Back in the Groove

Tuesday was my last day in Portland, well, at least until a month or so from now. I left town this evening and headed for the coast before turning north and working my way into Washington. By the time I got all my stuff packed up and ready to go I didn't get out of town until about 7:00. It worked out about perfect though as I headed west on Hwy. 26 and just as I hit Hwy. 101 and pulled into the town of Seaside I got my first look at the Pacific Ocean just a little before sundown. I took a little stroll along the beach and admired the view for a while before hopping back into the car and hitting the grocery store for some supplies. I continued heading north until I got to the very tippy top corner of Oregon. There is a nice place with an overlook of the ocean and that's where I spent the night. There was still plenty of color in the sky and I could watch the silhouettes of herons wading in the shallows and pelicans dive bombing for fish. A little later when it was pretty dark I was sitting with my window open and heard an odd noise outside. Looking up I could see the silhouette of what I assume was a raccoon standing on it's back legs about 15 feet away checking me out. It must of decided I wasn't too big of a threat so I continued on down the shoreline and I could see two small silhouettes tagging along behind their mother.

This morning I got up and just sat in my car for a while watching all the goings on above the water before continuing my way north. I was pretty hungry so I found a rest stop along the coast to stop and cook some breakfast. Not too far out of Portland I'd stopped at a road side stand to pick up some fresh Oregon strawberries which I found went excellent with my dark chocolate. I still had about half of them left and I decided to have strawberries and pancakes....MMMMMM!!! It's going to be tough to just have plain old pancakes from now on!

I made a few more stops along the coast and got a nice view of the coast along with a snake hiding in the bushes waiting for some insects to come along and a little farther down the trail a giant slug. I heard they grew'em big out here but I was still impressed; I'm used to slugs only about an inch long! This one was just calmly munching away on a leaf and paid me no mind.

As with all trips there will be ups and downs, but happily I'm on an 'up' right now. It felt great to leave Portland and to be on the road again; heading to a new destination and not knowing what it will bring. All I can say right now is, bring it on!