Trip So Far
So, Pohki and I decided to revisit the place we took our honeymoon three years ago, the Oregon coast. Northern coast to be a little more specific, around Depoe Bay to Newport to those familiar with the area or willing to look it up.
The journey begins Monday morning, we left Nocturnum at 1AM-ish after dancing for 3 hours (on and off for me) and having seen Hawk to exchange keys for binoculars (he is watching after Boo for us). We get home at roughly 2AM and I begin baking bread and getting ready to grab a short amount of sleep. Plans get rearranged at the last minute, uncooked bread is shoved into the fridge, and we pass out at roughly 3:30AM. We wake up at 7:30AM amidst much grumbling and griping. We bake bread, pack, and leave slightly before 11AM, almost an hour later than planned. However, the delay meant that the mail arrived and my paycheck and new Converse had arrived. This is a source of much happy as the new 'verse match the new clothes I bought for this trip and to have in general. We make the 10 hour drive through about 40 miles of Idaho and a billion miles of Oregon. Oregon is filled with traps, so you have to be careful. The town of Bend, for instance, does away with street signs and throws in a plethora of turn-abouts. We pressed on, against our better judgment, and found our way through. The majority of the drive is pretty but dull in the same fashion as much as central to western US land goes. However, once into the mountains the driving gets more interesting, and once on the ocean side of them it gets all rain-foresty as well, making for beautiful scenery and full driving on mountain roads. Tired, but elated, we make our way into Waldport, OR at about 9PM local time (PST). The room at our hotel is dull but serviceable, and more importantly cheap and clean. Nothing is open in Waldport past 9PM, so we eat bread and peanut butter and jelly, and sleep.
Tuesday begins with a local restaurant/bar called the Flounder Inn. It is a bar that states no minors allowed at any time. Means no tourists for the most part, except us of course. We park next to a pretty silver Boxster. The clientele inside seems to be grizzled fishermen and locals (also grizzled, I think everyone was 20+ years our senior). The food was delicious, but a little greasy, typical diner fare. Hearing the banter and watching the dynamic of the patrons, who all know each other apparently, was entertaining in its own right. After food is a 7 hour adventure spent at the Oregon Coast Aquarium. Lots and lots of fun stuff to see. Too much to go into detail here, except to say that I got to pet a anemone, starfish, and a shark! And Pohki is still scared of sharks. Despite that we spent an hour in the shark tunnel. It is exactly what it sounds like, a tunnel that goes though the middle of a shark tank. There were dozen of sharks ranging from 2 - 10 feet in length, plus a few rays, a school of anchovies, a school of mackerel, and some very scared looking salmon. And a very scared looking Pohki, who did okay until a 10' seven gill shark opened its mouth wide open. We also got to watch them feed the Sea Otters which were great fun. After the Aquarium we hit a bar in Newport for dinner. The restaurant portion was on the second level with a view of the ocean. The food was good, if once again a bit greasy. We retired early to make up for the weariness we were still feeling
Wednesday was a day of much adventure and new things. We ate breakfast in. We are cheap vacationers, meaning we try not to eat every meal out. We had enough travel safe food to snack on before heading out. We went north all the way to Lincoln City, which is about 40 miles from where we are staying, and is further north than was required to go, except there is a thrift store there we wanted to hit. Pohki got new pants and I got a new book. However, we lost track of time there, and left at 11:35 to get back to Depoe Bay where we were supposed to catch a charter boat. It is only 10 miles, but with no interstate, that can mean a 30 minute drive with bad traffic. And we were supposed to be there by 11:45 for a noon departure. At 11:47 I call the charter service and let them know that we are late but en route. This is the only 2-hour trip today and we don’t want to miss it, I tell them we just got out of Lincoln City and are 8 miles away. They tell us to hurry, but they will try and delay for us. Fortunately we get there, get our tickets paid for and get to the dock before the boat gets there. It was running later than us. The two hours on the boat flew past. It was bitter cold, and next time (there will be another trip) we will dress better for the cold. However, we saw four gray whales, a pair of sea lions playing by the boat, a bunch of marine birds, some jellyfish, a colony of harbor seals, a bootleggers cave where rum was stashed during prohibition, and some natural spring waterfalls. Afterward we stopped at a small diner that boasted the best clam chowder on the coast. It is called the Sunset Café, and they are not lying. Pohki had snacked on some PBJ first, too much greasy food at previous places, but enjoyed a nice hot chocolate to warm up. I had fish and chips (again, I had the same the night before) and the clam chowder. Yummy squared. We then hit a small salt-water taffy shop next door that had the most awesome proprietor who encouraged samples. We sampled taffy and caramel corn (made fresh) and left with a 1.2 pound bag of taffy. We then toured the town strip on the beach and hit a fudge shop where 1/3 pound of maple/walnut/awesome fudge was purchased. Made from fresh awesome. We returned to our hotel to rest, and um… yeah, that’s all the details you’re getting! Dinner was Sushi at a place called Yuzen, a Japanese restaurant in what appeared to have once been a building designed for a Bavarian restaurant. The interior was decorated in sushi bar style, lots of Japanese décor, but not overdone. The service was awesome, although it was busy and that slowed things down a bit (as is to be expected) the servers remained friendly and accommodating. The food was spectacular. Now we are back at the hotel, wiped out from the last couple of days.
Tomorrow’s agenda is to pack up to head back to Kamp Kaos. First, however, we are hitting a state park where we visited three years ago to do some tide pooling. We hope to get a few more pics tomorrow and see some more sea life up close and personal.