DOWN THE OREGON COAST 8/25-29, 2012

We love the Oregon Coast and have gotten to the point that we now have favorite spots we like to stop and visit, site see, eat and spend the night.  We had hopes of spending a couple weeks coming down the coast, but we had to settle for a few days to accommodate our next gathering with other people.
One of our new stops we now add to our visits in our niece, Anna and her little one that now live in Newport.  We spent several hours visiting, touring her cute little bungalow, eating out at a quaint little restaurant that harkened back to our 1960's hippie days and a walk on the beach.  Time spent with family is always a good investment!

We love to stop at many waysides to admire the scenery and go for walks on the beach.  It is especially nice when the weather cooperates!

One of our favorite places to stop for excellent clam chowder and sour dough bread is a little hole in the wall place in Yachats.  It is called Luna Sea Fish House.  It is tiny, always busy and very friendly.  Their chowder is slightly spicy, thick, full of flavorful, large, tender clams and comes with a side of toasted sour dough bread.  Each time we have stopped there we have met other travelers that have heard of its great food.  This time we visited with two young men from England that were biking the coast from Vancouver, BC to San Francisco, CA.

We spent the night in a church parking lot in Florence, OR where we went to church the next morning.  We lazed around after church and ended up spending Sunday night there too.  Nice sabbath!  Monday morning we visited another of our favorite haunts, Old Town Florence.  We walked the streets and the docks,

 leisurely watching the fishermen go out and just being together.  Nice time!

Many stops later we drove across the beautiful bridge entering into North Bend/Coos Bay.  This magnificent structure is one of the several bridges along the west coast that just awes us each time we see it.

Then crossing it we always look to see if the train bridge is open or closed.  We have never, in all the many years we have traveled the coast, seen it closed!

Bandon, Oregon is another small coastal town we love to explore the "Old Town" portion down by the docks.  There is a mercantile store there that each time we have visited, Wayne has bought a couple of his hats he usually wears.  But, to his horror, this time, found that they no longer carry the style he likes.  He is down to only two hats now.  We will have to find another source.
We love the shops and the little dockside restaurants. Our favorite little place is affectionately called by the locals, "The Little Blue Building" but it is really called The Bandon Fish Market.

  Ann had Clam chowder in a bread bowl and I had a shrimp sandwich with a bowl of clam chowder.  I was full after the sandwich so we took the bread bowl and my chowder back to the trailer to have later for dinner.  We had a little girl from Germany take this picture.  She spoke very limited English and had to ask her parents permission to talk to us and take our picture.  Good safe parents!!  Oh, and the food is still yummy and the place was crowded, as usual!

 

We drove the rest of the day, headed south to one of our favorite free places to park on the Oregon Coast.  Along the way we found ample construction going on and her at one of our stops, saw a sea gull that was friends with the flag person.  It hung around her  I am sure, because she fed it.  Funny!

We arrived in the late afternoon at Myers Beach pull off in Pistol River State Park.  It was foggy, but still beautiful.  This spot is a very broad, paved wayside with very easy access to the beach.  Usually there are 4 or 5 rigs parked along the guard rail, but we were the only one while we were there.  Nice to have it all to ourselves, except for the numerous cars that stopped, took a  few pictures and drove on.

By sunset, the fog was gone out to sea and we were provided, free of charge mind you, a glorious Oregon Coast Sunset!

We spent the afternoon going for walks and reading and the evening playing "Sorry" which Ann won, 2 out of 3 games, reading, and watching a little Star Trek on the lap top.  We are about half way done with the first season.

All day Tuesday, we spent reading, exploring the beach, reading some more and just plain ol' enjoying the coast.  Ann gathered a menagerie of treasures, as usual.  She named her little dead shrimp, "Shrimpy" and gave it a place of honor in her gathering and then...

...on our walk, gave him a fitting resting place along the low tide rocks and sea life.  I think we are getting to the point where Ann needs a pet!

We love this beach, especially at low tide when we can walk behind a few of the huge rocks.

It makes us feel like we are on the long dreamed for deserted isle, away from all of humanity.

And then around in front of the large rock, we can see reality and our little "Haven From Slavin'" that we have called "home" for the last several years.  See the house up on the hill above Ann's head?  We would love to live there!!

So, see the little blue lawn chair out on the point to the left of the trailer?  That is where Wayne spent most of his day time, reading.  A perfect setting for peaceful reading!  Out there, he finished the book, "40 Ways To Look at Brigham Young" by Chad M. Orton and began "Joseph Smith - Rough Stone Rolling" by Richard Lyman Bushman.  Ann did most of her reading inside, reading "History of Joseph Smith by His Mother, Lucy Mack Smith" as compiled by Richard Lloyd Dewey.  This is a wonderful version for research students, like Ann, because it is an unabridged original version, containing the original unedited manuscript, the entirity of the original 1853 printing and the notes containing the small amounts altered during various publications.

On our walks, we gathered what sand dollar pieces we found for this picture dedicated to the Sand Dollar Queen, Linda.

