Vacation - Oregon Coast - Day One

Not many pictures to share for day one, but it was an eventful and LONG start to our vacation this year. I worked Mon night/Tues Morn on the graveyard shift. Our plan was to leave immediately after I got off work, heading for Oregon ASAP. I'd forgotten that Tues mornings were truck day at work though, so after I got off I needed to shower, and we decided to take the dogs for a quick walk as well. We ended up gettinbg out of town around 9:45, which wasn't too bad, and headed towards Boise on I-15, munching on a Taco Time breakfast burro. We hoped to get to Baker City for lunch, but we planned a nap in there too, knowing that with me as the driver, someone who had been up for work since 9pm the previous day, we'd need to rest eventually. Turns out it was about an hour later, before we'd even reached Twin Falls, ID. We parked at a truck stop and I caught about 20 minutes of sleep and we took off again.

Slightly energized, we blew through the state of Idaho, crossing the Oregon border without noticing we were there until we passed into the Pacific time zone. We reached Baker City, OR around 3pm, where we ate at the Prospector's Candy Co. one of our favorite restaurants. Its a little place, only around 4 tables and none really big enough for four people, but the food is stellar. All of it is pre-made, and heated after you order, so the food arrives lightning fast, and it it stellar. The owners/cooks/waitress is friendly, and they rotate their menu. They never have more than three or four options available, but each time there's been something we can't resist. This time we had an artichoke and sun-dried tomato quiche with a caesar salad. Splendid. Our plan for this trip was to share meals as much as we can, and because we shared here, we felt fully justified in induging in a mocha chocolate cheesecake as well. Yum.

The Prospector's Chocolate Co.
Great Food and Desserts, so-so chocolate

Baker City is a cool little town and we always plan to visit it more thoroughly, but we had a long way to drive still, so we adjusted some curtains we were planning to make for Strontium, and took off again.

A Couple of eccentric vehicles in Baker City, along with our ride/motel for the night, Strontium.

After driving essentially nonstop, we got to Hood River pretty late, just before dark. We jumped into Wal-Mart to buy Linz some sandals for the beach, and ate at Pizzicato's Gourmet Pizza for dinner. We'd eaten here before too, and they have really unique pizzas and pretty cool employees. Tuesday we ate a Mixed Wild Mushroom pizza with feta, garlic butter sauce, sundried tomatoes and an assortment of mushrooms, we counted around 6 kinds. It was excellent. Their pizzas are alittle pricey, we paid around $13 for a 12" 'za, but it was good, fresh and fast, and it filled us up with a couple of slices to spare.

That night, we'd planned to sleep behind the Safeway, where we'd parked before, about a year ago. Unfortunately, when we got there, they'd installed a new floodlight, and there were two young women behind the store doing something that looked like a mixture of stretching, piggy back rides and something that would likely get them arrested, so we debated for a bit, tried to figure out what they were doing and gave up, and drove off. We'd planned to head across the bridge to Washington, where we knew there's be plenty of places to turn off and park eventually, but I got a bit lost in the dark and ended up somewhere else entirely, down a dark industrial road. We decided that would be as good as place as any, inflated our bed and crashed.

Road Stats - 612 miles, around 24mpg. Not too bad!