Hi everyone, this past week has been very cool. PLP, our school program, took us to oregon as a field school (field study). The drive was very long, 9 hours total. We took a few stops on the way. We went to Clarks Restaurant, an old school burger and milkshake restaurant. I got a burger and fries there, it was pretty good. When we hit the road again, We went to the Astoria column. The Astoria Column is a tall tower in Astoria, Oregon looking over the Columbia River. A tradition at Astoria Column is throwing little wooden gliders off the tower. Since no one in our class wanted to buy them, you can look for ones people threw off the building and get them for free. So we did that and then kept on moving down the road. We then went to our first stopping place, KOA (“Kampground” of America). However before we got there, our bus broke down! Luckily we were only about 5 minuets away so we got towed to the KOA. Then we all went to sleep.

The next day came, and we walked to Fort Stevens. Fort stevens was the only fort in the USA to ever get attacked. Today we were going zip lining however we had no bus! So one of my teachers put out on Facebook if anyone had spare cars, and the owner of the local Ford dealership showed up in a limousine! So we all took the limousine to the zip lining. One we were there, we stared. I was super scared because I had never zip lined in my life, I was super scared until I got on. Then I realized it was awesome! We went through all the zip lines, then the last one was over water, and you could get the “super soak” which is where you get dunked all the way under the water. You also had the option of water skiing on your heels or you could do finger drag on the water. I did the finger drag because I only had one pair of shoes. Once we left the zip-lining.

We spent some of the next day at the Columbia River Maritime Museum, where you could see the old days of shipping things and cool interactions of tugboats and things like that. After that we went for my favourite lunch, Pig N’ Pancake. It was a awesome place for breakfast and lunches, I ordered their Chicken burger, however I wish I ordered the Chicken Nuggets because 2 of my friends ordered them and they looked so good. However I still loved my chicken burger. After everyones stomaches were stuffed, we went to cannon beach. The home of Haystack rock, which you may have heard of. Its the 3rd largest bird breeding rock! We weren’t there for the rock though, we were there for the tide pools. We saw some mini catfish, some giant green anemone, (I’ve never seen one before) and my favourite of all, but not in the tide pools were: Puffins! Ive always wanted to see one and on that day I did through the help of someones telescope pointed to the rock! Then we went for another drive over to Tillamook Creamery, the home of cheese (and ice cream and yogurt) but mostly cheese. When we first went in this place was massive, so we walked over to the place where they make the cheese. We all learned that cheese weighs 40 pounds!!! We were all so shocked my this, that we watched a video on the ice cream making here, and it was incredible. Once we were all done watching, we went to taste test the cheese, my favourite was Colby Jack. So we once again hit the road. Once we got to the yurts again we had some dinner and then went for a walk at the beach at night and we saw the Yaquina Head Lighthouse, A lighthouse that has been lighting for 150 years! However once we got back every went to sleep because we had a big day tomorrow.

We went whale watching! When we first hit the water we put crab traps in, and I got to put it in the water, but before that we had to kiss the fish for good luck. After 2 traps were set, we went to cross the bar into the ocean, we didn’t see any whales, but loads of pelicans following the boat. Once we came back we picked up the crab traps and mine unfortunately didn’t catch any crabs. However my friends caught 2 crabs. The guide taught us how to hold a crabs. It was really cool. We then went by at least 20 sea lions sun bathing on rocks, and I love sea lions so I was really excited. Once we left we went for lunch. Then we went digging for ghost shrimp for research because after we measured them because they are going extinct and we were helping this guy do his research. Then we spent the rest of the day at the yurts.

The next day we went back to the ghost shrimp digging site because we made ROVs (remotely operated vehicles) and used them in small pools. Then we left we went for lunch. Then we went to Yaquina Head Tide Pool beach. And we saw some seals with babies and we saw an octopus and a whale. This was my favorite tide pool stop of the trip. It was super cool! Then we went for a short drive to dinner, Kam Meng. The Group I have asked questions about because this entire trip led up to this for me (everyone had different places they interviewed.) When I and my group mates were interviewing, we practiced, so it went smoothly. We got all the information we needed for the ad. After we enjoyed the Chinese food, we went back to the yurts.

Today we went to Bullwinkle’s, an amusement park! We stayed for about 4 hours. We had pizza and drinks, then loads of fun on the go-karts and zip-lines. We also got 5$ worth of credits for the arcade. Once the 4 hours were up, we kept on driving, until dinner. Instead of eating at Chipotle, we stopped at Fire On the Mountain Wings, they were pretty good, but we didn’t get enough food. We kept driving, and at this point, it was very late (10:00pm – 10:30pm). We ended up arriving at the hotel around 11:00pm, so everyone was sent straight to bed. In the morning we had a good breakfast, then went to wolf haven, a wolf sanctuary. It was cool, just pretty boring. Once we left, we were on our home stretch to get home. It was a 5-hour drive. We ended up arriving at 8:50, so I still had a chance to say hi to my pet and family.