About 5:00 PM on Tuesday, Aug. 28th, we left this wonderful place, and headed into Brookings to go grocery shopping.  We spent the night in the church parking lot and the next morning departed for Loeb State Park at 8:10 AM.  We put into a space and spent the morning reading and waiting for another space that we wanted to open up.  By 2:00 PM, we were moved into space 50 and by 4:00 PM we were all set up and ready for dinner.  Nice day and nice evening.  Tomorrow, we expect our friends, Mark and Dawn and Kirk and Kathy to arrive and we will spend labor Day Weekend together.

PICTURELESS ANNIVERSARY 8/24/2012

Oh what boring fuddy-duddies we are!  Today we celebrated our 38th wedding anniversary and did not take any pictures.  Our activities for the day included driving all the way to Albany and Corvallis, OR (a whole 56 miles), shopped for a grand child's birthday, wrapped and mailed the birthday presents, did all our laundry at a Corvallis laundromat, picked blackberries,Wayne got a hair cut at a barbershop, took some items back to a K-Mart, went out for a hamburger at Jack-In-The-Box, went to the theater and saw the movie, The Odd Life of Timothy Green, ate tons of popcorn, and went for a walk.
We spent the night parked in a K-Mart parking lot and watched a couple Star Trek episodes on our laptop.
We are just a couple wild party animals!!

ANOTHER COUSIN VISIT 8/23/2012

One of the grand things about being out on the road is the many opportunities we have to find, visit and enjoy family we have not had the opportunity to visit for many years.  A few weeks back we attended the Memorial Service for one of Ann's cousins, Bill Snyder.  So, we decided it would be nice to go visit his wife, Marge.  We left Sean and Amanda's house and towed our rig to Woodburn on I-5 where we met up with Ann's brother, John Huff, who had driven up from Medford.  We left our truck and trailer parked in a Wal-Mart parking lot for the day ant then rode with John in his little fuel saving car up to near Olympia, Washington where we met up with Marge in the care facility she lives in.

We had a nice 3 hour visit with Marge.  We shared pictures of our family and they reminisced on old times spent together in Ann and John's youth.  It was nice.
We then hopped in the car and drove back to Woodburn, OR, stopping at an Izzy's on the way for dinner.  Then arriving back at our trailer about 7:00 PM, we bid a quick adieu to John who still had a 4 hour drive back home to Medford.
We spent the night there in the Wal-Mart parking lot and rose the next morning ready for our next adventure.

GRANDKIDS, PACIFIC CITY AND NEWBERG 8/15-22/2012

After we got back from New York, we found our trailer and truck still safely parked at our son, Sean's place.  We spent a couple days there playing and visiting.  Captain America and Peaches both found our jigsaw puzzles quite fun, so we spent a good amount of time doing that together.

We also went for bike rides and played at local playgrounds.  Here we joined by Captain America's and Peaches's dad, Sean, and we had a swinging time together!

Even Grandma got in the act!

We then hooked up our rig and with grand kids in tow, we spent a glorious 5 days with them at Pacific City Thousand Trails Preserve.  We love this preserve for it's forests, proximity to the ocean and many activities, plus each site is secluded from other campers.  It is really hilly and narrow roaded access that make one be careful if you have a big rig.  But it is worth it!!

 While there we played pickleball, (Here Grandma and Peaches go at it for a while.)

 miniature golf, played on the playground, rode bikes, went for walks, did puzzles and swam a couple times a day in the indoor pool.  Captain America made friends readily while swimming!

Peaches benefited from a few swimming lessons from Grandma and by the time we left she was dog paddling all over the place.

One of  Wayne's past joys was teaching his sons outdoor skills.  Now, as we are beginning to take our grand kids camping with us, he is beginning to find that joy again.  Captain America was taught how to chop wood and build a fire.  It was so much seeing Captain America gain confidence as he listened to instruction and then put it into practice.

Look at that look of concentration!  Oh wait!!!!  Are his eyes closed????

Then a sense of pride in a job well done!!!

Peaches benefits from her brother's first fire that he chopped the wood, laid the fire teepee style and lit the matches and fire all on his own!!!!  Nothing more peaceful than a fire, a stuffed doggie and a good book!!!

In the summer time, Thousand Trails Preserves usually put on a great set of youth activities.  The kids participated in many of these.  One of these was an art and craft activity in the youth lodge.

One of the Grandma and Grandpa youth activities was roasting hot dogs, marshmallows and making s'mores.  Yummy!

We spent one whole day down on the beach across the road from the preserve.

Looking for treasures.

 Portrait time!

The kids wore Grandpa out going up and down the dunes.  Dune jumping used to be a favorite activity of our boys and now another generation is with us doing it!

The kids love it and Grandpa jumps far less than he did 20 years ago!!  Interesting....these kids dad and uncles used to jump down this same dune when they were young!!

Peaches Away!!

Captain America lands one!

Worn Out!!!

While the kids went to play on the beach, Grandma and Grandpa pose for a self portrait!

As we head back to camp, we look back on the end of a long day!!!

Second fire building for Captain America.

TAA DAA!!!!

Five days went by really fast, but Grandma and Grandpa were ready to take the kids home and have a break!