Family Trip to the Oregon Coast, Friday, July 21, 2017

Blaine and I made plans about six months ago to take our family on a family trip - we wanted our whole family at this time - Brandon and Heather (and our soon to be baby), Derek and Breanna, Nikole, Elizabeth, and Grandma Rip all made plans and came along.

Monday, July 24, 2017

We (Grandma Ripplinger, Blaine, Derek, Breanna, Nikole, Elizabeth, Carl and I are loaded into our rental SUV and headed back towards home, after a beautiful family trip to the Oregon Coast.  The long ride is the least favorite part – man, it’s a long ways to drive.  About 12 hours from Yachats, Oregon to Boise and then about 5 or 6 from Boise to our house.  We broke the travelling up in 2 days going and 2 days coming back.

Blaine and I had planned this fun family vacation for many months before.  This was the week, that Breanna and Nikole were done with their BYU-I semester

Last Wednesday, Blaine and I both worked at the hospital, until 3 p.m.  We drove home together, our three youngest children were waiting, ready to go.  We grabbed all our bags and suitcases and Grandma Rip, and drove to Rexburg.

At Rexburg, we picked up our rental vehicle, and went to pick up Derek and Breanna, at their apartment. 

Because of anticipated summer road construction, we cut off towards Arco, through INL territory.  I had not been that way for a long time.  Allyson Richins grew up there.  We made it to Mountain Home, around 9:30 pm that night, to stay at Ken and Tammie Robin’s house.  They didn’t answer their front or back doors, so Grandma just went in the back, and we found them.

By the way, the SUV was stuffed to the brim, with 8 people’s belongings.  We had to make a little opening in the back window, so Blaine could see out a little bit.

Tammie goes to work at 6 am (Blaine says that’s her own choice), so she was long gone when we awoke.  We had planned to leave at 8 am, and we did.  Back on the road for a very, long, but good day. 

We drove to Boise and then started west across the top of Oregon, on I-84, finally arriving at Multnomah Falls, which is just before Portland.  Our Heather and Brandon Pilcher had flown in to Portland the night before, they wanted to meet us at the falls, so we finally got to see them, after not seeing them for about 8 months. 

It was a nice reunion.  We thought it might be a big hike to the falls, but it wasn’t.  We parked in the parking lot, there was a lodge with a souvenir store and a couple of food venues.  You walked up this easy, short trail to see a gorgeous bridge in front of these magnificent falls.  It was very pretty.  We also walked up the short trail to the bridge.

I bought a long, tall poster of the falls, thinking one day I may put up the posters in a bedroom, after all my children are out of the home.

It was so good to be together again, all of us.

Brandon and Heather had rented a car, too, so now we could spread out a little in two cars.  We went to Portland.  Brandon wanted to eat at a Mexican Restaurant – you’ll have to look at my scrap book about the Oregon Coast – I can’t remember the name of it, but it was very good.

So, we had taken time to hike the falls and to eat for about an hour and the Portland traffic was slow and heavy, so it took us a long day to get from Mountain Home to our destination at Yachats, Oregon.

Our family is mellow and kind and nice, so it is easy to ride with any of them.

The house we rented was right on the beach in Yachats.  Everyone loved the home – it was just so wonderful.  Someone helped us fund the trip, or we never would have been able to stay in such a nice place.  On the one side of the house, two levels, every window looked out on the Pacific Ocean and the beautiful beach.

We let Grandma Rip sleep in a big room, that had a table and TV in it, facing the beach.  Brandon and Heather had the other room down there, with a nice bathroom between them.  There was a big entry area down there, and a garage that had games like pool, foosball and ping pong in it, along with a grill, which we used outside a couple of times.

On the upper, or main floor, Blaine and I had a big master suite, which was just gorgeous.  Carl, Elizabeth and Nikole slept on a couch roll out sleeper and two mattresses we brought up from the ground level.  They stored their suitcases and thing sin our room, and used our big bathroom, since we had so much space.

