Ding-ding!!  All aboard the Portland Party Bus!

Brasserie Montmartre. The perfect brunch spot in Portland.

Last full day of our trip, and finally we were off to Portland!!  We were up, bright and early, having survived our night in the closed circulation Airstream, post-chilli bean dinner, without incident or loss of olfactory function.  After making sure the Airstream was spotlessly clean and all evidence of the previous evening's Wildlife Bingo was scrubbed away, we locked up the Canister of Cool and headed out of the irrepressibly dull Sauvie Island for the excitement of the mainland!!

Alas, the weather did not share our enthusiasm.

I guess we'd been pretty lucky over the last couple of days in that it didn't rain constantly, but that there had been a fair dollop of sunshine instead.  But, today, ahh....the weather was far more...um...Portlandian.

CUE SOMBRE VOICEOVER

"....And so it was, under glowering skies filled with dark clouds heavy with rain, our two brave adventurers finally completed the perilous and epic journey that had taken them so very very far from home.  Just across the ancient iron bridge which marked the boundaries of the kingdom, the fabled city of myth and legend lay before them, rising from the mists like a slightly damp phoenix...."

****...wait...what????....that doesnt make sense!..... a damp phoenix??.....  well, bugger this, then, for writing my blog in Ancient Legend font.... I'm switching back to Arial font....*****

So we took Highway 30 from Sauvie Island to Portland.  It was raining and we went over a few bridges to enter the city.  Fortunately, not having to slog our way through any forests of murderers or roads made of stony jumpy popcorn aided our progress no end, so it only took us about 40mins before we made it to Portland city centre.  I (huzzah!) had managed to book us into the Westin Portland for free on my Starwoods points (yey for free stuff!) and, as we found the hotel, we realized just quite what a win its location was.  The hotel was slap bang in the middle of everything, so was the absolute perfect base from which to explore Portland.

Announcing the date for the annual coloring contest at the
Bistro (held for the last 50 years) - examples
 of previous years winners surround the chalkboard

As it was only about 10am (echoes of the Twilight Zone again..), it was far too early to check in, so instead we found somewhere to park up (in the middle of a car park surrounded by food carts - how very Portland!) and decided to go get some food.  By chance, we came across this very cute French bistro-type place which fit the bill perfectly - it was all croissants and iron lighting fixtures and crepes and omelets and bottomless mimosas and everything!!  Did I mention the bottomless mimosas?  It was also just round the corner from the hotel - which also happened to be right round the corner from Nordstrom's.  I had only learnt the startling revelation the previous day that, in Oregon, THERE IS NO SALES TAX!!!   This really is a mythical land, full of treasure waiting to be discovered.  Although a trip to Nordstrom's after bottomless mimosas  could be considered a foolhardy mission, fraught with danger, that's just kinda how we roll, so after a delightful - and substantial - brunch (which probably rendered the trying on of clothes utterly futile), off we trotted/waddled to see what bargains could be unearthed.

Ding ding!  All aboard!!

Fortunately (for me), I didn't really find anything I fancied (phew) but Lori found a cute little top for dinner tonight, so it was a worthwhile expedition.  As we entered Nordstrom's we couldn't help but notice a big red old-fashioned British double decker bus parked right outside!  Obviously we had to investigate, and discovered a tour company in only their second day of operation who'd just started running Big Red Bus Tours round Portland.  Well.  It just had to be done, didn't it?  It actually made perfect sense - the bus tour was about 2hrs long and would take us to see all the main areas, landmarks and highlights of the city, so it was the ideal way to see a lot of the city in a short space of time.  I'm actually a big fan of touristy-type bus tours when I go abroad for that very reason - I've taken tours in Singapore, Madrid, Rome, Barcelona and various other places and its great for giving you the lay of the land, as well as a sense of where you'd like to go back and visit again.  So, we decided to take the 1pm tour, after some serious power-shopping (Nordstrom's, Macys and TJ Maxx in less than an hour - we don't mess about....).

