social distancing on the oregon coast

we are back from spending the last 5 days on the oregon coast. it served as a nice mental escape from the coronavirus pandemic, but of course we still monitored what was going on and practiced social distancing just as we would have at home. i took facebook off my phone because it was starting to overwhelm me.

it's a 6 hour drive (without stops) to newport, OR. when we went on our pacific highway road trip last spring, we did not do the coast of oregon to save time, so it was nice to have the opportunity to do it now. it's so spectacular! we mostly had sunny days in the 50's there, which was nice.

we stopped at cannon beach on the way down. there were a fair amount of people there, but it's huuuuge so it was easy to keep our distance while taking in the beauty. 

we got to newport at dinner time and settled into the airbnb, which was right on the water. we ordered pizza for dinner and watched the sun set from the kitchen table while we ate.

 

the next 4 days were mostly spent hanging out at the condo: working on a 1500 piece puzzle, reading, coloring, working (for thatcher and me), minimal school work for the kids (oops), and cooking. we made all of our food there except for the first night. 

 

the condo was up on a cliff overlooking the beach. it was a 2 block walk to access the beach. we went there a couple times and again, it was so vast and open we didn't ever get closer than 100 feet to anyone :) it was windy, but sunny. the kids flew the kite we brought and played with sand toys.

 

on tuesday we drove 30 minutes south to do a short hike. the scenery was beautiful! we encountered a few other people there, but it wasn't busy.

 

on the last day on our way out of town, we stopped at this lighthouse. 

my favorite part of the week was our movie nights. we made popcorn, and chocolate chip cookies, and curled up under blankets on the big comfy couch. we watched "frozen 2", "horrid henry", and "woody woodpecker".

while we didn't do much traditional homeschooling while we were there, the kids learned in other ways. we spent time in nature, thatcher took them out on the deck to look at the stars one night and explained each one, we talked about the moon and the tides and tsunamis. we did a lot of drawing. and puzzles are good for our brains right? right. 

now we are settling back into home life for the long haul. it's stressful not knowing when this pandemic will end or even slow down. i'm trying to be thankful that the worst thing we have to worry about right now is too much togetherness.