Mountains to surf and sand

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Cloudy start to the day today.
And the middle bit too.
Snuck out of the camp and did the unforgiveable and used the interstate to get to Oregon.
On the bright side it is great for fuel consumption.
One of the many outstanding features of the Nissan is that it had a screen in the middle of the dash and among many other things it shows you your fuel consumption in real time.
It gives your MPG or litres per 100km if you are from the cilivised part of the world and a little bar graph that rises and falls with your consumption.
I have found that I have become quite obsessed with it, I may require counciling when I give it back.
I try to accelerate using as little gas as possable, cringe everytime I go up a hill and try to use none going down.
I watch the km's to empty figure like a religon.
One of my proudest moments with it was when I had just filled it up and it told me that I had 630km to empty, after traveling 150km it told me that I had 680km to empty!
Must be the most economical car ever, toyota Prius owners will be crying in their cornflakes everywhere.
Anyway I arrived in Portland Oregon and I made directly for the info centre to get as much free stuff as I could.
I got talking to the lovely lady taking care of it and she gave me some very good advice on where to go and what routes to follow.
This wasn't entirely free of course, the payment required of me was to put a pin in her map of the world to show where I am from.
I filled up with gas just out of town at a station that was 5c cheeper than everyone else, a good incentive.
It is good to do this in or near Portland as everybody on the coast was was about 20c more expensive than back inland.
Interestingly in Oregon it is illegal to pump your own gas, it has to be done for you by the attendant.
Not sure of the purpose or reasoning of this law, any idears anybody?
On the way to the coast I also passed quite a few wineries, another temptation if I had the time.
As I hit the coast a Lincoln city the sun came out however the temperature stayed fairly mild at about 16degrees C.
Seems that this is a bit cool even for here, I would hope so!
Slowly I made my way down the coast stopping at everyplace that looked interesting.
I got the compolsary fridge magnet in the process.
Activity of the day came in the form of the aquarium at Newport.
At $14.25 for entry it was cheeper than I expected and also well worth the visit with good displays that were well laid out including a touch pool where some fish could be "touched".
Couldn't quite figure out how to slip the shark in without being spotted though......
It also had a short underwater viewing tunnel, not as good as the one in Kelly Tarltons in Auckland (the first one ever anywhere) but good all the same.
Just a short distance (couple hundred meters) down the road is another marine display put on by a university and called the hadfield marine science visitor centre.
This also has a touch pool, and is free, and is a very good exhibit to visit.
Throughly enjoyed both.
Camp for the night was at the Tillicum Beach campground, and at $20 it was one of the more expensive camps that I stayed at but at least it was on the beach.
I splashed out in some firewood and has a camp fire.
As I needed kindling to help get it going and as you aren't exposed to collect any wood from the forest this just ment that I snuck into the forest to get it.
Apparently I wasn't the first as there was hardly a twig in the ground around the camp and even all the trees around the camp were missing all their branches up to about 10ft off the ground.
Now there are a few less........

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Photos

Oregon coast
Not quite Florida, but just as good in its own way.

At the aquarium
Not a happy fish, was looking a bit blue.

Swimming mushrooms
Go to the light...........

Sardine thingies
Anybody got the bread and tomato sauce....

And pink thingies too
Must be the girls side of the tank.

Sunset
On the beach by the camp