Beach Trip Day Eight

On Sunday morning, we packed up the car to leave.  But before we left town, we headed over to the LDS chapel in Seaside to enjoy church.  It was fun visiting their ward.  Half of the people there were visitors! lol  We had a fantastic Sunday School teacher and I wish I could have her some teach us sometime, she was awesome!  After church we still weren't quite ready to go home, and I had a picnic lunch packed, so we changed our clothes and headed up to Fort Stevens for a visit their first.

We ate lunch outside of this little building.  After lunch, we went in to explore.  We saw some people running out of it, screaming about bats.  We were thinking... "COOL!"  And we wanted to go in to see them! lol  But when we got in, we quickly found that there were no bats afterall.  The noise they heard were baby birds!  There was a Mama Bird flying in and out of the front room waiting for us to leave so she could check her babies, so we left them alone and moved on to see some of the other buildings.



Fort Stevens was even more fun to explore than Fort Canby.  It's larger and has more stuff to check out.  It would really be a fun place to play Capture the Flag!







While we were there, a ranger was showing photos of what Fort Stevens was like "back in the day" and she told us a little about what it was like for the people who were stationed here.  The only time Fort Stevens was ever attacked was when one Japanese sub emerged and began firing randomly.  The commander could tell that the sub didn't know where it was aiming, and he knew that if they responded, they would give away their location, and since they had no idea how many submarines could still be submerged, he ordered to NOT return fire.  Eventually, the sub left and no one was injured.  It was a smart call by the commander.  But a lot of the soldiers were mad because they weren't able to do what they had been trained to do.  lol 
Nearby we found a monument about the Japanese attack which included the inscription, "May peace between our nations be everlasting."

 

We did a little more exploring and then it was time to get back in the car to start our drive home.



We had such a great time at the beach!  We sure love the Hills!!!  We always love our time with them and getting to spend a whole week of vacation with them is awesome!  We're already looking forward to next year! :)