USA road trip, Post 5: Oregon coast

On Thursday afternoon, September 19th, we crossed from California into the southern part of Oregon. Driving the Oregon coast had long been a travel goal for Ben and I, and it certainly didn't disappoint! Here are the highlights from the two days we spent exploring the Oregon coast...

Not long after we entered Oregon, I looked out the car window and saw a spectacular sight: the TOP of the clouds! Seeing it from a plane is one thing, but seeing it from a car is quite surreal! The sea of clouds extended as far as we could see into the distance. There was a lot of oohing and ahhing over this incredible sight!

Dad on Cloud 9 ;)

I don't think we were up particularly high - it's just that the bank of cloud was hanging extremely low over the coastline, as you can see in the following photos taken 3 hours later. This awe-inspiring view was my favourite on the whole trip...

And a 20-photo panorama Ben took (click to enlarge)...

On Thursday we had lunch in a small town that seemed to have an inordinate number of pizza joints and gone-out-of-business restaurants along the main thoroughfare. We eventually found a bustling seafood shack at a marina off the main highway, and warmed up with some fish and chips and clam chowder.

On Thursday and Friday nights, we stayed at a beachside motel in Yachats (which I had been calling "Yack-ats", but a laughing local told us was pronounced "Yaw-hots").

On Friday we left Roxy at the motel to do some work, while the rest of us retraced half an hour of the previous evening's drive to explore the town of Florence. We're pretty sure some of the most stunning coastal views were on this portion of the drive that we did three times, but on Thursday it was dark and on Friday it was foggy and raining, so we didn't get to see much of it!

We forgot our camera on the day trip to Florence, but it had a cute little historical district along the river. We had lunch at a British restaurant, wandered in and out of galleries and speciality shops, bought some kites, and finished up with a warm drink before heading back up to Yachats.

On Saturday, we left Yachats and headed north again. We had lunch at the Tillamook Cheese Factory, and then watched from the upstairs viewing room as hundreds of blocks of cheese travelled along the conveyor belts and were packaged up, supervised diligently by the assembly line workers. We read the signs detailing the history of dairy cooperatives and cheese production in the region, and finished up our visit with some cheap and yummy gelato.

Tillamook Cheddar production

Giant blocks of cheese!

"Cheese? No thanks, I'll have a handbag!"

After leaving the factory we continued on to Cannon Beach, seemingly the most famous and oft-recommended spot on the Oregon coast. After we eventually found a spot to park, and wrestled our way through some shoulder-high grass and across a few sand dunes to access a beautiful empty beach, we put one of our new kites to good use. Flying a kite in such a peaceful and picturesque location, while waves rolled in and horses galloped past, was one of the absolute highlights of the trip for me.

From Cannon Beach we headed inland to Beaverton, near Portland, and stayed the night at a hotel there. On Sunday morning we went to a meeting nearby, and that afternoon we drove the rest of the way home.

And that was our 9 day road trip from Las Vegas to Vancouver via the California and Oregon coasts! Hope you enjoyed the drive. :)

Easter in Portland

For the Easter long weekend, we headed to Portland, Oregon, on an "Aussie road trip" with Davina and Mel. We had a blast letting all our pent-up Australian-ness pour out, and saying all the things we can't say around Canadians...

We spent most of Friday driving to Portland. It's a 5 hour drive south of where we live, but being Easter weekend we had the longest border wait we have yet seen - 3 hours. Then we spontaneously stopped in Bellevue (near Seattle) for lunch at Red Robin with Ben's cousin Connie and a workmate of hers. These factors turned our 5 hour road trip into an 11 hour one (in pouring rain a lot of the way), but since we were enjoying ourselves we didn't mind too much!

The long road trip also gave all members of our party sufficient time to learn what day we were returning to Canada. (Two out of the four needed to sheepishly call their employer on Friday and request Monday off. Apparently Monday is only a public holiday in BC for government employees like me... and my emails containing the "leaving on Friday, staying three nights" information hadn't quite spelt things out enough... :P)

Once we arrived in Portland, we found the holiday rental house I had booked using Home Away. It was a lovely 3 bedroom house in an area about a 5 minute drive south of downtown Portland. We were very happy with the house AND the price!



Then, we did a bit more driving around, got some groceries, and had dinner at a random Irish establishment...





The next day was our main day of sightseeing. First we checked out the Portland Saturday Market. It started raining, but it was a great market with lots of cute stalls...

One of the things Portland is notable for is its variety of awesome bridges. One actually has two layers of traffic going across it - that bridge is visible in one of the Pearl District photos below. And here's the view of another of Portland's bridges, as seen from the Saturday Market...

After the market, we headed to the biggest new and used bookstore in the world: Powell's City of Books. Fantastic!!! It's a whole city block and three storeys high. The outside is pretty unassuming, but inside it has 9 large rooms, each named after a colour and together containing over a million books. The new and used books are shelved side by side. We spent a happy couple of hours browsing, and could easily have spent the whole day there!











After buying less books than we would have if it weren't for the dilemma of getting them home, we had a "dress up Anna" session at a thrift store across from Powell's, and then headed to the Pearl District - a rejuvenated former light industrial area. We ate lunch at Hotlips Pizza, which was recommended to us by Kelly and Janae. It was yummy - and had a very cute little delivery car parked outside!











Then we wandered around the Pearl District for a while...

























That night, we had dinner at a restaurant where we were entertained by a local band singing covers of old songs with varying degrees of listenability. We had driven back and forth a bit before deciding on this restaurant, and when we turned the GPS on and drove home, we were amused to discover we had been eating just around the corner from our rental house!





After the meeting on Sunday, we were invited to lunch by a young couple, Derra and Bryan, who have a cute little boy, Soren. Lunch was at Bryan's parents' home, and when we got there we discovered that the whole family was in attendance, three generations of them - there were 14 of us altogether! We were thrilled to be a part of it, and had a wonderful time getting to know them and answering lots of questions about how we all ended up in Canada!



L-R: Bruce, Margie, Rhonda (holding Trek), Andrew, Derra (holding Soren), Bryan, Audrin and David...



Adorable Trek!...



We stayed visiting with them until it was time for the gospel meeting. After that, we were invited for burgers at the home of a few of the local blokes! There turned out to be quite a crowd there too - in addition to three workers, quite a lot of guys (and one girl) trickled in throughout the evening! The burgers were great and there was a lot of fun and hilarity going on. From our "studies", we can definitely conclude that Portland has nice people!!!

Here are some of them...







And our hosts, Phil and Mike (uncle and nephew)...



It was a great - and very sociable - Sunday!

On Monday morning, we wandered around the outside of Pittock Mansion...





And then strolled (with our umbrellas - did I mention it rained pretty much all weekend?) along 23rd Avenue (recommended by Connie), where all the shops are in old houses. It was a really cute street - better than the Pearl District we thought!

After a well-received lunch at a crepe restaurant, it was time for the drive home. Thankfully it didn't take 11 hours!



And that was Portland - one of our favourite US cities to date! Hopefully we'll return for another attack on that bookstore before we leave this continent...