A Little Bit of This and a Little Bit of That . .

Monday, September 10, 2012

Up the West Coast - Day 8 - 8/30/12 - Eugene, OR to Portland, OR

Arriving to Portland, Oregon

We had breakfast at the hotel, it was included and was not bad at all with hot food instead of just continental cold breakfast. After that we headed up north on I-5 towards Portland. I-5 is on the Willamette Valley with the Coastal Range on the west side and another range of mountains on the east. The whole valley seems to be a big farming area, at least till closer to Portland. We were able to see Mt. Hood once we got further up north. It was overcast so we couldn't get a good picture of it.

Willamette Valley

After arriving to the city we found our hotel and checked in. We stayed that night at the Marriott in downtown. Marriott is a nice hotel chain but what bugs us about it is that they nickel and dime you for everything and you already pay a lot of money to stay there, same goes with most of the bigger name hotel that are "fancy". You have to pay for the internet, well it is free if you go to the lobby or the bar area. You also have to pay a lot for parking. And there are no meals included. Most of the cheaper hotel it's all included and they are still nice hotels, like the Holiday Inn Express in Eugene/Springfield.

View from our room

Soon after that we started to look for a place to have lunch. Jeff had found some more restaurants that have been in some TV show's. Bunk Sandwiches sounded good, and they had one fairly near to the hotel. It still took us awhile to find it. The sandwiches we had were good, but nothing too extraordinary. I think that the Newtown General Store's sandwiches are as good if not better than those. So what do we learn from this, it's really not worth trying places that have been in some TV shows. They are no better than some other places. One interesting thing in this city are the Benson Bubblers. They are drinking fountains that were installed in the early 1900's by Simon Benson. He was trying to keep the workers from going the saloons and bars by providing them with fresh water.

Bunk Sandwiches sandwich

One of the Benson Bubblers

After lunch we went for a walk by the river on the waterfront park. Then we thought that some doughnuts would be good and since there is a place called Voodoo Doughnuts that also has been featured on one of the Food TV shows. Their name to fame are all these weird toppings and flavors. We found it, but the line for buying them was huge and we didn't want to wait. Then we headed to the shopping area and passed a few other parks along the way.

The Battleship Oregon Memorial

Park on SW Ankeny St.

Voodoo Doughnuts

Skidmore Fountain

Maritime Museum Boat Exhibit

South Park area

Courthouse

Director's Park

An interesting store window

"Golden" door

Portland is a nice, very walk-able city. There are couple of thing that did bother me. There seems to be a lot of homeless looking people. They sort of look like hippies, are mostly young, around collage age. I'm not sure if they are homeless or just look like it, but some of them did have a lot of stuff around them and they looked a bit dirty. Lots of them also had dogs with them and many of them were pitbulls. Also as we found out around dinner time, that the downtown business area doesn't really have too many restaurants. We did find one and the waitress said that most of the restaurants are in different neighborhoods. There were lots cafes, which were closed by dinner time and lots of "food trucks/carts" for a lack of better word. Some of those were still open later in the early evening. I think most of those trucks were ethnic food. There seem to be several places for them and they were very busy at lunch time. We ended up having dinner at the Pazzo Ristorante.

Some of the food trucks/carts

Dinner

Even the garbage cans are solar powered.

Up the West Coast - Day 7 - 8/29/12 - Gold Beach, OR to Eugene, OR

After a quick breakfast it was time to hit the road again. We crossed the Rogue River and headed up I-101. Along the way we stopped a few times if there was a good viewing place of the coast. As I've said before, Oregon's coast is gorgeous, full of rocks and cliffs and sandy beaches. But the water if cold, even in the summer.

View from Humbug Mountain State Park

View from Humbug Mountain State Park, Port Orford in the distande

We stopped at Port Orford Heads State Park. They had a good viewing area where there used to be a coast guard lifeboat station. I'm not sure if they still have a station there, the buildings were closed but they did have a small museum area with an old coast guard boat.

Coast Guard Lifeboat at Port Orford Heads State Park

View from Port Orford Heads State Park from the Tower Trail Site

Battle Rock at Port Orford

From there we headed to Cape Blanco Lighthouse. It is still a working lighthouse, but has a small museum area and it is open for tours. It is probably one of the least expensive places to go and see, since it cost only $2 per person. They explained about the origins of it and people who worked there first and then we got to climb up to the top, where there was another person to explain about the light. It is surprising how little the actual light-bulb is and how much light it gives. The people who were on the top before us had seen some whales from there, but I was not able to see them from there. Jeff saw couple far away. So after we went down and started to drive away, we pulled over to a lookout in the park and were able to see about three or four of them. They were far away and hard to see. All we really saw was the water spouts they spew out and a little bit of their backs. But whales we saw anyway.

Cape Blanco Lighthouse

View from the lighthouse grounds towards north-northeast

View from the lighthouse towards south west

The lens of Cape Blanco Lighthouse

Jeff going down from the top of the lighthouse

There is at least one whale spouting water in the middle
bottom part of the picture, that little speck of white.
And the rock in the middle looks a bit like a whale too ;)

Our lunch was this place that Jeff found out, Cafe Mediterranean in North Bend. It was featured in one of Rachel Ray Show's episodes. We both had Lamb Shawerma. It was pretty good, but nothing really special. I think we were both a bit disappointed, I guess we thought that if it was featured in a show the food would be extraordinary.

