After 27 hours on the road, we made it back home yesterday afternoon! What a trip! All in all, it was fun. Our car started having issues the day we arrived in Washington and within a few days, was settled in at the mechanic for the remainder of our trip. After a rough diagnostic of bad timing chains, we got it back the day before we headed home.

We did at least manage to make it out to the beach, thank goodness. I honestly would have been pretty devastated if we hadn’t. But we did. And it was a gorgeous day!

We grabbed coffee at Red Leaf before heading out and I brought along my current book I’m reading, which I didn’t open at all. I love seeing the sights so I never manage to actually read if I’m the passenger.

The Pacific Ocean terrifies me with kids, so I do what I can to keep the kids far from the actual water. I’ll let them run and play around on the sand where the water just reaches to get it wet. They love doing that anyway!

I walked with my girls down the beach a little ways to the rocks and my oldest found a super pretty purple starfish sunbathing on a rock. I’ve never seen a live one before! Starfish seem kind of gross, but cute at the same time.

After hanging around at Indian beach for a bit, we went to the viewpoint a little bit down the road on the way out. I couldn’t believe we’d never stopped there before! It had such a beautiful view of the coast. You could see the beach we went to last summer and Cannon Beach with the weirdly famous Haystack rock. I still am baffled why that rock is so popular. Literally there’s so many big rocks on the coast.

An older couple had been sitting on a bench at the viewpoint and they told me there were a couple whales frolicking around out in the water. You couldn’t actually see the whales, but you’d see their blowhole spray every once in awhile! Kind of cool. I’d wanted to do an orca whale cruise on this trip, but from research, the nearest one was in the San Juan Islands which would be a 5 hour drive north. Maybe another year! I’d love love love to see orcas.

Afterwards, we stopped in Seaside to get elephant ears, but unfortunately it was closed. So we got a little treat at a different stand! We took a ride on the carousel and spun the wheel at the taffy shop, everybody winning a free piece of taffy. Perfect end to the day.

❤️Bethany