Summer Family Vacation, Part 1: Slugs, Stones, and Rocks

On July 14 we headed south of two borders through Oregon to northern California where we met up with Damon's whole family in a rental house in Klamath, CA.  The house overlooked the Klamath River not far from where it empties into the Pacific Ocean.  We stayed in what was basically a fishing lodge (the owner is a fishing guide), got fresh salmon from a local angler, and could see black bears on the opposite shore in the morning.  It was a short drive to beaches and the redwoods and there was a lot to see and do, and plenty of time and space to just relax and play card games and Bananagrams.  Overall a really nice little family vacation/reunion.

First we had to get there.

Traveling south through Oregon, we decided to leave I-5 for a more scenic route on Hwy 101.  As we headed west, Damon looked on our GPS unit for an ice cream shop.  He found one that was still a good 200 miles away in Brookings, OR, but we just knew that we had to stop there.  Who wouldn't want to get a scoop at Slugs 'n' Stones 'n' Ice Cream Cones?  We sure did.

Since it was still a few hours away, we stopped for a fun picnic lunch at a park, complete with an old-school metal merry-go-round, in North Bend, OR, before pushing on to destination ice cream.

(Mags & Gunnar had both just woken up and were not too keen on the photo op.)

The kids had boring old ice cream cones.  Damon and I opted for the slime sundaes, or was it the mud sundae?  All I remember is that I got my ice cream with (gummy) worms and "dirt" (cookie crumbs).  They even came in in cool Scooby Doo and Batman bowls.  What could be better?

How about following the ice cream with some running on the sunny pier just outside the ice cream shop?

Or a pelican sighting?

It was a great roadtrip stop.  We recommend Slugs 'n' Stones 'n' Ice Cream Cones in Brookings, OR.  Oh, and they also host an annual slug race.  It's a fundraiser for a local group (I can't remember which).  You can bring your own slug or rent one from the group. I would have loved to have been there that weekend. I think it was in May.

We liked Brookings so much, that two days later we brought the whole family back for the kite festival that we'd seen advertised during our ice cream stop.  (It was only about 30-40 minutes from Klamath.)  Unfortunately, it was pretty rainy that day and so sitting to watch professional kite flyers was not as fun as we'd hoped.  We did see Connor Doran of America's Got Talent fame and the kiddos got to make kites that we tried out on the adjacent beach.

Holly wasn't quite diggin' the kite flying.

Rocks, on the other hand--she loved those.

Anyone else want one?

Damon's aforementioned "whole family" that came on the trip included his parents, his brother Justin, and his brother Jotham and his wife Dana and their kids Cassie and Braden.  All 14 of us shared a house for about 6 days and enjoyed time together and all the beautiful scenery of the northern California/southern Oregon coast.  Stay tuned for more on the trip....