Dennis and I decided to head to the Oregon Coast for a road trip. Woo whooo!
The last few times we've gone we've scheduled our trip after googling "5-day forecast Lincoln City, Oregon" and as soon as it looks promising we throw our clothes into a suitcase and hit the road. We both LOVE a good road trip.
This year we needed to let the Branch know what dates we would be gone, so we picked October 12-18th and crossed our fingers.
Well, evidently crossed fingers = days of bluebird skies on the Oregon Coast!! (I know "bluebird" is a skiing term but it's so pleasing and makes me think of....bluebirds)!
It's a long drive. Dennis googled the distance from SLC to Lincoln city and it's over 800 miles! So counting the round trip and driving from one end of the Oregon coast to the other, he drove close to 2,000 miles on this trip. When we go again maybe we might consider flying
to Portland and renting a car, or, maybe, just like having a baby, after a couple of years we will have forgotten how much driving was
involved and be ready to hit the road again!
Our first bluebird skies came when we took the freeway exit that officially headed us toward Idaho. Dennis took off his shoes, and we cranked out Willie Nelson's "On the road Again!"
This stretch of the trip is always full of anticipation and energy provided by pink Hostess Snowballs and real Cokes from Holiday Oil. The trip started out with gorgeous cloud formations all along the way. It's funny, when we come home along that same stretch it does nothing for me!
Our first stop is always Twin Falls, which has the breathtaking Snake River gorge and Perrine bridge. One year we saw base jumpers and I always hope we might see some again, although I don't approve. Full disclosure: This photo below is from google photos, but it's exactly what we see :-).
We've always eaten lunch at the Village Inn but when we walked in, it looked like a bomb had gone off and sounded like the ward nursery on a bad day, so we turned around and walked out. We went to Olive Garden instead and it felt like the lap of luxury. Their unlimited soup, salad and breadsticks were so healthy and yummy. I think that will be our stop forevermore. (Side note: Years ago, a darling woman wrote a flattering review about an Olive Garden in her home town and some snooty "nattering nabobs of negativism" attacked her online. (I have always wanted to use that phrase from the Nixon administration). She died a just few weeks ago and here's a snippet of her review from the obituary:
Marilyn Hagerty, Whose Olive Garden Review Went Viral, Dies at 99
“The
chicken Alfredo ($10.95) was warm and comforting on a cold day,” she
wrote from North Dakota. And suddenly the national media made her a
celebrity.
Our next city of note is Boise, Idaho where Dennis spent the absolute best years of his childhood. Moving to Salt Lake city when he was 14 was a tragedy in his life. He left his wonderful friends, athletic teams, neighborhood and church connections, the freedom to ride his bike all over that valley, looking forward to getting his driver's license at age 14 because you can in Idaho, and ended up on 17th Avenue in Salt Lake city with a bunch of weirdos with rich dads and attending Bryant Junior High (he had to walk uphill both ways), and it was full of thugs and had no grass, just blacktop. Yes, it was awful! Although he does tell the story of being the new kid, playing football on the blacktop and one of the main "greasers" kept moving the ball to their team's advantage and Dennis stepped forward and moved it back and stood up to him and the greaser said Dennis was "okay' and they left him alone from then on. Life lessons in the mean streets!
The next leg of the journey leads to the Idaho/Oregon border town of Ontario, where Dennis served at the end of his mission and had to ride his bike in a full suit and tie in the middle of summer and they made themselves sweet onion sandwiches on white bread with Miracle Whip for lunch. He swears they were delicious. The minute you get within 5 miles of Ontario the sweet fragrance of onions fills the air. We passed semi load after semi load of trucks hauling onions probably to Walmarts all across this nation.
As we got closer and closer to La Grande everything became more lovely to me, as it has for 50 years since I've been away. The color of the grass is unique to Eastern Oregon and it's the same color as our dog Sam's wheat-colored coat. It's so cozy. It was a rainy day in La Grande, but it still smelled like wood chips and was punctuated by the comforting wail of freight trains. Here's a photo of Mount Emily shrouded in clouds, the icon of La Grande.
