Vancouver, WA

Savvy mountain climbers and day hikers alike will take advantage of Mt. Hamilton’s challenging climb while also enjoying waterfalls, wide trails and brilliant views along the way.

The big draw for my boys was the waterslides. The tamer of the two winds down 140 feet. The second and newest slide is a 184-foot tube that twists and turns its way down to the water.

We spent a glorious day dodging the aggressive surf and making our way across the stagecoach trail and stopping to peer in all the nooks and crannies of the tide pools. We went into caves bending low to avoid getting scraped by the mussels overhead. We rinsed our salty feet in the freshwater stream and hunted for interesting wood and rocks and shells.

There’s nothing like a ferry ride, pumpkins and hot cider to make kids young and old miss summer a little bit less. Today the sun was out, the air just slightly crisp. We put on our sweaters, packed a quick snack and headed out the door.

The park has many different features: benches, picnic tables, even a covered section, nice wide paths, a basketball half-court, drinking fountain, the playground, a habitat area, and a huge hill.

For me, an extended camping trip in our travel trailer at Maryhill State Park makes a relatively inexpensive family vacation, but being less than two hours away from Vancouver, it’s also a day trip worth taking.

When we first went to Heritage Park in Camas I found out the Heritage Trail was over three miles long and that there was another trailhead at the other end with parking and a restroom. Years ago I had volunteered at Camp Currie for a weekend children’s event and we had taken canoes to where [...]

I picked Layla up at bible camp today, then stopped at Freddie’s for our favorite chicken strips before heading out to find our park for the day, one I’ve seen from 1-205 for years and had always planned to visit. I had my little trusty map that I had looked up online and had a [...]

There is also an old-fashioned merry-go-round where the kids pile on and two or three run around the outside getting it up to speed, then jump on: the objective is to defeat gravity until it slows down.

“This was not as spectacular a walk as some of the others I have taken this summer; the photo ops were of miniature vistas: a family of 12 slugs strung out five feet or more, areas that looked like tiny rain forests, dead “woodpecker” trees, and small ferns arrayed against a tangled background.”