Since it was such an odd summer for us, We didn’t manage to get much-planned vacation wise. All of our trips were fairly “last minute” by my standards. We managed to have a great time though and show the kids some new sights.
For our 19th Anniversary, I managed to snag one of our timeshare condos in Central Oregon for cheap like a week beforehand. Score! Not only did I snag it cheap, but we also did a quick owners workshop, and they gave us back more points than we paid for the night. So we technically made money on the stay! Ha!
We paid nothing for all our entertainment and ate picnic lunches and dinner at the condo. So the trip didn’t really cost us more than a half a tank of us (it may only have been a 1/4 of a tank)
Our main stop for the trip was the Newberry National Volcanic Monument. My husband and I had been here years ago (I used to go often as a kid), but I don’t think we had taken the kids.
With our America the Beautiful Annual Pass, we got in for free! That pass has certainly paid for itself many times over this year!
We tried to go to the Caves and explore, but the parking lot had an HOUR wait – just to park. Now, we were there very close to opening. So if you would like to explore the caves on a weekend, I suggest going there FIRST thing! We may try again during the school year and see if it is any better.
So after the visitor’s center, we went to the Lava Cast Forest. This place is really cool to explore. The path is paved and easy for kids to navigate. There are signs explaining what you see.
The downside is it is a 9 mile DIRT and HOLE filled road to get here. Takes about 20-30 minutes to drive one way. We ate our lunch on the drive.
We felt the drive was worth it though. Hardly anyone around and the kids had a great time exploring the trail. They thought the holes the trees left were just really cool. Our 3-year-old kept pointing to every hole: “Hole!! Look it! HOLE!” The kids thought it was fun to get in some of the holes as well.
Our next stop was the Obsidian Flow. It doesn’t get much easier than to just go off the parking lot and see the giant obsidian flow – pretty much anyone can access this. There are stairs if you’d like a view from the top. There is then a very rocky trail around the top, which we chose not to do because I was certain one of the kids would hurt themselves.
Paulina Falls was our last stop of the day. A double waterfall that is another quick and easy walk from the parking lot. It drops 80 feet over volcanic cliffs into a jumble of rocks below.
There was still WAY more we could have explored at the Newberry Volcanic National Monument. Guess we’ll have to make a trip back sometime soon (It really isn’t that bad of a drive from where we live). I’ll have to try for another cheap timeshare weekend! Hopefully, we can see the caves on our next trip!
