Outstanding Oregon

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Geo: 45.8891, -123.963

Wednesday morning was spent enjoying some quiet time. Peter had some work to catch up on and Fletcher and I chilled out. Peter, though, had discovered that his tickets for Rod Stewart and Santana were for Thursday, not tonight and we had planned all our expeditions around this. He was, fortunately, able to sell the tickets to a friend so no Santana for me!

For lunch we drove to an Urban winery where we had lunch from a van serving great Vietnamese food outside. This was a great combination. Peter knew the winemaker who was an Aussie from Sydney who came out and chatted with us. Lovely baguettes, great wine and warm sunshine. What else could we want.

From there we went to the Hult Centre for the Performing Arts. This was built in the '80s and is a lovely complex. We were taken for a tour through the smaller theatre which was similar in size to Adelaide's Playhouse and then into the Concert Hall which is much larger but not as big as the Festival Theatre. However, both were acoustically great and interesting in design. We then stopped to see a memorial just outside to the Japanese Americans who had been interned during World War 2. Those who have read Guterson's " Snow Falling on Cedars" will understand the situation.

After that Fletcher and Peter spent a couple of hours at the Eugene Library while I had a coffee and bought a pair of shoes. For dinner we went to a great restaurant at Whiteaker, a suburb of Eugene. This was called Grit. Here I had the best meal so far on this trip,a wonderful Rabbit Leg Confit while Fletcher enjoyed Pan seared salmon. This was a real restaurant, not a "diner" type place. We also had excellent wine.

Today we left Eugene about 10am. The painters were at Peter's this morning and all the windows etc were covered in plastic as the whole complex is being repainted. We headed out to the coast. Our first stop was at Florence where we went to the Old Town and had coffee at the Siuslaw Coffee Roasters. Excellent coffee and a great view over the river. We then drove north along the coast. This is a spectacular drive. Fletcher and I had done it in 2008 and we recognised some but certainly not all of the places along the way. We stopped at a couple of lookouts for scenic shots of the beaches and rugged cliffs.

At lunchtime we stopped at Newport. This is arrived at across a large bridge. Here we went to the Port Dock Bar for lunch. This looks out over the harbour and we enjoyed watching the sea lions on the breakwater and their antics. This is a popular place during the summer and was full of tourists and cars.

Driving further north we went through the town of Garibaldi. We had stayed the night here in 2008. It is a non descript place where we had found little to recommend it apart from an hilairious encounter with a very drunk couple in the only eating place in town and it hadn't changed much. The coastline still is pretty and from here becomes even more so. At Nehalum there are some beautiful outlooks. Peter's friend had recommended we stop at the Nehalum Bay Winery. This was in a lovely setting but the wines were awful. The attendant was also very off hand and we left wondering why this had been suggested. Peter said it was the worst winery he had ever been in!

We got to Cannon Beach about 6pm. Peter had booked us into the Inn at Cannon Beach, a lovely complex. We have a great room with two queen size beds. Once we had deposited our luggage we went into the main strip to a restaurant called Sweet Basil's. Again the menu promised real food and there was a singer/guitarist presenting '60s folk/rock music. The food was again very good.We started with a shared dish of Bison and Bacon balls in a tomato sauce which was delicious. Then Fletcher had a Seafood Jambalaya while Peter opted for Salmon in a Thai curry sauce. I chose the Pork shanks in tomato sauce and while they were very tasty they had not been cooked long enough for the meat to fall off the bone like it should. We washed all that down with a local Sauv Blanc, followed by an excellent Merlot.

Then it was down to the beach to watch the sunset. This is spectacular here as the sun sinks down on the horizon and casts beautiful colours across the water and the Haystack rock and other rocks on the foreshore. It was a beautiful night and while it had cooled down, the wind had dropped and it was lovely on the sand!

It has been another couple of days with plenty to see and do and we are looking forward to the next two days of wine tasting ahead.

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Comments

[Jo]

Beautiful photo Colleen. It's so lovely that you are doing so much travelling!

[mrsmac]

Thanks, Jo. My friend Peter took this. It is a great picture. Enjoying our stay.