What a fabulous Memorial Day Weekend! Mom & Dad made the drive over from Nampa, ID (424 miles) to spend the weekend with us and we rambled all around the great Oregon Coast. (To read all the details…
On Saturday, we drove out Highway 30 to visit our Oregon family. First we stopped at Kenny’s place to see Kenny & Diesta and the girls, then over the Cornelius Pass to hit Hwy 30 on our way to Warren, OR, to visit Kenny’s mom, Asha and her husband Peter at their gorgeous mountain hideaway we like to call “The Ponderasha” (28 miles). We spent an hour there shooting the breeze and enjoying the idyllic surroundings.
Then it was off to HIghway 30 again and up to Astoria, OR, (74 miles) to visit our friend Karri and watch her perform her radio show from 10PM-Midnight on KMUN Community Radio. We had a great seafood dinner beforehand, and then I sat in with Karri while Mom and my wife watched and Dad took a nap. Afterwards, I drove us back home down Highway 26 (84 miles).
For Sunday, we took things relatively easy by staying in town. Dad loves to look at critters, so we had to go to the Oregon Zoo here in Portland (11 miles round-trip). Dad and I had already gone once before (back in 2003 when he came to take care of me following my foot surgery), but now it was Mom’s turn. There were plenty of critters there to see and the zoo has added a new “Great Northwest” feature that wasn’t there last time I’d gone. It was pretty cool to see two bald eagles up close.
Then we went back to the apartment and watched “National Treasure” and “Alone In the Dark” on DVD. The former movie is your typical Bruckheimer action flick that sets up the plot and characters (Nicolas Cage as Nicolas Cage) in five minutes so you can get on to exploding things. Not a bad show as long as you take those considerations into effect. The latter movie stars Christian Slater and Tara Reid, which should be enough to tell you how bad it is, but actually doesn’t do justice to how awful this movie was. Dad loved it, because he has a sick love of bad scary movies. (He says it’s real close to being the worst scary movie ever, a title held by “Too Scared To Scream”, and that Tara Reid is my generation’s Karen Black.)
Monday was our big driving day. I told Dad of the Oregon Wildlife Safari, which is this outdoor wildlife preserve that takes in and cares for wounded or discarded animals from zoos and circuses and the wild. It’s one of those exhibits that you drive your car through as you take photos of the critters. Once he heard there were critters involved, there was no talking him out of it, even though the safari is three hours south on Interstate 5 in Winston, OR (183 miles). It’s an expensive show ($17.50 per adult), but well worth the drive and the money. The animals were just gorgeous and it was so nice to see them out and roaming in a semi-natural habitat, not behind bars at a zoo. They have exhibits from Africa, Asia, and South America. Lions, tigers, cheetahs, bears, giraffes, elephants, hippos, rhinos, gazelles, monkeys, cranes, flamingos, and so much more. I highly recommend the trip.
From Winston we headed west so Mom could see the ocean, her only request of the whole trip. That took us down Oregon Hwy 42 to Coos Bay out on the coast (77 miles). We had a great seafood dinner (Mom & Dad insist on seafod when so close to the ocean… fish ain’t so good in landlocked Idaho) there at a little place called “Willet’s Restaurant”, which is right across the street from The Mill Indian Casino. Then it was north on Hwy 101 (Pacific Coast Highway) to enjoy the drive and the beautiful overlooks of the ocean from Coos Bay to Lincoln City (125 miles, and strangely enough, another coast town with an Indian casino).
Finally, from Lincoln City we took the Oregon Hwy 18 to McMinnville (50 miles), then Highway 99W (34 miles) to take us back home. This morning, Mom & Dad made the trip back to Idaho (424 miles).
I’ll have photos from the various trips posted in the Family Photo Gallery once Mom & Dad can upload them. And for those of you keeping score at home, Mom & Dad logged 1,514 miles on the trip, which is the equivalent of driving from the real White House to the Western White House (Washington DC to Crawford TX = 1,440 miles) or roughly the entire Pacific Coast Highway from the northwest tip of Washington down to the southwestern tip of California, with a little left over for a jaunt into Tijuana and beyond. We Belvilles are the masters of the road trip (motto: one pee break per state!… except E-W trips across Texas or Montana and N-S trips across California)
