Need vacation ideas for Pacific Northwest

[Admin megansmama]

We want to do a driving vacation this spring and I was thinking about the Pacific Northwest. So what kinds of places are must sees and must avoids? We're coming from So Cal (San Diego area) and probably would have about 9 days for our trip.

[Admin 100thousandaire]

You have to do Seattle if you do nothing else. I love their wharf and farmers market. We also saw the Space Needle, but did not go up into it (it was $9 maybe 10 years ago).

Also on the way, you have to do the Half Moon Bay area before getting into San Francisco. It is awesome up there and stop along the highway right in there, they have those huge waves and big rocks (sorry I am an ocean person all the way). Do obey the signs there, the waves can literally take you away.

If this were my trip, I would get as far as San Francisco and not go any further.

[Fourboys]

well if you are looking at good palces to stop with Megan - there is an really nice childrens museum in Salem ( the capitol) called AC Gilbert House. I know it has a web site. Also Oregon Museum of Scince OMSI is another good stopping place (that's in Portland). Also in Portland is the CM2 the Portland CHildren's museuk which is right enxt to the Portland Zoo. There's always Mount St Helen's. You could fly into Portland and then drive from there.....

[Admin megansmama]

I here you on that Debra! Monterey was my favorite spot of all the locations we visited on our honeymoon.

Thanks for the museum recommendations Shannon - I'd love to find things that would be good for Megan as well as us.

[WorkinMyQs]

My sister and her husband have a beach home in Yachats, OR and drive there from their home in Portland just about every weekend. Though I've never been there I've seen the coastal pictures and it's just beautiful! Sounds like it's an artsy kind of area if that's up your alley...

[HBMomof4]

I second the suggestions for OMSI and the Washington Park Zoo (Portland). They were both my favorites when we lived in Oregon. Since I hailed from Tillamook (as in the cheese), I definitely suggest the coast. The beauty is incredible...but then again, I'm biased! If you time your visit right, blackberry, salmon berry, raspberry, blueberry and huckleberry picking was a favorite activity for my family growing up. You can pick them anywhere pratically, but I remember picking blueberries as big as grapes on Mt. Adams in Washington (conveniently located near Mt. St. Helens.)

Have fun deciding what to do...we're thinking of heading up there to visit family this summer in Portland. I haven't been there for almost 10 years so it will be nice to see it all once again.

[STACEY IN CALIF]

I would really suggest taking a good hard look at going that far in nine days. Honestly, we started in the High Desert (Victorville) area and went for 10 days with the farthest being Sea Lion Caves just above Florence, Oregon. It was just me, dh and brother and sister in-law (no kids). We drove the 101 and spent a night in San Franciso (9-10 hr. drive). Didn't even do anything there except take pics of the Golden Gate Bridge. Spent a night in Humboldt Redwoods another in Redwood National Park, a night in Coos Bay, a night in Florence then headed home. The area is so beautiful with so much to see that there wasn't nearly enough time. However, we thought we'd explore the entire coast (our bad) in that time. Maybe if you picked a specific area of the Pacific Northwest and drove straight through it would be worth it. However, you do have little Megan and I'm sure that would require frequest stops. Or, you could drive up the 5 and there would be a few less things to see. We drove this way home. Sea Lion Caves was a neat thing to see and I'm sure Megan will love it as did we (just smelly) seeing so many in one cave. There are several beaches and lighthouses up the Oregon coast. And, driving through the Redwoods in California was very interesting. There were so many things to do there including a sky tram, and a redwood you can drive through. I can't wait to hear about your trip. We still try to think about the quickest and most productive way to get towards the north and Washington in a fair amount of time. Have fun. I know you will love it. Stacey

[Admin megansmama]

[QUOTE=HBMomof4;20793]If you time your visit right, blackberry, salmon berry, raspberry, blueberry and huckleberry picking was a favorite activity for my family growing up. You can pick them anywhere pratically, but I remember picking blueberries as big as grapes on Mt. Adams in Washington (conveniently located near Mt. St. Helens.)
QUOTE]

So when does the picking season start? Sounds yummy!!!