We had to make a stop at 1005 "L" and luckily the yard was covered with leaves so it didn't look quite as neglected. Nothing like the beautiful manicured lawns of Richard and Shirley Hiatt.
Here's an old photo of our house when I was growing up.
And below are some photos of their flower beds and the gorgeous gladiolas in the back yard. I think it's amazing and adorable that my dad would take close-up photos of their flowers. He was a gifted chronicler of life and his photo albums are treasures.
Here's one more photo of present day 1005 "L" (oh my dad would be so irked and peeved!) I wanted a picture with the address blogified for posterity. Also the white building is the Jr. High so you can see how close I lived to it. I walked home for lunch every day. And behind the school is Table Mountain which used to have an "L" on it for La Grande. I guess they decided to go 'a natural' with the scenery.
We also drove out to Gekeler Lane (no pictures of the "funny little house" this time, I don't know why?) but I took some pictures of the stained glass windows in the current LDS chapel on Gekeler Lane The stained glass windows are from the original tabernacle that I was blessed to grow up attending.
Below is a photo of our magnificent church, aka a "Tabernacle." You can see the stained glass windows, and imagine how beautiful they were from the inside when the sun was lighting them. The "upper chapel" had beautiful paintings of the Savior and the First Vision, massive in scope, with balconies and winding stair cases. It seems like another time. I didn't realize what a blessing it was to have that as my anchor growing up. I loved it.
That night we went to dinner at what used to be Klondike Pizza, where our kids will never forget how much pizza Grandpa Hiatt put away on one of our visits.
After a good night's rest we headed for the coast. Getting in and OUT of La Grande can be treacherous. The stretch of road heading to Pendleton is known as Cabbage Hill and it's a 6% downgrade for miles of winding roads, and to make matters worse the fog rolls in on little cat's feet, no matter what time of year you drive it. I was so glad when we made it down and out of that fog!
The vast fields in Pendleton soon give way to the mighty Columbia River. Roll on Columbia roll on!
We made a quick stop and stretched our legs at the Bonneville Dam and saw the famous Herman the Sturgeon. We didn't go to Multnomah Falls because now you have to make a reservation and the crowds are thick.
Then through miles of gorgeous scenery, and a quick detour to stop at Julie and Tom's for some yummy ice cream sundaes (Dennis wants me to find this Bordeaux Cherry brand of ice cream so I took a picture of it) and we got to listen to three siblings who are fantastic students. They got ice cream too! And Greggy, Julie and Tom's dog sings along sometimes. I don't know how to upload videos or I'd add one here!
Said good-bye to the Higgins, and crossed the impressive maze of bridges in Portland. No riots were seen from the freeway. It's fun to travel through Dennis's old mission stomping grounds. At one point he popped out with "The McMinville Floaters" as we were passing an exit for, yes, McMinville :-) He explained that a set of Elders worked in that area and floated all around to different little towns.
Then we FINALLY arrived in Lincoln City, and caught our first glimpse of the mighty Pacific, and pulled into our Hotel (The Inn at Spanish Head) and THIS was the view out of the window from the front desk as we registered! It NEVER gets old!
We got checked in and breathed in the sea air from our balcony and then enjoyed a picture perfect sunset later in the evening. Our room was on the 6th floor and honestly it was a little too high up for me to comfortably lean over the balcony. Lesson learned!
You can see how high up we were by how little the people are in the picture below.
Dennis snapping a photo of "Sunset #1"
Here is our room. It looks like a nice, normal room doesn't it? Do NOT be DECEIVED! The beds were some sort of "choose your own adventure" contraption where you had to use a remote to make it hard or soft, and it controlled only half the bed at once, and there was a bar down the middle and it was the WORST night's sleep we've had that I can remember.
Luckily the Hotel wasn't sold out and they moved us to another room the
next morning. Those beds were divine and therefore, we LOVED our room,
even though it didn't have a balcony and was on the 8th floor so I
wouldn't have even set foot out there anyway and Dennis was fine with just having a beautiful ocean view from sliding glass doors. Here's the view from our nice new room with comfy, comfy beds.
