This last week while taking a little blogging break I was on a six-day vacation on the Oregon Coast with my handsome husband, 7 kids (only 7?) and some good friends with their five kids. It was an adventure, I’ll tell you that.
Remember my Almost Serious Guide to Family Camping? How it was the day of our camping trip and I hadn’t planning anything? And I vowed never to do that again? Yeah, well, this time I at least had my meals planned because Merriann and I decided it would be a great idea to coordinate our family’s dinners. That way, one family wouldn’t be eating steak and lobster for dinner, while the other family subsisted on PBJ’s and scavenged acorns.
The thing is, Thursday, our designated Shopping for the Camping Trip Day involved some family drama that easily made August 6th the Worst Day of the Year for us. A day that will go down in infamy. Suffice it to say, the family drama trumped shopping, and it never got done. That meant Friday, the day before a six-day camping trip, the kids and I were left with the job of shopping and prepping for our trip…and it was a wee bit stressful. Three stores, mounds of laundry and absolutely no yelling (really, I refused to let emotions rule the day) we managed. Kind of.
We ended up leaving our house at 11 am on Saturday and arrived at our destination, Sandbeach Campground, at about 7 pm. If you click on that link, you might notice that Sandbeach Campground is listed as “ideal for off-road vehicle lovers”. Yeah. Whether we love off-road vehicles or not, we didn’t bring any along with our combined 12 children, ranging in age from 1-14. Nope, we left those at home. In our case, because we had to fit nine people, nine sleeping bags and pads, enough tents and gear for all of us in a 15 passenger van. It was kind of like fitting the Duggars into a studio apartment. Minus the long skirts and polo shirts. Oh, and we don’t really have off-road vehicles…
If you look at the map of the campground, you will see that Greg managed to snag the last two campsites available (7&8) when he made our reservations months ago. You might also notice that campsites 7&8 are a literal thoroughfare, and every.single.off-road vehicle had to drive right between our campsites to get to the sand dunes. If you consider that drone of quads, rumble of off-road trucks and squeal of dune buggies music to your ears, then we had a constant lullaby as we tried to get a dozen children, and ourselves to sleep at night.
Tucker and Charlotte engaged in a rousing game of hide-and-seek.
The next day (after four hours of sleep due to our rowdy, drinking, pot smoking, partying, rule-breaking camping neighbors) we headed off to Cape Meares to do some touristy things. We toured the lighthouse, saw Octopus Tree, ate lunch, watched the fog roll in and watch Greg crash his drone into some trees.
.
See those rocks? By the time we left an hour or two later, the sea was so foggy they were no longer visible!
To be continued…
You’re so game! It certainly doesn’t seem like a relaxing holiday. 🙂
No holiday is relaxing with that many kids…but it WAS fun!
My folks moved to Tillamook over Labor Day week-end of 1959, I was 11yrs. old. They bought a house in Cape Meares. We moved to Seattle in May of 1960. Those nine months were among the nicest of my life.
Well this sounds like it will be full of adventures!
That little Charlotte is cuuuuuuute! Would love to hear more about the Thursday family drama if it’s something you can share… Sounds like a doozy of a day but even a big setback doesn’t stop you from getting out of town!
Well, it was all caused by one child with special needs. I am trying to maintain a bit of privacy, so chose not to go into the details. Suffice it to say, it was BAD.
I get it, and I’m sorry you experienced a family trauma, but glad you got out to the fabulous Oregon coast in spite of it!
Yes, life goes on and we had a great time full of happy memories!