Yep.  It was raining.  A lot.  This is what
gritting your teeth and smiling through it looks like...

It soon became obvious this new company was staffed completely by optimists as - instead of the closed top bus - they took out the open-top double decker instead!  And thus it came to pass that we ended up doing an open-aired bus tour of Portland on a Sunday afternoon in the absolute p*ssing rain!!   Yep - after about 5 mins, the heavens opened and we proceeded to get very wet, very quickly - but, in true British spirit, we gritted our teeth, kept a stiff upper lip and carried on.  Except for 10 mins when the rain got VERY heavy, we toughed it out on the upper deck, in the rain and the cold.

Why?

Oh, I don't know.  Bloody-mindedness?  A belief that the sun would break through the clouds any.....moment....now....?  Too many mimosas for brunch?    Its a mystery.  I think it was also the additional element of danger of avoiding the tree branches that continually whipped across the top deck that kept us transfixed.  It was quite the workout - both mentally and physically.   Take your eyes off the approaching arborage for a moment, and a pointy branch would have 'em out in an instant.   Honestly, it was actually a little dangerous, as you could see that someone could get seriously poked in the face with an errant tree branch, so I hope for their future litigation prospects they get that sorted out asap.  Anyway, here are some of the highlights of our Super Soggy Sunday Bus Bonanza:

Heading out of the city,
we saw some very fancy houses in Portland Heights.  

WHOAH.  It all got a bit spacey on the Super Soggy Bus...

A rather groovy red bridge.  One of several groovy bridges.

Huzzah!!  To the trains!!!

Largest book store in Portland!!

The queue outside Voodoo Doughnuts.
 Yep.  People really are standing on line for over an hour
for a doughnut.  That's just craziness, people.  

No matter where in the world you go,
there's always a Chinatown...

Another bridge.  This one with a train on it.

Stripey bridge

The oldest outdoors goods store in Portland.  Complete
with a choice of Western or English riding saddles.
 How civilized.

After our tour, we were both frozen solid (funnily enough), so it was time to go thaw out with an Irish coffee at Jake's Grill (recommended to us by the guy in the shoe department at Nordstrom's).  Alas, the Irish coffee wasn't quite hot enough (there's nothing worse than lukewarm coffee), so we sent it back and ordered something else instead.  Lori had this very lurid blue cocktail (I think she was trying to match the color of her fingertips) and I chose the Oregon pinot noir tasting flight.  Deee-lis-cious.  

Suitably reinvigorated, it was finally time to go check into the hotel.  Although check-in was at 3pm and it was already 4pm, our room wasn't quite ready, so instead the check-in lady invited us to take a seat in the bar, with the first drink on the house to wait.  Well, sure.  No problemo.   Happy to oblige.  In the end, we were only waiting about 10mins, but a glass of free champers took the edge off that delay quite nicely.

Portland.  The city where anything is possible.

Anyway, finally we got up to the room - a double queen with pretty decent views of the city below and was very nice indeed.  We had arranged to meet Lori's folks at 6.30pm, so had just under 2hrs to chill out in - so i may have perhaps just dropped off for a quick snooze maybe for just a minute or so.   Fortunately, i'd just so happened to set my alarm in case of such an improbably unlikely event, so it was soon time to get ready to go out and meet the family.  Obviously i'd met Lori's mum, Cheri, a number of times before but had only spoken to her papa, Greg, once on the phone and had never met Greg's son, Shon.

We had an absolute blast.  Greg came to pick us up in his ENORMOUS truck (which was fun to get in and out of in heels!) and we headed off to one of the oldest and best restaurants in Portland, a place called Huber's.  Now, rather than be just another traditional steakhouse, Huber's is distinctive in that it specializes in turkey dinners!  Yep, every day is Thanksgiving at Huber's - and jolly bloody tasty it was too!!  I actually ended up having the turkey marsala which was delicious and all of us left with very full tummies and even bigger grins on our faces.  It was a great evening and it was so much fun to spend time with Lori's family, ribbing Shon about his love of American football (rather than a real man's game like rugby), getting to know Greg and getting a big hug from my second mom, Cheri.  Thank you, for taking me into your family and into your hearts - you guys rock.

