Oregon 2013 – Part Two
Moving into the second half of our 2013 Oregon road trip, I’m going to break things down by date. When we last left off, our intrepid family had spent the night at Dan and Kathy’s epic log home, with Carrie and I sleeping in the big trailer. Knowing that Allison would be up for Christmas morning early, the alarm went off at 7am. We got dressed and dragged our sorry butts over to the house, in search of coffee…
Dec. 25th – “The Precious” coffee located and consumed, we had a nice warm breakfast and opened the Christmas gifts. Allison got not one but two robots. One is very noisy and plays music while dancing and I kind of want to shoot it with a shotgun. I got several books I wanted including three books in the Secret Places in the Mojave Desert series, as well as Pablo Rey’s Around the World in Ten Years.
Sometime after noon we said our goodbyes and hit the road again, heading back to Lincoln City, on another three hour drive. Along the way we stopped in Astoria and revisited the wonderful Astoria Column. It’s a long climb (164 steps) to reach the top of the 125-foot column, but it’s always worth it. The views were spectacular in every direction. Check the gallery if you don’t believe me!
Astoria and the bridge over the Columbia River into Washington state, as seen from the top of the Astoria Column.
We then stopped briefly along the bank of the Columbia to watch some ships, drive through a small shipyard, and we unexpectedly spotted a pair of bald eagles. Pretty cool!
We had a big lunch at McMenamins Gearhart Hotel & Sand Trap Pub and eventually arrived back in Lincoln City at sunset, road weary but content. It had been a fine Christmas!
Dec. 26th – This was a rest and recovery day. Carrie and I did get out for a bit, picking up some caffeine at Pirate Coffee in Lincoln City, and then spending a short time doing an initial exploration of some dirt roads in the Siuslaw National Forest.
There are a lot of those roads and this was my first time exploring them in the area east of Devil’s Lake. At some point I would like to clearly identify good routes to the former Valsetz town site, as well as the Fall Creek area, and beyond. As it was, this was just a quick trip to verify an entry road and about 3-1/2 miles of the main forest road there before doubling back. Still, it was nice to get in a little dirt, and some exploration.
Dec. 27th – While Allison and her grandfather walked the beach at Road’s End, Carrie and I returned to the forest roads, looking to push through further and continue the exploration. We ended up making a 7.6-mile drive through the beautiful and verdant forest trails before emerging in civilization once more. That route will be detailed in an upcoming Drives post.
Later we all went to a sunset dinner at the very nice Tidal Raves restaurant in Depoe Bay. The food and service were excellent and the restaurant’s perch above a rocky cove is magnificent. I had the mahi mahi fish tacos which were just right, accompanied by a margarita, and ending with a nice house-made peach sorbet for dessert.
It was another very good day.
Dec. 28th – This was our last full day in Lincoln City. We hung out for much of the day, with the family taking a long walk on the beach. We then drove down to Newport, stopping at Cape Foulweather as sunset approached, then heading into the old harbor area at Newport for dinner. Our first choice of restaurants wasn’t open and had recently changed ownership, so we instead went to a semi-Thai place. It was off-season so we were nearly the only customers. The service was haphazard at best, but the food was tasty.
Dec. 29th – The day we start home is always tough. We have to pack everything up into the Land Cruiser, which is no fun, and we have to say goodbye to Carrie’s folks. We’re always sad to have to go, but alas the time always comes.
We drove south along the coast until we reached the big side trip of the day, our delayed visit to the Golden and Silver Falls State Natural Area. We enjoyed the rural backroads drive even though we were getting hungry, but there was no place for food for many miles. We finally broke out some cookie packs I had in the back of Toyotie to tide us over. At the park, we enjoyed the short but beautiful hikes through the woods to both of the stunning waterfalls. More on that visit will be detailed in another upcoming Drives post.
Allison at Golden Falls.
After the park we had to backtrack much of the way towards the coast again before turning back east and then south to our traditional Grants Pass stop. We had dinner at Wild River Brewing again before settling in at our hotel for the night.
Dec. 30th – The morning in Grants Pass greeted us early with a chilly 28ºF, with what they call a “freezing fog”. We had our usual breakfast at the Train Depot again before driving south back into California. We’d had rain on only one day during the entire trip, which was unusual.
Near Mount Shasta we took our second side trip of the return trek, over to the east side of Mt. Shasta where we explored and drove more dirt National Forest roads, including Military Pass Road, used by settlers since the 1850s. That was a very fun time and again will be detailed in an upcoming Drives post.
From there it was a long endurance drive back home. Other than one more stop for gas and food (Burger King, ugh, speaking of gas) it was just a long and uneventful drive. Did I mention it was long? Because it was. Too long.
We got home a bit after dark, dragged in some of the essentials, and eventually crashed in our own beds for the first time in 10 days. It had been a good road trip! We’d racked up about 1,400 miles on pavement and 50 miles off, without any major drama.
Dec. 31st – On the last day of 2013, it was time to rest and recover from all that driving… And stay up late, of course, with a little champagne and our traditional olive cheese balls. Hey, it works for us!
We wish you all a very happy and prosperous – and adventurous – 2014!