Northwest Coast Family Fun

California should really be 3 states.  Northern California is different than southern or the bay area.  It was really fun to be able to see all the different area of California.  This post is going to focus on the northern part of California, Oregon and even the Portland/Vancouver area (don’t miss my Universal Studios Tips and Tricks for families, or my San Francisco Family Fun post — both from earlier legs in this journey).  Get set to have some serious Northwest Coast family fun!

Highway One (The Pacific Coast Highway – the PCH) is an awesome highway that winds up the coast.

If you have forever – you should totally think about doing it.  It’s beautiful and amazing, and long.  Really, really long.  So much winding, and you often can’t go that fast because of the size of the road and the winding….

We made the highway 1 mistake once with a toddler.  Let’s just say we’re still not old enough to do a full highway 1 trip.  Someday. 🙂

If you don’t want to spend forever on your trip – I’d recommend taking I-5, or possibly doing a balance between the two.

If you’re looking for somewhere to stay on your northwest vacation — be sure to check TripAdvisor — they always making picking a hotel SO much easier!  I {heart}  reviews!

We LOVE the Avenue of the Giants, but we didn’t have enough time to route over there this trip.  As our trip was SO long, we had to sacrifice a few things.  BTW, if you’re looking for a great outdoor location check out my post all about things to do in Flagstaff.

But, because our trip was already 4,000 miles, we decided to do I-5 which took us RIGHT by the Jelly Belly Factory.  We’ve been a bunch of times, but it is always super fun.  It’s right at I-80 in Fairfield.  Tours are free, and you get a free package of jelly bellies, as well as many samples as you’d like.  Don’t forget to buy a package of belly flops. 🙂

We did, however, stop at Mount Shasta which is so amazing and pretty.  We stayed at Dunsmuir Lodge there at Mount Shasta.  It’s a quaint little place to stay in a gorgeous area.  Our room was plenty big for the 5 of us.  That’s always nice.  Mt Shasta is a great place to stop on the trip from the bay area to Portland.  {full disclosure: Dunsmuir Lodge did give us a discount media rate}

Then it was up to Portland.  I’m telling you I couldn’t BELIEVE how green everything was!  Lots of gorgeous scenery along the way.

My husband has family in Portland, and we have been there a few times, but woah.  The traffic around Portland is crazy!  We were there about 2 pm on a Friday and traffic was horrible.  Word on the street is that it is horrible all the time.  Yay {note: sarcasm font}.  Just FYI.

On our first day in Portland, we did the 4T trail.  Trolley, train, Trail and Tram.  Sounds innocuous enough, right?  It’s a super fun way to see lots of Portland.  Our kids love to take all forms of public transportation.  So, it was a great fit for us.  Until we find out that the trail part is up and down and all around.  It’s about 4 miles.  So, before you go – be prepared.  But, I would still totally recommend it.  Super fun!

The last part of the 4T trail is the tram.  It’s a “big finish” and really has a great view of the whole area.

The second day we went to Arcadia.  This is a quaint little town just north of Portland.  They have a cool Column that you can climb up and see forever (be prepared if you’re afraid of heights).  They also have a fun little trolley that follows the water line and shares some of the history of the area (and if you’re lucky you can also see some big boats headed inland).

Here’s the column.  It has all this cool engraving.  It also has like 2 billion stairs to get the to top.  Did I mention this blogger needs a fitness plan?

Here’s the view from the top (not pictured: 2 of my children clinging to the column wishing we’d go down!)

Then we headed to Fort Stevens.  They have tables to eat lunch and it is a place that the military protected our country.  It has a fort and you can see the cannons and how they’d raise and lower them to shoot at the enemy.

Then it was off to the beach.  I’ve had a few friends who’ve camped at Fort Stevens and said it is really fun for families and they have great bike trails (which sounds really fun).  It was a nice, clean beach and it has the cool ship wreck that you can explore around.

I still hate sand, though.

That night we went for dessert at Papa Haydn’s in Portland.  They have amazing desserts.  We love going there.  It’s also in such a cool area of Portland, fun to look around.  Be sure to get reservations if you’re going, though – -quite a wait (we were able to get our reservations just a few hours in advance).

On Sunday we visited the beautiful Portland Temple (which also has  visitor’s center if you’re interested in visiting it too).  It has such lush grounds.  We all enjoyed being there.

This was a super fun leg of our journey.  Lots of different things to see and do.  Huge props to Drew’s sister’s family who hauled us all around tarnation to do all this fun stuff!

After this leg, it was off to more visiting with family, through Utah and Idaho.

We also stopped in Flagstaff on our final leg of the journey.  We love staying at the Little America there.  So woodsy and nice to be able to get one last breath of fresh air before heading into the dessert. {full disclosure — I do get a media rate at Little America every time I stay there, we LOVE it there}.  I have a full post just about Flagstaff!

It was an amazing trip.  I’m so glad we decided to do it.  I hope you’ve enjoyed learning about our journey as well!  Take a look at all of our other family travel posts below!  And, be sure to sign up for my newsletter to get all the latest tips and tricks from Pulling Curls!

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