Kiddles 'N Bits: Summer Holidays

There's so many things that we did and things that we saw, it's hard for me to figure out how exactly I'm going to share it all with you. I think I'll do it by sharing it week by week....

Day 1
We spent most of this day driving. It was a long day. Our first campground was a new one for us. Round Lake in Idaho. Normally we stay in Farragut, but it was all booked up. Round Lake is okay. Sites are a lot more open and you can see all your neighbors. We set up camp and played some card games before calling it a night.

Day 2
Silverwood. We love Silverwood. We always go and spend the first half of the day at the waterpark and then the last half of the day at the amusement park part. Our only mistake this day was.... going on the river raft ride late in the day, after supper, and getting completely soaked and having to spend the rest of the evening wet and chilly. We had a great time anyways though.

Day 3
Was another long day of driving. 8 hours or so, not counting the many stops we did. We visited 2 LDS temples.... Spokane and Columbia River (see previous posting for pictures...) We stopped for the night in LaPine State Park. Another new campground for us. It was too dark to see anything that night and we set up in the dark, but we could tell right away that there are a lot of bugs! Big bugs. New, yucky looking bugs. And we got a lot of them in our trailer when we set up, probably cause it was dark and we were using flashlights... thus attracting them to us. It didn't go over so well with our kids, that's for sure!!

Day 4
We spent the day exploring the Newberry National Volcanic Monument Park. First, here's a little look at our campsite at LaPine...

We spent some time at the Lave Lands Visitor's Centre and Lava Butte

We walked through the Lava River caves. It was a fairly hot day, 26C, and inside the caves it was 4C. We took several flashlights and a lantern. It was PITCH BLACK in there!

Ha! You can see my breath in this picture!

Next stop was the Lava Cast Forest. What is a lava cast?? Basically, it's when lava hits an object like a tree... and when the tree is gone, it leaves an "impression" or hole of where it used to be, now surrounded by lava rock. Does that make sense?? So, when you see these pictures and holes... those are the lava casts. Interesting. FYI, we did an earthcache here too.

Next stop was Paulina Falls

And lastly, the Big Obsidian Flow

Phew! That was a long day and we did a lot! Several geocaches in there too. I think we found 6 or 7 of them that day.

Day 5
We packed up camp and headed on our way. Along our way, we stopped at Crater Lake. At one time, this used to be a mountain/volcano that erupted, blew it's top off and became a lake.... the deepest lake in the US and the 7th deepest in the world! It's pretty AMAZING to see! Oh, and yes, that's a lot of snow you see in the pictures!

We stopped to find a geocache along the way and found this little guy.... and yes, I picked it up.

Day 6
We're now in Bandon, Oregon, camping at Bullard's Beach State Campground. This is a nice campground. We spent the morning at the Wild Game Park Safari. We were able to feed the animals, pet exotic animals like a baby tiger or leopard or hold little animals like a possum. It was all good until Matthew got charged by a few deer who butted him in the back and sent him flying. They were skittish deer and the kids kept following them despite us telling them to leave them alone. Oh, the excitement. Even Abigail had a monkey reach through the cage and grab her camera strap. Ha!

Next stop was Sunset Bay. This is a nice place for some tidepools. Lots of hermit crabs. In fact, there were some of the smallest hermit crabs ever. There's a picture of Elora holding one super small, I don't even know where it found a shell that small.

Last stop of the day was at Shore Acres. Of all the places we've been on the coast, I think Shore Acres has some of the most beautiful views of the coast line. Along with a beautiful view, Shore Acres also has a beautiful garden area you can walk through. This is one of our favorite places to go too.