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Oregon, awwwww cool weather!

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  • Oregon, awwwww cool weather!

    Hi everyone.

    We are in Newport Oregon at Schooner Landing, unit 410, for the week. We made this reservation through a SFX exchange.

    We flew from Houston to Portland on Friday, 4 hour flight. Before leaving home, I watched a recorded show of Diners, Drive-in & Dives from the Food Network (while waiting on my wife and SIL to get ready to leave) and there was a diner in downtown Portland being featured: Blueplate.

    So when driving to the airport, I informed my wife and SIL that I knew where we were going to eat lunch.

    The flight to Portland was completely full but uneventful. Probably had the worse movie I have ever started to watch, Dog Hotel or Hotel for Dogs. Just awful.

    We arrive in Portland and the weather is beautiful. The rental car area in is another building across the street from the baggage claim. You walk in and experience and "Ellis Island" ambience. After pushing through the kids and suitcases to the Avis counter, I got to wait for a little while until my turn. Finally, I get there and the young man is selling an upgrade to me. Now I have a $21 day mid-size. He wants me to upgrade to a Lincoln Towncar for a reduced daily rate from $100 to $75. I passed. Finally, he tells me that they are out of my size cars, would I upgrade for $10 a day more? Yep.

    So we go to the pick up area. I choose the Lincoln, we load all our stuff, go to the security gate. I chose the wrong Lincoln. So we go back, unload, get the right Lincoln, load up and go back to security. He lets us leave with the right car. Of course my wife and SIL said something to me.

    Now I have a GPS I brought from home. So we find a place to park to try to find my Blueplate restaurant. Too new, not in the directory. However, I did remember the name and address of the restaurant and had seen where it was in relation to the airport and downtown. So we start to drive, but my GPS wants me to go the opposite way because it's faster, shorter drive to Schooner Landing or something. Being a maverick, I defy the British lady on the GPS and turn left instead of right. Finally she quits telling me to turnaround about 10 minutes later.

    I head south on I-5 and know I need to get across the river to downtown. I missed the first bridge and prayed for a 2nd one. My prayer was answered. I exit and lo and behold, the bridge is Washington street and Blueplate is only 2 blocks into downtown. We found lunch!

    We quickly find a parking garage. (7 floors up) and go to Blueplate. Big line. We wait for about 45 minutes until we get seated. By this time, DW and SIL are constantly telling me how hungary they are. But, the wait was worth it. The food was great. I had some sliders and they each had a fancy grilled chees and tomato soup (that was like a loose marinara sauce).

    After lunch we headed south. We decided to go west at Salem on Hwy 22 to 18 and then down the Pacific Coast Highway. It's a great scenic route that takes you over the mountains. However, you definitely won't set any speed records. Our 120 mile trip took about 3.5 hours.

    Schooner Landing had not moved from where my GPS indicated it would be. Check in was quick and friendly. We have an ocean view with a 2nd story unit, #410. The stairs down to the beach have been closed due to instability. I guess they didn't want to lose any visitors.

    The biggest surprise to us so far is that the sun doesn't set until 9:30 to 10 pm and it starts to rise around 5:30 am. No wonder people on the West coast are so laid back, there's always daylight to get something done.

    Our first meal was at a pizza place called Abby's Famous Pizza. We thought it was very good.

    We were really exhausted at days end.
    Mike H
    Wyndham Fairshare Plus Owners, Be cool and join the Wyndham/FairfieldHOA forum!

  • #2
    Day 2

    Day 2

    Schooner Landing has a $3 pancake sausage breakfast on Saturday mornings. Since we were up early, we decided to climb down to the beach through the next door property, vacant land. We get to one point and DW looks down this drop of about 50 or 60 feet and says to me, can you slide down this?

    Now the side of the slope was like at 75 degrees with rocks at the bottom. I looked at her like she was crazy. Fortunately, I persuaded her that it was not in her best living interest to try to go down at this spot as certain death was to follow her descent. Some man on the beach heard our exchange and fortunately pointed a direction to a safe path down.

    We ended up taking the path. The beach was now deserted and the tide was out. Waves were crashing and the fog was starting to thin out. It was just beautiful. We messed around on the beach for probably an hour before heading back. However, I did take the opportunity to point out to my DW the sheer walls she wanted to come down. Unbelievably, she insisted she could have made it down the wall just fine.

    We made it to the pancake breakfast starving. This was probably some of the best pancakes I have ever had, well worth the $3. We sat next to a couple, Bob and Darlyne, who have been in the travel agency business for a very long time, they book custom river cruises in Europe. I probably spent an hour visiting with them. They were a great couple who owned at Schooner Landing.

    There is a farmers market on Saturdays at the city hall. So we stopped by. It took about 15 minutes to visit it. Although small, we did purchase some cookies and rock jewelry.

    After our big shopping binge, we headed down to Waldport for my DW and SIL to find The Kayak Shack. They want to kayak some creeks and bays. Waldport is about 15 miles south of Newport. The kayak place is on an interior cove or bay. They made reservations for Tuesday.

    On the way back to Newport we stopped at some roadside seaford joint. They had all kinds of seafort available. The prices were somewhat high IMO. However, the food was good. The funniest thing to me was they had a 1/2 lb shrimp and chips. When I asked about how large the shrimp were, the girl pointed to these pre-cooked shrimp that were about a 1/2 inch long. Apparently, my definition of a shrimp is called a prawn in Oregon. Anyway, when they say shrimp here, they mean shrimp (in size). If you want to taste the thing, you need to buy a prawn.

    After lunch we went to a Seafest at the Hatfield Science Center on the south end of Newport. It is a very good science museum with lots of hands on exhibits. Because of the Seafest, they had a lot of tents and demonstrations going on. The best one I liked was a Coast Guard helicopter demonstrating a rescue. It hovered over the water while they sent a guy down to the water and then brought the rescuer and rescuee back up to the helicopter. They also had a couple of ships to go on and visit.

    We ended up back at Schooner Landing by late afternoon, ready to relax.
    Mike H
    Wyndham Fairshare Plus Owners, Be cool and join the Wyndham/FairfieldHOA forum!

    Comment


    • #3
      The GPS part of your story is funny; I have a love/hate relationship with ours. Sometimes a good old-fashion map is best.

      The Coast Guard rescue demo sounds great, glad you're having a good trip. The Oregon coast is another place on my list!

      Keep the travel tales flowing.....

      Comment


      • #4
        Always enjoy your trip reports Mike AND your pictures..you will provide pictures, won't you?

        Oregon Coast on my wish list as well. Lot's of WM up there I need to visit....

        Looking forward to the next installment.

        Comment


        • #5
          Nice report. Please, post your pictures too. If you have a chance, visit the dunes and one of the 17 lakes in Florence. These dunes are the largest oceanfront dunes in the world and it's only about an hour's drive away from where you are.

          There are several waterfall hikes too but I can't remember the falls by name as it is so long ago that I hiked to them. We love that area if the weather is nice.

          Enjoy your trip!

          Comment


          • #6
            Mike,

            Enjoy your trip, and please post some pics! I've never been to the Oregon Coast.
            Angela

            If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

            BTW, I'm still keeping track of how many times you annoy me.

            Comment


            • #7
              Mike, always wanted to go there. How hard was it to get back up the path from the beach? Are there any stairs? YOu are like me, I need to get my pics up somewhere. Hugs, Shaggy

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