Oregon 2015 - Day 4: Rogue River

Oh the Rogue, how we love thee.  Even though we all had to wake up early to make our boat ride, we are all glad that we did.
We left a little after 6:00 and followed each other down to Gold Beach.  My dad thought that their would be a McDonald's for us to stop at for breakfast on the way so none of us ate.  Turns out their is not a McDonald's or any other fast food type place that has breakfast on the drive from Coos Bay to Gold Beach.

Some of the people from our group just stopped at a little grocery store and picked up some food but we decided to drive on to see what we could find.  Dumb us, because we found nothing.  We ended up just having some snacks that Julie gave us.  We knew we'd be having a big lunch in a couple hours, so we were not too worried about it.

We had some time before they called our group to go, so we looked around the gift shop.  Didn't buy anything this time.  There was this really silly dog in the parking lot that was playing with a rock.  People would kick the rock into the parking lot and then the dog would push it back.  The kids loved playing with that dog and the rock.

They finally called our group up and we all got into our spots on the mail boat.  Our group with all the Clark's and the Willis's made up what seemed like half the boat.  They gave the kids life jackets for safety and they even had blankets for everyone.  It was kind of cool when we left.  It was only 8:30 in the morning.  After getting everyone situated we were on our way.

The driver started out pretty slow and really didn't go super fast ever, but fast enough that we all had a great time.  I think he went a little slower then usual since their were a lot of little kids in the boat.  The kids really had a good time in the wind and especially loved it when the driver would spin the boat and get people wet.

Allie did good for the most part.  Their were time when she wasn't happy but then Tony would spin her around and let her stand on the seat looking backwards and she seemed to like that.  She mostly liked playing with the seat covers and the people behind Tony.  Good thing they were our family and liked cute babies.
Tony did get her to fall asleep on the ride back.  She fought it, but she finally gave up and took a nap.

We got to see like 4-5 eagles on this ride.  We also got to see lots of different birds in their nests, and animals along the bank of the river.  The driver would slow down and even stop to show us all the different animals and things to see along the river.  He was full of interesting information about the river as well.
He drove us to the place where we ate lunch.  We had some yummy fried chicken and mashed potatoes.  They had a volleyball net set up for the kids to play and a little gift shop there too.  We all got to eat as much as we wanted and then the kids played a little more before going back to the boat for our ride back.
I let Josh sit on the end of the bench on the ride back and he was very happy to be right by the water.  It was nice having a whole row to ourselves to stretch out and the kids even laid down during some parts of the ride.  We loved our Rogue River ride and were very grateful to Papa G for sponsoring the ride!