My Portland family!
And, no, I hadn't collapsed on the floor
with Lori helping me up.

Not sure what's going on with the posing in this
one - and why I have zombie eyes.
But we all look adorable anyway.

I really need to have a chat with Lori to tell her
to lighten up on the bling when going out
for the evening... such a delicate subject....

After dinner, Greg and the gang dropped Lori and I back at the hotel and they headed off home.  It was still relatively early, so we decided to explore a bit more and ended up in this really cool bar called Urban Farmer.  It had a very Manhattan vibe (without the arsiness), so it was the perfect spot to just sit, chill out and talk about life, the universe and everything.  And, after about an hour or so, we'd actually solved all the world's problems, so all that was left to do was to wend our (slightly) merry way home, sing songs in our hotel room loudly enough to warrant a tap on the door (oops) before finally calling it a night.  All that was left to do tomorrow, was to drive to the airport, give back the M&M mobile and fly home to SF (again, free upgrade to 1st!) and reflect on what a thoroughly FABULOUS trip to Portland it had been.  It proved that it was, indeed, well worth the wait and I can't wait to go back and visit again.

Running A-moo-k in Tillamook

Best brekkie in town!

Day 2 of our Portland road trip and, after the excitement of the previous evening's Wildlife Bingo Smackdown, it was time for breakfast to refuel.  We were directed to a place called Lazy Susan's which - according to the lady at the front desk - had the best breakfast in town.  So, off we trotted to find that, yep, it was indeed the hottest (meal) ticket in Cannon Beach - it actually had a wait of a half hour (how Manhattan!), so we duly signed up, went off and got coffee while we waiting.

Holy cow.  Breakfast was a-maz-ing!!  I had the eggs benedict and it was just superb.  The eggs were cooked perfectly - all squirty yellow eggy goodness.  Mm-mm-mm.  Lori had an omelette that was also very very tasty and, again, the mimosas were top notch.  We'd also been advised to buy the special muffin of the day - today's was Huckleberry (I think), a big fat, dense muffin crammed full of juicy dark fruits.  We got one each to go, in the highly unlikely event that we would ever feel hungry again in our lifetimes.

Today's itinerary was to take us a little further down the coast, before then turning inland and heading back towards Portland.

So the drive was simply stunning again.  We were driving down on Highway 101, driving through an assortment of cool seaside towns, right by the side of the ocean as well as through forests and beautiful valleys.  For part of the time, the road was parallel to an old railway line - that must have been a fab trip in its heyday when it was fully operational.  It was a little sad to see some of the old railway cars just rusting away on the rails, but at least a part of the railway was still operational and you could catch a scenic train for a 3 hr round trip from Wheeler to Garibaldi.

http://www.ocsr.net

The fresh sea air must have speeded our digestion because, amazingly enough, after about an hour and a half's driving, the siren call of the still-warm muffins was just too enticing to resist.  Not sure it was the smartest idea to attempt to eat one while driving as the berries turned out to be larger and splodgier than I expected, so my fingers had soon been stained a bright purple and i was probably wearing as much as I'd eaten (Loopy can relate...).  But it was yummy - and very filling, so no danger of us starving on this trip!

Rather lovely scenery.  AND it had stopped raining
for a millisecond.  Bonus.

I love how the Tsunami is helpfully chasing the
Stick Man into the Tsunami Bar and Grill.