The next day we headed South to Newport. One of our favorites. Such great memories over the years! We ate at Mo's and had our usual Ciopino (me) and chili cheese hamburger (Dennis). Listened to the sea lions woof, watched them jostle forever, gazed at the harbor and then went over the beautiful bridge on our way further south to Sea Lion Caves!
We made a stop along the way to watch some surfers too.
We got to Sea Lion Caves and went into the gift shop and said to the cashier "two tickets please" and she said "Just so you know, there aren't any sea lions in the caves this time of year but we will give you $2 off your tickets!" They should have a sign on the entrance or something! We weren't interested in seeing the empty caves so I took a picture of the statue through the window and reminisced about our trip there 40 some odd years ago when we camped at Beverly Beach. Amy was only 1 year old, and she pranced around on our heads all night while we tried to sleep and then that morning a crow woke us up at 6:00 am and I went outside the tent and threw my shoe at him, and I was so far off target that dad died laughing. Here's the great photo from 40 years ago. Little Amy almost got blown over that day. The winds were HOWLING!
Here's a photo of the same statue 50 years later.
We still had some time on our hands since Sea Lion Caves were a bust, so we decided to go to the Florence sand dunes, which is also the scene from the same memorable trip where we rented dune buggies and dad and Amy tipped over backwards and he saved her from being injured by holding it up over her head. So scary! Other than that, great memories! (Kind of like the old joke, "Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play)?"
Here's a dune we stopped at. Dad and I didn't know if we wanted to hike that far in the sand, but I was feeling frisky (I have so much more energy at sea level, either that or I convince myself that I do). So I started up it and turned around and gave dad the thumbs up and we hiked it together.
There was another couple at the top and we had them take our picture. I think it's the only picture on the whole trip of us together!
Got home, grabbed dinner at the Subway down the highway from our Hotel, where Dennis swears we had the same employee who helped us when we were there a few years ago, because he remembered that the guy was REALLY slow, which he was!
Sunset day two was a thrill because there were two seals swimming around. It was so fun to spot them. Birds were flocking to where they were so the birds must have been hoping to grab leftover fish. You can see two little black heads in this blown-up photo.
Sunrise Day three! We were still dumbfounded by the good weather. Not a cloud in the sky, hardly any wind. Just superb. Thank you Heavenly Father for this beautiful, beautiful world!
The next day, I was SO excited for our trip along the Northern end of the coast and upcoming hike. The road was closed when we were at the coast a couple of years ago and we looked for it in futility, not knowing it was on the stretch of road that was closed. I felt like I'd lost a lifetime gem of an experience and even doubted my memory. Last year we found it, although sadly, Dennis wasn't strong enough to hike, but this year he was as chipper as a 60-year-old! The hike is at Cape Lookout State Park. I have it written down in my phone under "Reminders" along with other things like "My phone is an iphone 11" "Our Camry is a 2010" and "Quilt bindings should be 2.5 inches when you cut them out." You know, the IMPORTANT things in life. Some day before I die I want to hike it with Angie, Forrest, Ethan, Elise, Jonas, Carly, Andrew, Andrea, Brandon, Whitney, Caroline, Tony, Cindy, Lauren, Zac, Maddox, Reagan, Jane, Nick, Peter, Eli, Vivian, Calvin, Truman, Amy, Dave, Jack, Macy and Carly and Wyatt will be happily accompanying us and leading the way.
And then we returned to the truck and fueled ourselves with ANOTHER snowball :-)
Next on the itinerary - onward to Haystack Rock. The icon of the Oregon Coast! I'd forgotten how overrun with tourists Cannon Beach is.There was NOWHERE to park. Last year dad gave up and said no dice, and we ended up not even getting out of the truck and turned around. But luckily this year he finally found a parking place and we walked to the beach. SOOOO many people enjoying the bluebird day. We walked and walked and walked though because by the time we found a parking place we were really far away from Haystack Rock. Then we began the long hike back and we kind of lost our car for a bit, but Dennis finally navigated us to the place where it was parked. We met another couple on our meanderings along the side streets of Cannon Beach who had ALSO lost their car!
This was what the sand looked like everywhere we walked! So artsy!!
I had to take this guy's picture because I swear he was thinking "so easy, so easy!" like Tony did before he lost his balance and fell, (probably on that memorable trip to the Oregon Coast)!