[Admin megansmama]

Stacey - you have some really good points that we'll need to consider! Right now, 3 hours is about the maximum stretch we can do with her before she needs a break from the car. Perhaps by the time we go on this trip she will have gotten into coloring and that can help occupy the time for her. That and maybe some videos - she's just started getting into watching them.

[STACEY IN CALIF]

Whatever you decide you will have a great trip. I would love to go with. I promise I won't make you stop every 3 hours :) Stacey

Oh, I just thought of something else. We went along a highway where there were tons of waterfalls. I remember some of them were less than 1/4 of a mile if your into a little walking.

[Admin 100thousandaire]

I remember the waterfalls on the freeway driving from Portland to Seattle also. That was really different but pretty.

[mello]

Well Mt. St. Helens is very interesting - you can spend 1/2 or a full day driving up the the road to the north of it (forget the hwy # offhand) and stopping at all the visitor's centers, they're each different. The last one, closest to the mountain has a great movie presentation where at the end the curtain behind the screen lifts and voila! there's the mountain. There are also some interesting little walks and hikes, and even helicopter rides. One visitor center has a neat little kiddy play area with mountains to climb. Well worth a visit!

In Seattle, be sure to visit the Museum of Flight - it is definitely a world class museum not to be missed. I'm not reallly into flight museums, but dh is so we've been to them all over the place, and this one is the best, imo. Very interactive and fun for kids, the main gallery is amazing, there's a theater that runs different 1/2 hour movies constantly, they do activities for kids - especially on weekends, and you can tour the original Air Force One. And as a bonus, their little coffee shop/cafeteria is wonderful - they have an asian chicken noodle salad that is to die for, and you can sit outside on a nice day and watch the airplanes taking off and landing (or see them through the window if it's raining).

Also in Seattle, there's a boat ride that you can take to Blake Island for a traditional Native American dinner show. It is just fantastic! A beautiful boat ride, seeing the sun setting over Puget Sound, yummy plank bbq'd salmon dinner, informative little mini museum, beautiful island to explore, fun and educational dinner show. Just a great overall "Northwest" experience! We did it two years ago and the kids keep asking when we can go back and do it again.

If you drive up the Coast Hwy through Oregon it's so scenic, and you can stop in all the cute little towns. Newport has the aquarium and the sea lions, Tillamook is fun for the cheese factory tour and a good lunch - they have great grilled cheese sandwiches and ice cream! Cannon Beach is like Newport Beach prolly was 50 years ago - you've GOT to eat at Mo's on the beach there at Sunset - it's a nice town to stay overnight in too. Seaside is a fun town - sort of a boardwalk type atmosphere, it's only about 15 minutes up the road from Cannon Beach and a nice place to stay as well. Just north of Seaside there's Fort Stevens State Park that's worth a stop. It's right at the mouth of the Columbia River, and at the north end you can go out on the beach and see the ships coming and going from the river to the ocean - kinda cool. There's an old shipwreck on another beach in the park, and there are battlement type thingies, and a jeep tour, and a couple interpretive centers. They do living history type stuff there a lot. Once when we were there they were setting off a cannon every once in awhile - that was kinda neat to see. It's a great campground if you like to camp; they also have yurts and there's a KOA with kamping kabins right across the street from it - we stayed in those once, and the kids thought that was a kick - "being like pioneers" lol. Or you can just stay in Cannon Beach or Seaside in an oceanfront condo. In Astoria, just up the highway from Fort Stevens there's a nice little maritime museum and some good pier-front restaurants. Once we got to tour a coast guard ship that was docked there. Then just outside of Astoria is Lewis & Clark's winter camp. That is really neat to see - they do living history there all the time, and it's just amazing to see how they lived that winter, and see snippets of their diaries, etc.