Anyway, our route was taking us through the town of Tillamook (not TillaNOOK, as Lori kept calling it!).  For my non-US blogwatchers, you probably won't know that Tillamook is a big dairy brand out here in the US (like, say, DairyCrest and Davidstow cheddar in the UK), so for a cheese-a-vore such as myself, a visit to the cheese factory simply Had To Be Done.

And so it was.

We didn't actually stay all that long as it was VERY crowded with a lot of VERY large people (obviously they needed to step away from the cheese a bit more) but it was a fun diversion for a half hour.  Because it was so crowded, we didnt do the self-guided tour, but just honed in on the free cheese samples (squeaky cheese!!) and the Loaf Bus.  As you do.  Here are some highlights from our little cheese-fest...

Bright orange bus shaped like a loaf.
 Just add two crazy peeps and serve.

I want one!!

Squeeeeky cheese.
Made from mice*.

The Astounding Wall of Cheese.
That's a lotta cheese toasties right there

It had to be done.  It only took me three photos
to realize my face wasn't going to fit in through the hole
(hence my obvious disappointment)

Even their sign was actually MADE out of cheese!!
Amazing!!!**

After we'd chomped our way through the free cheese samples and avoided the enormous ice-cream parlor, it was time to get back on the road and head to our destination for the evening, Sauvie Island.  Sauvie Island, originally Wapato island, is approximately 10 miles north of Portland, so was a perfect mid-point to stop for heading back to town.  It sounded interesting in that its the largest island in the Columbia River and one of the largest islands in the US.  Located at the junction of the Columbia River to the east, Willamette river to the south and the Multnomah channel to the west, the island's northern half is a wildlife refuge, so i figured there would be great opportunities for some great wildlife photo ops.  It's also pretty close to Mount St. Helens, the now-extinct (hopefully) volcano that exploded so spectacularly back in the 80's.

Here's where things started to get interesting.  We stuck to the main highway, Highway 6, for most of the drive, then consulted the GPS on my iPhone to navigate the last bit to Sauvie Island itself.  I plugged in the route, it gave me several options, so i picked one and off we went.

I guess I forgot to tell it I was in a car.

OMG.  The "road" we ended up on took us deep, deep into the forest where it became smaller and smaller, and more and more rustic until it ended up quite literally as a gravel track.  The "road" was completely unpaved and one of those annoyingly crunchy ones where, even when crawling along at 10mph, it sounds as if you're in a popcorn machine, as the little gravel chips fly up from the road and pepper the underside of your car!  Its EXACTLY the place where you'd expect to be chopped up by a friendly murderer - and the arse-end of nowhere wilderness that you just knew people would ask "what on earth were they doing there?" as your wildlife nibbled-bodies would be discovered some months later.  To add to the fun, the fuel gauge was dipping below a quarter full and my phone, having helpfully navigated us into the Arse End Of Nowhere, decided to run out of battery and die.  Gee.  Thanks.  Fortunately, Lori came to the rescue with a in-car charger, plus we had a bag of cheese curds to stave off starvation (as well as throw at any potential murderers in hopes of distracting them "That cheese is squeaking! I must investigate rather than hack these two lost women to pieces"), so fortunately - after about 40mins of crunching our way through the forest, we finally found a road that had the luxury of tarmac, so were able to rejoin civilization!  

I hear ya.
 Try Frizz-Ease serum.  Its awesome for
taming those annoying fly-aways (no pun intended)

Heaving a deep sigh of relief, we rejoined the main highway and, after about another 30mins or so, picked up the signs for the bridge across to Sauvie Island.  On the way, we stopped at a little farm shop to stock up on wine and nibbles for the night, and found another RV park with a cafe, so bought some sandwiches for supper, in case the place next to where we were heading was shut.  We also came across this rather quirky farm with a petting zoo, containing some imaginatively named animals.  Betty the rooster was particularly entertaining.  I could certainly identify with the Bad Hair day Betty was having.

