We left home, under beautiful blue skies, around 10:00 AM Monday morning. Nice easy drive. After a quick rest stop at Chapter's (book store with washroom) in Nanaimo we continued on to Victoria arriving around 2:00 PM. We checked the wee trailer into a spot at the Oceanside RV Park near Sidney and had a lunch of leftovers we cleaned out of the fridge before leaving home. Then drove into Victoria to check out favorite yarn (The BeeHive) and art supply (Opus) stores before heading back out to Saanich to visit our friends Andy and Donna. We got caught up on Andy's latest outdoor project, a new deck, and sat around and chatted before deciding to go out for dinner on the deck at the Brentwood Bay Inn. Very nice evening. We ended the evening, back at the trailer, watching the first couple of episodes of the first season of Game of Thrones. Watching one or two episodes a night we hope to get through the first 3 seasons by the end of this trip.
Tuesday morning Brian took a quick trip back over to Andy and Donna's place to drop off a book we have been trying to remember to return but keep forgetting (as we did yesterday), but it is now safely back in the right hands! Kris stopped in at the Dean Heights Salon to get her hair done then it was off to the Coho Ferry Terminal for the ride over to Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. After checking in at the terminal we had about an hour before the US customs guys started doing their rounds so we walked up the street to Cora's for lunch. Back at the terminal we chatted with the couple parked beside us. They are from Munich Germany so we exchanged stories about our visits to Munich and their current visit to the west coast. Lucky folks... they traveled north on Vancouver Island to Port Hardy and Telegraph Cove where they went on both a whale watching and grizzly bear watching tour and saw many of both. Way cool. They were on their way back to San Francisco for their return flight home. After an hour and a half wait, while the US customs guys went car to car checking for riffraff, off we went...
The ferry ride was quite smooth and uneventful except for a bit of rolling out in the open channel when a number of people walking in the lounge, we were in, had a bit of trouble keeping their balance. No fall overs though. Leaving the ferry we drove 2 hours south on US 101 to just south of Hoodsport where we camped over looking the water at the Waterfront at Potlatch RV Park. Beautiful spot...
After getting settled we drove a couple of miles down US 101 to the Lucky Dog casino but they didn't have any video poker machines so we just settled on dinner in their tiny restaurant. Decent meatloaf for both of us. Afterwards we sat out under the stars chatting with our RV Park neighbours and enjoying a nice bottle of local red wine.
Wednesday was a comfortable 2 hour drive south on US 101 into Oregon and Astoria where we set up for the night at the KOA just south of town in the small community of Hammond. We drove back into Astoria and after an excellent lunch of Jalapeno Cheddar Sausage and Crab Cakes, at the Fort George Brewery and Pub, we wandered around the down town area taking in the sights and window shopping for a an hour or so. Late afternoon we stopped at Fred Meyer department store to pick up a new cooler and other supplies along with some steaks to grill for dinner. Another pleasant evening to sit out.
Thursday we continued down US 101 to Lincoln City. We stopped at a number of viewpoints overlooking the Pacific Ocean and the coastline. This drive down the west coast just never gets old...
... there are a few more Oregon coast pics on our picasa album for this trip (and for previous trips as well). For lunch we stopped at the Fish Peddler restaurant on the dock in Bay City just north of Tillamook...
... some pics of oyster shucking etc are on our picasa album for this trip. We have stopped here numerous times and the oysters seem to just get better and better. The crab and shrimp melt wasn't too bad either. In Lincoln City we booked into the Premier RV Resort in the south end of town. We had "joined the club" before leaving home so when we checked in we got our membership card and the punch card which after 7 nights, at any of the club's parks, we get the 8th night free (might take awhile but will be welcome when it happens). We spent a while at the Tangier's Factory Outlet before hitting the Safeway for some fresh shrimp for dinner later. Early in the evening we walked across the street to the Inn at Spanish Head for a couple of glasses of wine and calamari appies in their 10th floor lounge overlooking the beach and ocean. Wine was good. Calamari was mediocre (could have been a tad crispier).
Friday we continued south to Florence our first major stop. On the way we stopped in Yachats at ONA for lunch. More excellent oysters and crab cakes. We arrived at the Mercer Lake RV Resort (a tad north of Florence) about 2:00 pm or so and got quickly settled in to RV spot #6. Had trouble getting their cable box to work so gave up on TV. We're not here to watch TV anyway so will be ok with just watching more episodes of Game of Thrones later in the evenings. One excellent thing they have done at the resort is to hack back the bushes at the end of the RV spots...
Saturday awoke to the first rain of this trip which prompted a quick setup of our awning so we could still make coffee etc (we don't cook anything inside the wee trailer). It's all good. The rain let up late morning and the skies started to clear. We decided to head south, about half an hour, to Winchester Bay to see their annual art show at the marina and to see if the regular weekly summer salmon bbq was still going. The art show was pretty skimpy but we did score a few metal "salmon on a stick" for our garden...
We've looked at some at home but they have all been quite expensive. These are by far the least expensive and, if the truth were told, nicest we have found so they are going home with us.
After storing the metal fish in the car we headed onto the dock for lunch at Fishpatrick's Crabby Cafe. Busy as usual but worth the wait for fried oysters and a big bowl of chowder. Yummm!
Oh, and the salmon bbq... they decided to take the summer off this year! Oh well, the store is still selling so we picked up a piece of smoked tuna and a piece of smoked salmon for dinner along with a small container of smoked salmon spread to enjoy on crackers while having a glass of wine sitting out overlooking Mercer Lake. Nice evening to end this first week.
| On to Week 2 |
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