This week started off interesting as Sunday morning the woman camped beside us was taking her tent down when she discovered a bat that had crawled up into one of the creases on her tent. She didn't know what to do and was about to try to sweep it off with a broom when Brian interceded. Sweeping it off would likely either kill or badly injure it. Brian picked up our pair of ove-gloves and gently picked the wee bat off of the tent wall. The small bat immediately grabbed onto the glove...
Brian took it up into the bush and tried to gently coax it onto a tree but the bat was having nothing of it. So we built a little makeshift shelter (a bat cave) to put it into. We placed a second glove lightly over top of the bat and slipped the whole thing into a small LL Bean bag we had on hand...
... and put it in the shade away from any prying eyes etc. Later in the day, as the sun was waning, we slowly moved the gloves out of the bag. We lifted one finger of the top glove and the wee bat perked up it's ears so we figured it was doing ok. About a half hour later Kris said she thought she saw a bat flit between the trees. We took a look and sure enough, the wee bat had taken flight. Terrific !!!
Monday morning we watched as folks packed up around us. By eleven, the check-out time, at least 4 sites around us were emptied out. We decided it would be a good day to drive north to the small town of Yachats 40 or so kilometres away. It is a beautiful drive along the coast past the Sea Lion Caves, Cape Perpetua, The Devils Churn, etc etc etc. However, we have been to all of these places before so our destination for the day was simply Yachats (pronounced yah-hats). We arrived in Yachats shortly after noon and went straight to Ona, a restaurant we have been to several times before. For lunch we shared orders of grilled oysters, crab cakes with a side of deep fried cauliflower and mushrooms. Excellent! After lunch we drove around Yachats and headed toward the shore (the main downtown drag is about a mile up from the shore) and found the views there were just as fabulous as elsewhere along the coast...
The weather in the area has been absolutely wonderful so we decided to stay an extra day at Mercer Lake. We'll leave Wednesday instead of Tuesday. Monday evening Brian met one of the few remaining neighbours. Turns out Johnny is Jim's brother (Jim and Patty are the owners of the Mercer Lake RV resort; it has been in Patty's family since the 1950s). Johnny related how they were packing up and leaving for Salem (their home) but are leaving their 5th wheel at the resort because they will be back for the big year end fish fry. Apparently on the first weekend in October, Jim and Patty host a fish fry and all the people left in the park (there are a number of full timers in the upper level) and the surrounding lake folks all bring pot luck fixings and the party is on. We might have to think about that for some year.
Tuesday was a basic relax day. We did all the laundry then decided to head into old town Florence for lunch. We chose the ICM Restaurant on the dock, had a nice table on the patio overlooking the river, and munched on clam chowders and a couple of salads Afterwards we went to the Siuslaw Coffee Roasters, also on the river, for a couple of iced lattes, some knitting (Kris) and some web surfing (Brian). Excellent coffee and outside patio just about under the Siuslaw River bridge (on the second picture below, you can see some of the bridge just to the upper right of the empty latte cup)...
Wednesday we packed up the wee trailer. At the office we returned the cable remote and made sure we were booked for next year. Site 7 had already been reserved but site 5, where we were this year, is pretty good so we just reserved it again. So, with next labour day plans in place off we went. Our destination for the day was Lincoln City, about 140 kms further up the coast. Lots of short driving days these days.
We arrived in Lincoln City shortly afternoon and checked into the Premier RV Resort across the road from the Inn at Spanish Head. For lunch we drove to the northern part of Lincoln City to the Blackfish Cafe where Kris had fish tacos with rice and black beans and Brian opted to move away from seafood and tried the Philly Cheese Steak sandwich which was really good but very very messy to eat. Afterward we went over to the Lincoln City Factory Outlet stores to see what we might find for ourselves.
After the excellent and large lunch we didn't need much in the way of dinner. We walked over to the Inn at Spanish Head and went to the bar/lounge on the 10th floor where the sunset view was fabulous, the wine was pretty good and the appetizer dish of crab and artichoke dip with chips pretty well did us in. Nice evening.