We finally - after spending most of the day driving - found our RV park where we were going to spend the night in an Airstream trailer!!  I have always wanted to stay in one of these, so i was very excited to have found it on Air B&B and that the owner would let us rent it for just one night, when the minimum was usually two.  Here's the link on Air B&B, with much better pics than the ones I took:

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/433736

I love Airstreams.  They just look so damned cool.  I guess its cos its all silver and shiny ("Ooo, look!  Silver shiny things!") and I'm easily swayed by stuff like that (I know, I know - I've worked in marketing and advertising for most of my career and I fall for all the tricks!).  But - at the end of the day - honestly, you're still just staying in a caravan!!  I think if I owned an Airstream, I would make sure it was as funky on the inside as its cool on the outside - but this one was very traditional.  It was absolutely spotlessly clean and everything was in perfect condition, but it just didnt have the character inside as you'd expect from the outside.  But, nonetheless, it was one to check off the Bucket List and, after our Terror Ride of Hell through the Forest of Murderers, it was good to just reach our destination.

After we dumped our stuff, we decided to go explore.  Lori had got chatting to a VERY attractive young man*** who was giving her the lay of land and it turns out there was pretty much bugger all to do on Sauvie Island.  And, even in the course of doing bugger all and seeing even less, you had to buy a day-pass to park anywhere - what a bloody swindle!!!  We headed out in the M&M Mobile with the vague hope of seeing something interesting (allegedly there's a lighthouse at the tip of the island) but all we saw were lots of Oregon police in their cars (I guess cracking down on the parking fee-dodgers), an abundance of Porta-Potties (literally one every 500 yards - what's up with that?) and some trees.  We couldn't see Mount St. Helens, we couldn't see the light house, we couldn't see across the bay or the beach, we could see bugger all.  So all in all, Sauvie Island was rather a let-down and a bit of a waste of a day - but live and learn.  I guess I was just grateful I couldn't also see the nudist beach - that probably would have been the final straw for my fragile mental state.

So, all there was left to do was return to the Airstream, crack open the Pinot Gris, chill out and get ready for the Special Tillamook Edition of Wildlife Bingo.  Here's how it shook down this time.....

Yes.  That really is a bag of Beaver Poop and a Harry Potter
chocolate frog.  The stakes have never been higher.

First round down, Lori wins the chocolate frog and the badge.
 Third game in, and i score with the Pirate frog magnet.
#winning

It just had to be done.  
Yes, they really are Tillamook Loaf Bus earrings.
 And mighty fine they are too...

And that was that.  The end of our second day's adventure and off to Portland tomorrow!!  Whoo-hoo!!

* not true
**  also a complete porky-pie
*** yep, not true either

WILDLIFE BINGO REMATCH

It is ON.

Time to bring my A-Game.  After getting my ass thoroughly handed to me on a plate in Yosemite last year during the Inaugural Wildlife Bingo Tournament, it was time to play for Queen and Country and to go for glory.

The scene of this epic encounter: the Warren House Pub. 

The accompanying crowd: an enormous Chocolate triple layer cake and a bottle of stunningly amazing Oregon Pinot Gris.

The result: well, I'll let the pictures do the talking....

The scene of the crime

Pre-game preparation

Don't knock it til you've tried it....

The crowd goes wild...

Guess who won the first game?

Yep.  Bloody Wolverine takes Ruffed Grouse
 in a nail-bitingly close finish...

Guess who won the second game?

Sarah and Lori's Most Excellent Oregon Adventure
Finally!  Its Friday, its Ridiculously Early O'Clock and time for my long, long-overdue trip to Portland!! I have been trying to visit Portland literally for years and, each time I've booked my trip, the last three times I've had to cancel because of work. This time, however, I was not to be thwarted, and Lori was joining me for the long Memorial Day weekend - its been a while since our last adventure, so we were definitely overdue some fun!

Road trip!!  Our trusty M&M steed.

