Oregon #2

Wednesday
I had left my purse in Lakeview!  We were relieved to call the motel and find they had it at the desk.  We considered driving 2 1/2 hours back to get the purse, but we were concerned about driving in the dark on winding, unfamiliar roads (and we were already tired).  We tried to call  UPS or FedEx, but couldn't find a listing for them.  On our third call to the Best Western where I left my purse, Sherry, the employee who helped us, said she was going to California the next day and she would be glad to meet us in Medford and give me the purse. We were so relieved.  We met her at 11:30 and she handed off the purse with the advice to have fun on the rest of our trip--and to keep track of my purse.  I was left to wonder if I would go out of my way to help a stranger the way Sherry did.

We headed to California to see some redwoods.  But. . .along the way we got our first glimpse of the ocean.  What is it about the ocean that is so fascinating?  We couldn't get enough of it.

As if the view of the ocean wasn't wonderful enough, we got the ocean--and wildflowers!  During the whole trip, Alan kept commenting how strange it was to see the ocean with pine trees instead of palm trees.

 

We found a beach that we fell in love with.  It had soft gray sand that was so easy to walk on.  We spent about an hour there just enjoying the waves and feeling the sand.  (The water was cold!)

              It's COLD!

 Here I'm showing how brave I can be while the water covers my feet.

        Beautiful sand.  Cute feet.                        Happy couple.
We were tempted to remain on the beach and skip the redwoods, but I'm glad we drove south and saw them.

 We followed miles of road that looked like this.  I loved the ferns that were underneath all the trees.

 

Pictures don't really show how big the trees are, so we used our car for a comparison.

 Alan was a good comparison too.  There you have it--the redwoods!


Thursday
Before we left California, we decided to spend a little more time relaxing at "our beach" from the day before.  We enjoyed our morning walk there.

It was a beautiful  morning--but still sweatshirt weather for me.  I loved this arrangement of sticks.  It reminded me of something Brian would have built when he was a child. 

Below: Alan with his walking stick.  I'm holding my scepter.

 I also fell in love with the lily pads on the ponds in the area.  No luck finding a frog.
Next it was back into Oregon and our quest for lighthouses and cheddar cheese fudge.

 More of pine trees against the coast.

 The beautiful Oregon coastline. Moss hanging from the trees (maybe it's lichen).

 Lighthouse #1 The Coquille River Lighthouse outside the town of Bandon.  Alan happened to catch a glimpse of it or we'd have missed it.

Cheddar cheese fudge from Cranberry Sweets.  We'd read about it in the guide book.  A real coup!

 Lighthouse #2. The Umpqua River lighthouse.  We just made it to go on the last tour of the day.

We were able to climb up inside the light which had just been cleaned that morning.  Each lighthouse has its own pattern of light determined by the glass in the tower.  This light house sends both a red and white light.
We finished the day eating sea food at Mo's (famous for their clam chowder--and it was good).  All the tables had windows looking out over the Suislaw River.  It was beautiful.

Friday
We headed to some Sea Lion caves first thing in the morning.  We saw about 50 in the cave and about 100 on an outcropping next to the ocean.

 The beautiful Oregon coast once again.

 The Sea Lions are difficult to see, but they're on the rocks.

 More coastline.

Wild foxgloves were everywhere!

Lighthouse #3. From the sea lion caves we could see Haceta Head lighthouse.  We decided to enjoy it from afar rather than drive the winding road that led to it.  Alan was delighted with that decision.

 Alan at the Sea Lion Cave place.

 Another view of the Haceta Head lighthouse.

 Next we went to the Oregon Aquarium.  The first picture is Alan, the second one is an octopus.

 Lighthouse #4.  Yaquina Bay Lighthouse. This lighthouse was supposed to be one of the prettiest lighthouses in the nation.  I wondered who made that decision.  Later, we found out there were two lighthouses:  Yaquina Bay and Yaquina Head.  Yaquina Head is the famous one.

 Alan endured the lighthouses, but was excited for the next place: Tillamook Cheese.  He got some Swiss cheese and then we enjoyed an ice cream cone.  Then it was off to another lighthouse!

 

Lighthouse #5. This is the Cape Meares Lighthouse.  We thought we were going to the Tillamook Rock Lighthouse, but it was farther up the coast and out of the way to our motel, so we missed it.

I thought the bridges in Oregon were amazing.  Each had different, elegantly designed posts at each end.

 One last view of the Oregon coast with its pine trees before we head inland to Portland.

This delighted me.  This field that looks like it's loaded with marshmallows is actually bales of hay covered with plastic.  I guess they get so much rain they have to protect the hay from the water.  Let's have s'mores!

A thought about missing some of the lighthouses:  It wasn't until we reached the Cape Meares Lighthouse that we found a brochure telling about the nine lighthouses on the Oregon Coast.  It made me think about how sometimes we miss out on experiences or make mistakes because we just don't have enough information.  We missed the first two lighthouses because we didn't know to look for them.  They weren't in our guide book, so we missed them even though we went through the towns where they were located.  I've made so many decisions in my life when I didn't have enough information.

Sometimes we miss out on an experience because we only have partial information.  We didn't know there was a Yaquina Head and a Yaquina Bay lighthouse or we'd have looked for both lighthouses.  How often do we make the best decision we can with what we know? We do the best we can with what we know, and then move on to the next decision.

Sometimes it's just inconvenient to have the experience so we skip it, like we did with Tillamook Rock.  Hopefully, we don't decide the big, important things in our life our inconveniences.

But on the positive side, sometimes everything works out and we get to have a wonderful, perfect experience.  I think the trick is to enjoy the trip whether or not all the experiences turn out perfectly!

Now back to our vacation. :)

Saturday  

The day had come for Erik and Alicia's open house--the real purpose for our trip.  We did a few things in the morning to pass the time until the big event.  We discovered the MAX (Portland's mass transit system) was just a block south of our motel, so we decided to explore Portland in the morning.  Here are both of us in front of the Williamette River.  (Notice the cool posts on the bridge behind us.)

 

 

This is the Columbia River. We planned to eat seafood on the Williamette River in Portland but couldn't find a place, so we decided to explore the Columbia River and find seafood there.  We did find the Columbia River, but we didn't find seafood.  We ran out of time and ended up eating at Subway. :)

The open house was at Brad and Sylvina's house.  They had a cute "wedding cake" made of brownie cake and wrapped with green polka dotted ribbon. 

The happy newlyweds

Posing with mom and dad

I think the thumbs up means we're all set to go!

 Cute cake and flowers

 We got to be part of opening the gifts, which was really fun.

 It was a great night.  Sylvina went to so much work to make the open house a special one for Erik and Alicia.  I should have taken a picture of her Winnie-the-Pooh kitchen.  The knobs on the cupboards were each different Winnie-the-Pooh characters!

Sunday
We attended a 9:00 a.m. church and then headed for Boise.  We saw this waterfall on the way home.  Joe and Kathy Mortensen took good care of us.

 

Monday

We had a great vacation, but we were excited to be HOME.  These scenes met us.

 The daisies had bloomed and the flowering bushes were bright and pink.

 The daylilies were in their glory, and the whole north side of the house looked amazing.
 

The coreopsis and coral bells looked stunning, and the snapdragons were blooming.  It may not be Oregon, but Utah is beautiful right now.  Welcome hone!