1200 Miles Later

This weekend Will and I finally got our mini-road trip which we fought so hard for. I nearly got fired for getting work off, but in the end am on good terms with the Kabul family and so we headed out on Saturday morning for out short trip covering big ground. I had never been on the 101, and hadn't been to the Oregon coast sense I was about 12 with my mom and sister. While most of the towns are nothing to get too excited about, a sneeze and you've already driven through it, a few of the beach towns are actually quite charming. We stopped at Cannon Beach on the way down and played in the sand, and Will took Moe into the surf to test the waters. Needless to say Moe learned about undertow and Will couldn't feel his toes afterwards. We camped that night at a place a few minutes walk form the beach, where we attempted a romantic fire but failed miserably due to wind and wet fire wood, but succeeded a few nights later when we wised up and bought a duraflame. Still quite a challenge I might note though, the wind on the coast gets pretty brutal after the sun sets and we had to find a log to hide behind. We actually ended up cheating in the camping department and slept in a hotel on the second night, mostly due to poor planning and much to much driving, but I must say I did appreciate the shower.

The third and final night though we spent in Long Beach on the Washington coast, and it was really picturesque. We had the beach to ourselves and Moe could run around without a leash and play in the surf, the sun was out, the weather was warm, and we could drive right onto the beach and down to the water. I had my Polaroid camera which I was ridiculously excited about and was able to snap away all afternoon.

That night we did however realize the sad reality of camping in touristy places. If you want to camp legitimately you have to do it at an RV Park, where everyone surrounding you it watching HBO and sleeping on a sleep-number bed. We realized the easiest way to forget about the fact that you can't simply pitch a tent on the beach without getting harassed was to spend the entire evening on the beach with a bottle of wine, and trek back at night to simply sleep the RV Park away.

All in all though we had a great time and I look forward to going to the coast more often, next time hopefully with my newly restored bus...