So, as with all the best trips, the alarm goes off while its still dark, and we're up and bleary-eyed at 4am, and off to the airport ready for our 6.30am flight to Portland.  Thanks to Jeff Smisek (the CEO of United who i'm developing a bit of a crush on - but thats another story), we'd got upgraded to First class on the way out (yey for United 1K!), so it was a very comfortable, smooth - and short - flight.

With barely enough time to chow down on the complimentary chocolate chip scone (still warm!) and chug back even more coffee to wake ourselves up, we arrived in Portland, after having flown over some spectacular scenery.  The ruggedness of the mountains and the verdant cloak of trees bursting with a deep resonant green, reminded me of both Vermont and Bhutan - a hybrid of two of my most favorite places on the planet.  I knew we were going to be in for a treat.

Our itinerary was fairly loose, but we'd decided to head up to the coast for the first day, then across towards Mount St. Helens for the second day, before spending our final day in Portland itself.  We figured that would be enough to give us a taste for the area - not spend too much time in the car driving, but far enough that we'd get to see a lot of surrounding countryside and coast, outside of just the city limits.  Because it was a holiday weekend, I'd booked our accommodation ahead of time, just to be on the safe side, but other than that - it was just time to go with the flow!


As we deplaned and passed through the arrivals lounge, it was soon clear that our destination was somewhat different than the usual tourist hotspots.  Yep.  I think this was the first time ever I've arrived somewhere to be met with an outdoors clothing store in arrivals, rather than the usual array of resort t-shirts, sunglasses and flip flops.  Instead, here was a Columbia store fully stocked with the widest array possible of rain wear, thermal vests and woolly hats.  Something told me it might get a bit chilly here (and prompted instant Biggest Loser thoughts about our state of preparedness....).

What we were also beginning to realize was that, when we flew to Oregon, we also seemed to have entered the Twilight zone.  No, no, no -  I don't mean that one (the one with sulky Kristen Stewart and plenty of cougar fodder - although a lot of it was filmed in Oregon, so...) but I meant the classic one, the doo-doo-do-doo....doo-doo-do-dooo one.  The one where time seems to bend, to slow down or to stop entirely.  The one where you keep checking your watch and saying "I can't believe its only ".   Such as......

Plane lands in Oregon: " I can't believe its only 8.30am!"

We hit the road after picking up our hire car:  "I can't believe its only 10.00am!"

We arrive in Seaside to have lunch: "I can't believe its only midday!"

We arrive at our hotel to check in: "I can't believe its only 1.00pm!"

Waking up after a quick afternoon nap: "I can't believe its still only 2.30pm!"

.....and so on, and so forth.  You get the general idea.  It was very weird.  Well, I guess thats just what happens when you get up at 4am in the morning...there's a lot more of the day to play with.

Anyway, as expected, the drive towards the coast was absolutely spectacular, as we wound our way out of Portland, and up out on Highway 26 through Tillamook State Forest (more on that later...).  There were some fantastic names of creeks and mountains - Clatsop state forest, Wolf Creek, Saddle Mountain, Rock Creek to name a few, although I did get extremely concerned at one stage about "Ebola Creek" - until I realized - because I didnt have my specs on - it read "Ecola Creek" instead.  Phew.   If you're interested in the route we took, here's a link to learn more about the Oregon coast:

http://visittheoregoncoast.com/pdf/OCVA_PCSBBrochure.pdf

Our little red Toyota Corolla (lovingly nicknamed the M&M - i don't know why, it was the first name that came to mind) made jolly good time so, before we knew it (and thanks to cruise control which i finally figured out how to use), we arrived at our first destination of Seaside, just before lunchtime.  Perfect timing.  Enough time to check into the Wayside Inn, dump the bags and then wander off to find somewhere for lunch.

Except we weren't staying in Seaside.

We were staying in Cannon Beach, 5 miles down the road.

Oops.

