West Coast - Day 11

We completed our tour of the Oregon coast today. Our first stop was the Oregon State Aquarium in Newport. Likely because I was traumatized from yesterday, I decided to take the kids into the aquarium without any strollers. That turned out to be a mistake, as Evan was impossible to keep track of and Xander got tired and wanted to be carried. However, the aquarium was a hit with the kids. Evan loved looking at the fish in the tanks and even spent some time playing in the water where you could touch starfish.

Some other highlights were the giant octopus, the biggest crabs in the world (and they were HUGE), the shark tank, which went over your head, and a sea otter that really enjoyed playing with the crazy humans watching it. When we arrived it was swimming near a window with a bunch of kids in front of it. When the kids left, it darted away to follow them around the tank. It eventually came back to the window to look at us - soon it started playing with Sandra - as she would move her head around, it would mimic her. It was quite the cute little animal.

After dragging the kids out of the aquarium, we drove to Tillamook, where there is an air museum in a giant World War II blimp hangar. Sandra had found the museum in the hotel information last night and it looked like it had a good assortment of planes, which it did. Among others, there was a Bf-109, a P-38, a P-51, an F4U Corsair and an F-14. Probably the coolest thing about the museum was that all the planes were flyable (or close to flyable) and there were no roped off areas. You weren't allowed to touch the planes, but you could walk right up to any part of them. I spent a lot of time walking around the World War II planes - it was exciting to be that close to history. I was also impressed with how small most of the planes were - the Bf-109 is tiny and the P-51 is not much bigger.

For the kids, they had a bunch of old cockpit trainers that you could sit in, and those ended up being the part that Xander loved the most. He spent as much time as he could sitting in the cockpit, pretending to fly and shoot down other planes. He liked it so much that he kept getting mad at me whenever I would drag him off to look at another plane. Evan was pretty tired by this point and spent most of the time being pushed around in his stroller by Sandra, in an effort to keep him happy.

I bought the kids some gaudy toy airplanes and then we started driving towards Portland. The coast was pretty foggy at this point and it started raining, which is the first rain we've seen this entire vacation. The rain stopped as soon as we turned inland and the drive to Portland would have been uneventful, except for Evan, who spent almost all the time screaming. At one point he worked himself up so much that we had to stop so that Sandra could calm him down. He was tired and a bit hungry, which is likely what most of the problem was - in addition to his stubbornness.

We are spending the next three days in the Portland area, which means I get a couple of days where I don't have to pack and unpack the car. I reserved a suite in a Holiday Inn Express, which means we have a separate room for the boys to sleep in. That will help Evan, as for the past week he has been going to sleep very late, since we were all in the same room. It also helps me, as it means that I can sit around with the light on while the boys fall asleep, rather than spend the whole time in the dark.