Fort Stevens

This past week, we took the kids camping at Fort Stevens, a state park scenically placed where the Columbia River ends up in the Pacific Ocean. Although I grew up on the Columbia River in the Tri-Cities and spent many summers boating on it, I had never been to the mouth of the Columbia before. It also marked our first vacation/trip to the Oregon Coast as a family, pretty sad considering we only live a couple of hours away!

We arrived at Fort Stevens after dark on Wednesday night, so basically set up the trailer and went to bed. We had a great pancake breakfast the next morning and took a walk around the massive campgrounds- there are over 400 campsites at Fort Stevens, which is also a historic military site. We got directions to the military batteries and the beach, then planned out the rest of our day. We decided to try the batteries first and the kids had fun playing around the old military shell rooms, "driving" an old military jeep, playing in an Indian longhouse, and running around the grass. One picture into the visit and our camera battery bit the big one, so we had to rely on our cell phone cameras for the rest of the trip. The pictures didn't turn out too bad, considering they were taken from iPhones!



We then decided to drive into Astoria- home of one of my favorite childhood movies:
A quick check online and we were off to find the house where "The Goonies" was filmed and ended up finding the school where "Kindergarten Cop" was filmed also, which was only a few blocks away from the "Goonies" house.

The famous "Goonies" house. I walked up a gravel road to get a good picture.

John Astor Elementary School, where scenes were filmed for "Kindergarten Cop". The school grounds have an incredible view of the Columbia River from the playground!

After a quick nap in the car, the kids were ready for a trip to the beach to play in the sand and generally get dirty! It was only about a mile walk from our campsite- so convenient! If the temperatures weren't in the mid-60's we may have considered swimsuits, but it was just a bit too chilly for that. We were amazed at how many people were actually out playing in the water- they had to have been freezing!! The kids had a blast playing in the sand! Riley probably could've played in the sand forever, but Tyson kept getting it in his eyes and mouth, so we cut the beach visit a little short.



During the walk back to our campsite, the kids decided to kick back and enjoy the ride!

We packed up first thing on Friday morning and pulled out of the campground by 10:30am, with plans to stop in Seaside on our way home. We got some yummy salt water taffy, ate clam chowder in a bread bowl for lunch, and enjoyed ice cream in a waffle cone before getting into the car for the ride home. There was a big beach volleyball tournament going on at the beach as well, so the town was hopping! We were only gone from home about 48 hours, but it was a fun-filled trip to the coast! I think we'll be making camping trips to Fort Stevens a yearly tradition from here on out- we can only pray for warmer weather the next time!