Oregon 2017: Day 5 - Rogue River & Lucas Lodge

We got up bright and early to get on the road to drive to Gold Beach where we were all going to go on the jet boats.
We made it early enough to do a little shopping at the gift shops.  We found some cute snow globes for Tyler and Josh that had sea turtles and dolphins on them.  Megan and Allie picked out mermaid stuffed toys for their gifts.  They were all super cute.

By that time the whole family had made it there and we all got together and took some pictures before getting on our boat.  We were all really excited to go on the boat and hoped to see many fun animals.
Josh wanted to sit by Papa G, so he sat at the end of our row with him and grandma.  It was pretty adorable.

Allie was a little nervous at first not knowing what to expect.  She sat with Tony and he kept her calm as we got going.  Once we were underway she realized that it was fun and started feeling a lot better.
Our driver was really good and we got to see some fun animals on our journey.  We saw lots of birds, a few eagles, lots of nests, and other smaller creatures.  I really wanted to see a bear, but we did not.

We got to our lunch spot, Lucas Lodge, and had a few minutes of hanging out before lunch was ready.
My dad was so nice to pay for everyone's lunch and we were all super excited to eat some yummy fried chicken with all the fixin's.

They called our group in and we took over half of their really big table.  They started us off with fruit, then corn on the cob, mashed potatoes and gravy, fried chicken, and yummy biscuits.  When everyone was done they brought out bowls of vanilla ice cream with or without a yummy blackberry topping.  It was very refreshing and delish,
We only had a few minutes to walk around before we were to be back down to the water for our boat to pick us up.  We all made our way down there and waited for a while for out boat, they were a little late.
Once they came for us we all piled back in the boat and got ready for our fun ride back.  The driver stopped a lot less on the way back and does a lot more spins and tricks.

Tyler wanted to sit on the side of the boat and get wet so I let him.  He got so wet!  With all the spins and tricks it got us all really wet.  Some people hid under the blanket and then other's of us just took it all in.
Allie loved the boat ride back at first until she got wet, she did not like that at all.  Tony would try and keep her protected under the blanket but she didn't like that either.  The poor girl was just so tired and not liking getting wet or being under a blanket.  It took a little while, but Tony did get her to fall asleep and then he put the blanket over her to not wake her up.
Megan had fun getting wet and after a while decided that she wanted to sit up a row with aunt Wendy until she realized that it was uncle Gabe who had their cooler of snacks, then she wanted Gabe.  Once she made her way to Gabe instead of asking for a snack she just snuggled her way into him and had a fun ride back.  It was pretty adorable too.

After we got back to the parking lot we got into our car and headed back towards "home."  We did have a couple stops we wanted to make before we got there.  First was to the jam gift shop.  It is close to Bandon and they have fun things that they sell.  We chose some of their surprise goody bags where you don't know what you are getting until after you buy it.  It did say on the bag if it was for a boy, girl, etc.   Tony even talked me into getting one for myself. I ended up with four shot glasses.  Super awesome.

After that store it was ice cream time.  We love the ice cream at the cheese factory in Bandon.  It is super cheep and they give you lots of it.  We all got some yummy ice cream and ate it upstairs of the building.  After we were all done we headed back to the cottages.  We didn't have a lot of time before we were to be at my grandpa's for his big 90th birthday party.