I'm not sure how that happened but, no big deal, we decided to stop for lunch anyway to rest and refuel after the drive and early start.  Lori ended up having an omelette the size of her head, while I had a Kobe beef meatball thing which was OK, but way too salty.  Fortunately, there was a mimosa (just one!) on hand to wash it all down with.

After lunch, we calorie coma'ed back to the car for the short drive down to Cannon Beach.  According to our waitress, Cannon Beach was much nicer than Seaside, so we felt suitably smug that we were actually staying there, rather than in Seaside (which did have a slightly depressing air to it).  We found our hotel easily, a place called the Wayfair Inn which - as we soon learned the difference - was ocean "view" not ocean "side".   Ahhh....how the devil is always in the details!!  But, despite the ocean being just across the street as opposed to lapping at the doorstep, it was actually fine.   It wasn't all that fancy, but it had a fireplace, a balcony overlooking the sea, a coffee maker and plenty of room, with a separate lounge area, 2 bathrooms (one each!) and two queen beds that were rather oddly placed at right angles to each other.  Made me wonder who effed up the measurements when they were originally planning out the layout of that room.


Anyway, the effort of staying awake after a 4am start, a 2hr flight, a 2hr drive PLUS an enormous lunch simply proved too great, so Lori and I solidified our emergent status as Old Farts In Training by taking a mid-afternoon nap.   Lovely.  But it was OK - we were in the Twilight Zone so, even after a solid hour or so's kip, it was still only 2.30pm!!  Bonza!  Half the day still left to explore!!  We chilled out for a bit more, illegally feeding the birds on the balcony with the completely superfluous garlic baguette i'd been issued with my lunch, before finally getting our arses off the couch to wander over to the beach to explore.

Wow.

Can I just say that the Oregon coast is simply stunning?  Its just beautiful with a far more desolate (in a good way) and raw feel than the Californian equivalent.  I think also the lack of people added to that wilderness edge - despite it being a holiday weekend (even though it was still only 4.30pm!), there was hardly anyone about.  You can see from the pictures that the beach wasn't crammed full of people which was just lovely.  One of the highlights of this particular stretch of coast is Haystack Rock - a big pointy rock that's very impressive.

Almost as impressive was the absolute abundance of Tsunami warning signs that were absolutely everywhere!  And we weren't just talking "oh by the way, you're in a tsunami zone" - the rather off-hand notices you see posted in San Francisco.  Oh no.  These had colors, and maps, and zones, and marked routes and EVERYTHING.  They were posted on the beach.  They were posted in public restrooms.  They also occupied a large portion of the "Welcome to the Wayside Inn" brochure that graced our room.  It was enough to make you feel, if not nervous, then more acutely aware of the fact you are in an earthquake zone than you feel back in SF.

So we wandered along the beach for a bit, enjoying the beautiful views and the sensation of numbness in my toes as I padded in bare feet across the wet sand.   Lori also found a friend - a very cute dog who seemed to be just hanging out, enjoying the beach too.  She had a collar on and was in great condition, so obviously had a home but for a few minutes, it did seem as if we'd picked up more on the beach than just shells - until fortunately she got bored and wandered off.

It was rather chilly, despite the sunshine (at least it had stopped raining from earlier in the day), so after about a half hour or so, it was time to head back to the Inn and get ready to go out for dinner.  Our destination - the Warren House Pub, which claimed "An English Ambience" and a very English-style relaxed attitude towards closing time (lock-in!).  A prime setting for what was to be the Grudge Match of the Century......

Yes, it was time for the Return of .........Wildlife Bingo......

Who won?  STAY TUNED to find out.....

Pretty row of houses in Cannon Beach - for some reason,
reminded me of the UK

In Oregon, Tuesday is the New Sunday

But I don't want an oven - i just want a pizza!

Hanging ten on the balcony.  Hardcore relaxing and chillin'
 (just out of shot: the hundreds of birds congregating hoping
for some more garlic bread action)

Puppy love