Breanna and Derek had the other bedroom on the main floor, which is the only room that did not face the ocean, but it had good views, as well.

The kitchen and dining area was open, with the “living room”, which is where we hung out most of the time that we were at the house.  This house was called Surf Side House with Sweet Homes.  I would recommend them again, they were so good to work with.

This place had an outdoor hot tub, which we used every single night.  It was funny when 8 out of the 10 of us were in the tub, because it would slosh over with water, and we would all laugh.

The first night at the house, Thursday, even though we got in late, near 9:30 at night, we had to do the highlight of the trip.  Our Heather and Brandon had announced, just a week before, that they were expecting a baby.  We were thrilled over that, but then they told us that their doctor’s office had a blood test you could do, that tells you what the gender of your baby is!  This is unheard of, at this time.  Only a few people had even heard of that.  The current thing is to have an ultrasound, around 20 weeks, and then it is not 100% sure, even them.  But this new blood test is 100% sure – boy or girl.  Heather had it tested at about 11 weeks!

The other totally fun thing her doctor’s office does is in how they tell you the result of the blood test.  You can just go to their office, you sit down, and they just tell you . . . OR you can pick up a plain white envelope, which they have wrapped either pink or blue things inside, which you can take from their office and open it wherever you want with whoever you want!

Brandon and Heather chose to pick their white envelope up – they only got it on Wednesday, before they left their home – and brought it with them, to open with us!

Oh!  It was fun.  We all go to guess which we thought I was – Blaine and I guessed a girl, most of the rest of our family guessed a boy.

We all gathered in Grandma’s room, and we videoed it.  We were gathered around the bed, and Brandon and Heather were standing by the table in there.  The Pilchers called in on various phones.

Then Heather and Brandon opened the package!  Guess what?  It was blue tissue. Brandon had to do a double check and make sure the items inside- a balloon, onezy and something else were blue, too, and they were!!  Brandon and Heather were surprised, too, they had it in their minds that the baby was a girl.  We were all very excited!  We’re all having a baby boy!

So, that first day all together started us off with a bang!

Friday was beautiful, warm weather.  We all headed south to the Florence area to see the Haceta Head Lighthouse.  It was sunny and clear at Yachats, but just a bit foggy at Florence.  There was another beautiful, short hike to the Lighthouse.  This turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip. The hike was so pretty; we met a nice forest ranger man who took our photos up at the lighthouse, with the light house in one background, and then the lower beach and rocks in the back ground of the other direction. 

The photo you can see in my scrapbook is rather splendid, because you see the sun, the fog, the sandy beach below in the background.

We also went to the Sea Lion Caves.  Those were worth seeing; we saw a giant one outside the cave, on the rocky shore – we think he was the Granddaddy – he was huge.  There were hundreds inside the cave – very cool. 

We tried to see Thor’s Well – Carl wanted to see that.  Our children walked down to the actual well, but it was not the right time of year for the big spurt of water to go up into the air.  It was still good to see.

We ate at Luna Seafood in Yachats that late afternoon.  This was probably Grandma Ripp’s highlight of the day.  Most of us ordered big shrimp or halibut dinners.  She had one of those, and went crazy over it.  She loved it.  The rest of it enjoyed it, too. Our home manager man had suggested it.  We ended up eating there one other day.

“Chatty Daddy”, which is what Blaine called himself – he was kind of hyper and excited – a lot like Carl.  He woke up at 5 or 6 am all the mornings, and was out hitting the beach at low tide.  Because of his diligence, he and Carl both found a myriad of sea creatures.  Blaine went, wanting to find sand dollars.  He ended up finding many – my favorite one he found is a black one.  I don’t know if they are black when they are still alive, and later turn the whitish usual color?    This one looked and felt hairy on the bottom side.  Blaine said that he found him, almost by accident.  He was burrowed deeper in the sand.  Blaine almost missed him.

I usually woke up about 6 am, still had time to walk down to the sandy beach, and walk along Trail 804, or search for star fish.