It turns out that the top stitching on the shoes Kris picked up at Nordstrom Rack in San Francisco started to come apart after two wearings so we decided to do a day trip up to south Portland and return them. It might be our last chance. It is a beautiful drive along OR-18 and OR-99 through McMinnville to Tigard, a southern suburb of Portland. We had planned to go to the Nordstrom Rack in Tigard, but picked the wrong one when given a choice by our GPS, and ended up at the store in Hillsboro a bit out of the planned way. Oh well, right beside the Nordstrom Rack was an Ulta, another store Kris wanted to hit while we were in the big city. A two for one situation. After those two items were checked off the to-do list we drove over to the Bridgeport mall area and went to the California Pizza Kitchen for some lunch. Always good. In this case we shared a fennel sausage flatbread then Kris had a wedge salad and Brian a couple of tortilla roll appetizers. Then Kris checked out some boutique stores and Brian went over to the Container Store. When it was time to head back out to the coast we stopped at a Sonic for a couple of large diet cherry limeades to have for the drive. For the evening we went back over to the lounge at the Inn at Spanish Head but just some wine this time. This evening the fog rolled in and soon there was absolutely nothing to see...
Friday we drove another couple of hours up the coast highway to Bay City, a few miles north of Tillamook to stay at the Tillamook Bay City RV Park. We arrived just after noon and got the wee trailer set up. For lunch we drove about a mile up the highway to The Fish Peddlar at Oyster Pacific where the wait of about 20 minutes, to get a table, was well worth it. Kris chose the oyster stew with double oysters (who would have thought that you can get that many large oysters in one stew bowl???) and Brian had the Halibut fish and chips but substituted a small cup of oyster stew for the chips. Man was that meal ever good :-)
After lunch we drove north to Cannon Beach. We normally pass through Cannon Beach with the wee trailer in tow and have a hard time finding parking. Some times we end up just moving on. On this day without the trailer we had no problem finding parking. We had a good look around the downtown stores, including Coastal Yarns then at Center Diamond Fabrics and Icefire Glass Works, a little further south of the downtown area. Back at Tillamook we went into Fred Meyer to pick up some deli salad fixings for dinner.
Saturday was another couple of hours north to the KOA at Hammond, just south west of Astoria and still in Oregon. However, before leaving Bay City, there was one more errand to do... have lunch back at the Fish Peddler. We found a place to park the wee trailer (not a lot of places here for larger units) then headed into the restaurant where Kris ordered a large bowl of clam chowder and Brian ordered the Halibut fish and chips with a small bowl of chowder taking the place of the chips. We shared the fish. Excellent! We have stayed at the Hammond KOA several times and always at a time when the campground was virtually empty. Not this time. The place was packed! Lucky for us they had a few empty spots including one right across the road from a restroom. After getting settled we drove into Astoria, wandered along the downtown streets for a bit then stopped in at the Blue Scorcher Bakery Cafe for a couple of lattes. Kris got in some knitting while Brian pulled out a map of the USA to double check our list of all the states we have "touched" on this trip. We were settled in there and didn't notice that everyone around us had left. Just before 5:00 pm Kris asks one of the staff what time they close. "Oh, we close at 4:00 pm, but don't worry, we let people stay while we clean up". We couldn't believe we had actually been there that long.... nearly 2 hours! On the way back to the car we stopped at one of our favourite art galleries, the RiverSea Gallery, featuring contemporary works of art primarily from the local areas. Great exhibits as usual. Late afternoon we were still not hungry after that lunch back in Bay City so just stopped in Fred Meyer for pre-made salad and a roasted chicken so we will have left overs for dinner on Sunday. It ended up being a lovely evening out so we hooked the TV up outside and watched several episodes of Homeland. Maybe we'll be able to finish the first three seasons before we get home.
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