And this made us laugh! If any of you kids ever want to take us to Cannon Beach once we're officially "elderly" you can rent Beach Wheelchairs for us!!
So amazing to see the effect of decades of ocean winds on the trees.
Then
we headed North to Ecola State park, which Dennis likes to call "E-Coli
State park." This is where cousin Julia had her sandwich stolen by a seagull
when we were there at a Hiatt Family Reunion decades ago.
Dennis remembered that the drive through Ecola State park is gorgeous, but I had no memory of it at all until we started driving it and then it was like, oh yeah! NOW I remember! It's just jaw dropping, and I tried and tried to get photos to do it justice but you can't stop on the road so everything just goes whizzing beautifully by. The road is as narrow as the road on the Alpine Loop so I was grateful "Parnelli Sweat" was driving. He's a pro, but doesn't get to enjoy the scenery darnit.
We were planning on returning the next day and going clear up North to Seaside and Astoria, but had changed our minds earlier in the day after talking it over because we didn't want to retrace our same route again, so we had decided to keep heading North after Cannon Beach and do it all in one day. But as the day wore on we both said, nah, we're done. And, cue the suspenseful music, it was a good thing we didn't plan on doing anything the next day. But first, beautiful sunset number three greeted us when we got back to the Hotel.
Side note, it was fun that we were both reading Richard Osmon's latest book. We rarely read the same kinds of books, but Forrest told us about this series and we've been anxiously awaiting the next installment.
Dennis started feeling kind of queasy that night before we went to bed, and I didn't feel so great myself. The next morning's clouds foretold what the day would be like. Dennis had a horrible case of food poisoning, and I had a light one. We blame the chile verde at the really cute Mexican restaurant where we had lunch the day before.
Poor guy. We rented Hunger Games from the front desk, and even that didn't go right! It glitched about 20 minutes into the movie.
I went down to the restaurant and had a lonely lunch, kept company with a great book by Sharon Eubank. I set the book up to create this tableau just for fun :-)
Our last sunset before we headed for home. The clouds made it pretty in its own way.
Fortunately Dennis rallied the next morning and we set out for home. We go through the gorgeous Cascade Mountains and always make a brief stop in Sisters, Oregon which is like a little Park City that has a huge quilt show the second Saturday in July every year. Dennis always waits in the car while I scurry around and look into all the shops.
 | | | | | | | |
| There was a devastating fire up there probably a decade ago and it's so sad to see, but also interesting and uplifting to see all the little trees that are poking their heads out of the once fire-ravaged forest. | | |
Some pretty fall colors too as we began our climb. We had both forgotten what a long and winding road it is to go this way. Jeepers! I don't know if we'll do that again actually. Lots and lots and lots of driving for Dennis, and I'm no help. GOSH!
We stayed that night in a Holiday Inn Express in Ontario, Oregon,home of the onions like I mentioned at the beginning of this blog. Their beds were so comfy I had to google what they use: Beautyrest being the most common, specifically the Beautyrest IHG Indus River™ Pillow Top. However, some locations also use Serta Perfect Sleeper mattresses.
After a looooooong day of driving that includes miles and miles of two-lane highway which involves passing slow semis and it always feels like we're taking our life in our hands. But once again, what a beautiful world. The sunset was pretty at our stop for the night in Ontario, Oregon too.
I was craving something green and fresh and organic so I got a side of broccoli with my turkey dinner that night. It was just the BEST!
The trip home flew by. Dad was a rock star doing all that driving. I was nervous that my flowers would all be dead because I hadn't hired anyone to water them, and I even had a dream one night while we were gone that I got home and they still looked good. And my dream came true! It rained tons!
After we unpacked, I picked six fresh tomatoes and we took turns leaning over the sink and sprinkling salt on them and slurped them up.
YUM!
The End
And now I've finally done another blog post. Amy and Andrea you are my inspiration because I so enjoy reading yours. I've been trying to do one of our family reunion (a year and a half ago) but now I can't remember anything and I console myself with the fact that Amy and Andrea have it beautifully documented on their blogs.And I'll always remember that Angie was the one who introduced me to blogging decades ago when it was in its infancy.