The first time I saw star fish, we were walking along the sand, close to the water.  In front of our house we rented, were these big huge rocks, all along the coast.  As we walked along, crouching down and inspecting the lower sides of these rocks, we suddenly found a whole bunch of star fish!  They were plastered to the rocks, hanging there, sucked to the rock, like it was nothing.  This group of about 30, had big ones that must have been the parents and then a whole bunch of baby looking ones, maybe teenagers, too.  It was pretty cool.  Just walking on the beach was a favorite pastime.

Saturday, we went north, towards Newport.  We saw the Aquarium there; Grandma could even go in; they had a wheel chair, so she could ride around; Brandon pushed her everywhere this time, so that was a nice break for Blaine.

I loved Newport.  We walked around Aquarium Village.  We tried to go down to the oldtown boat docks, we were planning on eating there, but it was very crowded on the Saturday and we finally let that idea go.  We drove back to Luna’s, and ate similar yummy fish dishes that late afternoon, too.

Friday evening, Brandon cooked steak and chicken on the grill, after we bought it and asked if he would.  He worked in Alaska, so he knows everything about fish, and he came from a grilling famly, so he knows how to grill really well.  Saturday, we bought more shrimp and halibut, and he deep fried those for us on Sunday, after church.  So, we ate like royalty every day.

We bought groceries Friday morning, and had breakfast at the house every day.  We would go out mid-morning to see something, usually eat a late lunch out, and then return for a meal on the grill or fish, etc.  Then we’d play games, we watched one movie, and go down to the beach and use the hot tub every evening.

Sunday, we went to what we thought was a small branch at Waldport at 10.  The internet site said that they only had sacrament meeting, but when we arrived, it was a regular small meeting house, and it looked like they were going to have all three meetings.  We did get to partake of the sacrament, which was our main purpose.  It looked more like a ward, because they branch president said they had a ton of visitors.  They had all chairs, instead of regular benches.  There were three speakers, one was a sub for the youth speaker, but she was talking still with only 15 minutes left.  Suddenly, the fire alarm went off – very loud beeping.  But no smoke.  The branch president counselor, who had been conducting stood up.  The lady speaking said Amen.  The counselor told us to calmly stand up and exit the building.  The mumbling was that a small child probably pulled the handle.  After a few minutes outside, it was still beeping, and the fire truck was pulling up, so we elected to slip out.  We had a goal to get family pictures taken, on the beach.   And it was only supposed to be sunny for about an hour that day.

Thursday and Friday were warm, sunny, beautiful weather – a lot cooler than Driggs or Idaho, but such a perfect temperature.  Saturday morning was good, then got windy and “stormy” with no rain.  Sunday was windy and cooler, not cold, but jacket feeling weather.  So, our window of sunny weather on Sunday after church was precious.  Brandon and Heather have a nice camera.

I am thrilled over the beautiful family pictures we were able to take.  We all wore shades of mint or blue.  We are standing with the Pacific Ocean behind us – some on rocks, some on sand, so fun and precious.

Later Sunday, we went back to Florence for a while, and then ate clam chowder at a place in Yachats called the Blue Whale.  It was yummy.  We all got our fill of sea food on the trip.  It was so good.  We later drove north of Yachats and watched a man who knows how to blow glass.  He did a demonstration for us.

Sunday evening, we were back to the beach and looking for creatures.

We got up early Monday morning, had to tell Heather and Brandon good-bye and then we started the looooong trip towards home.

The whole coastline was luscious and green, the plants and flowers were just gorgeous.  There was moss growing on most of the trees.  It was a perfect temperature all the time.

This vacation was like a dream.  We didn’t run into any trouble.  Everyone was grateful and happy to be together.  We saw enough sites, but we also had plenty of relaxation time.  The home we stayed in was beautiful and comfortable.  We enjoyed each other’s company so much.  It was so good to be right on the beach front and the ocean.  Oh, we loved it!