A Suspension Bridge, Whales, and Tide Pools

August 27, 2016

In all of July and August there was only one Saturday when Lee could go to the beach with us.  Unfortunately Emma had to work on that one Saturday!  We knew we would miss her terribly, but we took off for a fun day anyway.  Our first stop was at Drift Creek Falls.

This is a hike that I have wanted to do for a long time.  It didn’t disappoint.

It was the perfect length with plenty of things to see and explore on the way.

We even caught a frog!

And then we got to the best part, a huge suspension bridge.

It was long, high off the ground, and bouncy.  So fun!

Isaac was sure to get it swaying.

We got our first view of the falls from the bridge.

From the other side of the bridge it was just a short hike to the bottom of the falls.

The kids had fun climbing and crawling over the rocks.

 

Lee crawled right to the bottom to pick some rocks to take home.

Then we made our way over the bridge again.

After our suspension bridge adventure we headed to Yaquina Head for a tide pool adventure.  As we walked down we were met with an unexpected sight.  We saw whales!  We saw several tails and we were so excited about that, but then we saw the back of a whale and it spouted water!  We all exclaimed loudly as did the people around us.  It was the coolest thing ever and was the highlight of our day.  We took a picture at that spot to remember it.

I haven’t been to the Yaquina Head tide pools since I was a kid.  We all loved looking  at and touching the sea life. 

Can you see the crab in this picture?

The starfish were the most exciting finds.  We saw several, in all different colors.

Touching the squishy and sticky anemones never gets old.

The rangers had pictures of things we could see.  Isaac was determined to find and identify them all.

It was a gray and gloomy day, but that just made the scenery more dramatic.

We also watched a lot of seals that were near the tide pools.

It was especially fun to see them swimming in the water.  There was a mama and her babies out for quite a while.  Can you see her head sticking out of the water?

I was so bummed that we didn’t make it into the lighthouse.  All the tours were full.  We spent quite a bit of time in the visitors center though and learned a lot about the history of the lighthouse.  So interesting to me.

Such a fun day together, even though we were missing one.

We ended the day by walking around Depoe Bay and getting some salt water taffy.