Cafe Mediterranean

Lamb Shawerma

After lunch we crossed Coos Bay on the Conde McCullough Memorial Bridge. On the other side there were lots of sand dunes, but it was a bit foggy so we didn't get any good pictures of them. Once we reached Florence it was time to head inland. We took route 126 over the Coastal Range to Eugene. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express on the Springfield Eugene border. The hotel upgraded our room to a small suite with a living area and a small kitchenette. It was actually really nice.

Conde McCullough Memorial Bridge in
North Bend, Oregon

One of the sand dunes

At a gas station going over the Coastal Range

Going through the Coast Range

Going over the Coastal Range

Since Jeff's computer, (I didn't take mine with me), was so slow that it ended up driving at least me crazy, we ended up going to Best Buy and getting more memory. It seemed to work so much faster after that. Not that I got a chance to do this blog more than once or twice during the trip. (Most of this is done at home about a week later). We had our dinner at the Hop Valley Brewing Co.,which was next door. The place seemed to be very popular with the locals also, it was packed. The food was good and their beer was very nice too. We also noticed a big difference in temperatures in the valley. It was quite cool along the coast, but the valley was much warmer.

Hop Valley Brewing, next door to our hotel

Our upgraded hotel suite

Friday, September 7, 2012

Up the West Coast - Day 6 - 8/28/12 - Benbow, CA to Gold Beach, OR

Well time to head north again since we have to be in Portland at a certain date. So after breakfast we left the lovely Benbow Inn and headed towards the Avenue of the Giants. This is the old 101 and parallels the new I-101. It is about 31 miles long and has several giant redwood groves. It is definitely worth visiting. Along the way we stopped at the Shrine Drive-Thru Tree. We had received a ticket for that from the Benbow Inn. The tree is about 3000 years old and not in a very good shape. They also have some "tree houses', or more like "hobbit" houses made of redwood tree trucks. The Visitor's Center along the the avenue is also worth stopping. They have a really nice small museum in it with all kinds of information from plant and animal life to logging and even a Travel Log, a camper made out of a redwood log.

Along Avenue of the Giants

Shrine Drive-Thru Tree

Jeff driving through the Shrine Drive-Thru Tree

Jeff at the Shrine Drive-Thru Tree

Inside of the Shrine Drive-Thru Tree

"Tree/Hobbit Houses" at the Shrine Drive-Thru Tree

A log at the Shrine Drive-Thru Tree

A bench made out of a half of a redwood log at the Visitor's Center

The Travel Log

Story of the Travel Log

Our friend Sue from Sunnyvale had suggested the Lolita Cheese Factory as one possible stop so we headed there. It is a very cute small cheese shop and factory. You can see inside the factory and watch them make cheese. While we were there they were making Monterrey Jack. It takes a lot less time to make the cheese and mold it than I thought it would. Of course it still has to age. The factory also has a very nice garden next to it with places to sit and eat. But we didn't want to eat there, we did by some cheese though, Smoked Salmon Monterrey Jack.

Loleta Cheese Factory

Making Monterrey Jack at the Loleta Cheese Factory

Gardens at the Loleta Cheese Factory

Instead we headed just down the road to the Loleta Bakery and Cafe. It was a really cute little place with a nice, but small selection of dishes and lots of baked goods. Those desserts looked really good and we ended up buying couple of slices of cakes. The slices were huge and could have fed a small family. This place seemed to be really popular with the locals and we had to wait a little bit to be seated. They had some seating outside and that's where we ended up, right next to the post office and mailbox. The local 3-legged dog, whom we saw in the park earlier came and lied down next to us. The mailman tossed him a dog cookie, but this dog was not interested at all, nor was he begging any food from us or anybody else. We first thought it was homeless but our waitress told us that it was the butcher's dog. . . no wonder it was not interested on any cookies or food.

Jeff having lunch by the mailbox at the Loleta Bakery

the 3-legged dog

Lunch at the Loleta Bakery

After lunch we headed north and wanting to stop at the ocean we ended up at the Dry Lagoon State Park. We just had to dip our toes in the water, well at least I did. The water was freezing. Northern California's ocean is always cold thanks to the cold stream that comes down from Alaska. We walked along the beach for awhile and Jeff tried to find out if his bike was finally delivered to the hotel in Astoria (which it was). We also ate one of those giant slices of cake we bought from the bakery. The temperatures have been quite cool in California, except in the Napa Valley area. San Francisco is always cold, but even Sunnyvale was cool, but going up the coast it's been quite cold. Who would have thought that California in the summer would be cold.

Dry Lagoon

Jeff at the Dry Lagoon trying to find out where his bike is

There is only sand and salt water but still flower grow and bloom

California is quite cool in the summer... only 15C

We also drove through part of the Redwood National Park. And sometime after going through Crescent City we entered Oregon. We stopped at several of the overlooks along the coast both in California and especially Oregon. The coast especially in Oregon is absolutely gorgeous. We didn't have a hotel reserved for that night since we were not sure how far we would make it. We ended up in Gold Beach and at Motel 6 (. . . oh how the mighty have fallen ;) ). The hotel was quite nice, clean and quiet. Our dinner ended up being the cheese from the cheese factory, the bottle wine from Napa, bread from the bakery and the other slice of the cake. . . yum . . . which we ate at the picnic table overlooking the Rogue River.