbia River Maritime Museum and lunch at a brewpub, where he enjoyed a hoppy IPA.

And two days later there was yet more celebration … Grandma’s birthday! For her special day we visited the Astoria Column, a 125 foot tower painted with scenes from the Western exploration and settlement. Grandma joined the rest of us in climbing up the 164 steps to enjoy the phenomenal views from the top. The day also included birthday treats at both lunch and dinner.

When we weren’t celebrating, we were enjoying exploring Astoria. We walked along the Riverwalk, which followed the Columbia River, rode the trolley along the same route (where Jay got to ring the bell!), and explored the shops along Commercial Street. We also sampled the many delicious restaurants in town.

Grandma’s flight departed from Portland, so the kids and I decided to add some fun to the two hour drive. We spent the afternoon at an Aquatic Center, where Becca had fun on the three water slides and diving board and Jay loved being knocked over by the waves in the wave pool and having buckets of water dumped on his head in the splash pool.

When we first got to Crater Lake, we were very surprised to see mounds of snow and ice instead of grass surrounding our campsite. After all, it is June! (At least I think it is June…) After parking the RV, we drove the Jetta up to the rim of Crater Lake. We walked along the rim of the lake for awhile, taking tons of pictures of the beautiful lake. Once we were too cold to keep walking, we got back in the car and drove along the rim drive (most of the road wasn’t even on the rim). While we were driving, we saw some wacky sledders. One person had made garbage bag pants, another was sliding on a cookie tray. We saw three people with wetsuits on for sledding, (one was actually using his surfboard!), and we thought that the wet suits were a great idea, so the next day we put ours on and headed out to sled.

The day didn’t go too well. My boots kept getting filled with snow, and Jay’s hands and feet quickly got cold. Also, we had several crashes, because we were sledding on a boogie board, and boogie boards aren’t really good at turning in the snow. Jay and I were soon frozen, so we called it a day and headed home.

The next day, we went sledding again, this time with plastic bags on our feet to keep them dry, and a much steeper hill. We went so extremely fast! At first I had some trouble staying on the board: Jay and I ended up sliding down the hill head first on our backs several times. Still, it was a ton of fun! Mom also joined in the fun and went down the slope as well.

At Crater Lake, we also did something that we don’t do often- we had a campfire with s’mores every night! Jay had his first s’more, and he loved it!

We finally made it to Oregon! We stayed at the absolutely lovely Emigrant Lake Campground. With our lakeside camp spot and our quiet neighbors, we dubbed it “Shangri-La”.

We spent the majority of our time paddling the canoe (aka the Tomato) around the lake, and pulling up on different beaches to swim in the warm water and play along the muddy shore.

One afternoon we ventured into the groovy town of Ashland. Though Becca described it as, “just another tourist town, with little shops”, Andy and I enjoyed wandering about and people watching. In beautiful Lithia Park we serendipitously stumbled upon a gentleman playing the cello. We all enjoyed listening to the music, before eventually moving on, first to dip our feet in the chilly river and then to get some icecream.

So … apparently the blog has been restarted … who knew?!

As Andy said, our Davis campground had tons of peacocks roaming around. It was fantastic!! Here are some photos ….

The other highlight of our visit to Lake Solano Campground was its location on the Putah Creek … a fantastic place to canoe!

When we weren’t on the water, we were enjoying our visit with Grandma Helen!

Our first day on the road was a long one: approximately 450 miles to Yucaipa Regional Park near San Bernardino. We hit the road at 6:30 am, which was a bit early for many family members, and managed to make it to Yucaipa by about 3pm by taking almost no breaks.

We picked Yucaipa Regional Park for our first stopover because it had a huge water park with a crazy long water slide. So, imagine our disappointment when we found that the swim area was closed, despite the website saying it was open starting Memorial Day weekend. We had made reservations for two nights, planning on spending a day at the water park, but with it closed until June 14 we decided to leave the next day.

Our second day on the road was another long one: approximately 490 miles or so. For a regular car that wouldn’t be so bad, but we lumber along at 55 mph at the most, so we didn’t roll into Lake Solano County Park outside Davis, California, until about 6pm. One thing that makes Lake Solano unique is that there are feral peacocks all over the place. In the first five minutes we must have seen ten or more. I hadn’t really appreciated how noisy peacocks are until I camped among them! As Little Kid said, it sounds like they are screaming “help, help.”