Oops, I'm sorry I got a little carried away. Seattle and the Oregon Coast are two of our favorite vacation destinations!

I hopep you have a fun trip!

[mello]

Oh, one more post. I was trying to figure out the 9 day thing. We've made that drive from CA to WA SO many times 'cuz we've got families in both places and have lived in both as well. Let's see... thinking out loud here...
Day 1: Take I-5 from San Diego to about Redding?
Day 2: Take I-5 the rest of the way into Oregon then get over to the Coast Hwy, stay somewhere in southern to mid OR.
Day 3: Lunch in Tillamook, Dinner & the night in Cannon Beach
Day 4: Ft. Stevens in the morning, LC Historic site in the afternoon, stay either in Canon Beach again, or drive on to about Longview, WA.
Day 5: Stay in Longview and do the Mt. St. Helens drive
Day 6: Drive on up to Seattle (I-5 again) and stay somewhere in the downtown area so you can walk around
Day 7: See the Downtown area - Pike's Place Market, the wharf, the Space Needle, and take the Blake Island dinner cruise
Day 8: Stop by the Museum of Flight for the morning, have lunch there, then head down I-5 later in the afternoon - you can probably get to about Longview again.
Day 9: I-5 to about Redding
Day 10: Drive on home

Well, that's an extra day, bit it can be done! If I had my druthers I'd add an extra day or two though, and I'd stop in Portland on my way home!

Sorry... the OCD trip planner in me couldn't resist LOL.

[STACEY IN CALIF]

Mello's trips sound like ours. We pack them to the max and we are constantly on the go lol! Stacey

[HBMomof4]

Ahhh...Mello's post brought back great childhood memories. Clam Chowder at Mo's was always one of my favorite things as a kid. As for berry picking season, mid to late summer. I'm sure someone out there has it on a website. I don't remember specifically, due to the fact that I lived there and something was always in season...in Tillamook it was generally the cows! (We lived by the "maternity ward" for one of the dairies. Calving season was always a fun one.)

[dmwinch]

I've lived in Seattle all my life, and done quite a bit of the same terrain Mello has. It's a good plan. One caveat however.

Remember what they say about Seattle and it raining all the time? Well, it rains in the spring. I wouldn't do the Space Needle on a rainy day--isn't worth the price of the ride up. A cloudy day would be ok, as long as the clouds were high clouds.

If the Blake Island cruise isn't operating that day (if my memory serves me right is may not run 7 days a week except in summer) try to at least squeeze a ferry boat ride in. You can take the Bainbridge Ferry, walking on rather than driving, right from downtown. About 30 minute ride.

If you're not into cities at all, you can avoid Seattle altogether. When you leave Mt. St. Helens, head back to the ocean and do a circumnavigation of the Olympic Peninsula. You could modify the tour as follows:

Day 6: Drive toward the ocean, and stay at Kalaloch Lodge (on the ocean) or at Lake Quinalt Lodge (on a lake not for from the ocean). Both are historic structures. If time allows that day, visit the Hoh Rain Forest. Nice wide level 'hike', really quite flat, with amazing scenery and huge trees. Bring rain coats and plenty of dry socks for kids.
Day 7: If you didn't do it yesterday, to the rain forest thing. Drive north around the peninsula, making stops along the north side of the peninsula for awesome scenery across the Straits of Juan de Fuca to nearby Vancouver Island (Canada). Continue onto town of historic Port Townsend, and enjoy all the Victorian homes. Some are B & Bs you can stay at, although not always suitable with kids.
Day 8: Leave Port Townsend heading south on highway 101. It's been several years since I've been down that way, drop-dead gorgeous scenery of the mountains, presuming the clouds aren't too low. If time allows, stop in Olympia, the state capital, and if it's of interest to you, tour some of the capital buildings and take in a bit of history. Jump on I-5 and head south.

This tour, depending on how early you are up in the morning, could still get you to Longview on day 8. I'm guessing Olympia to Longview is about 1.5 hours.