another break

From Tokeland to Newport, Oregon is a gorgeous ride along the coast.

We spent some time at Lincoln Beach in Lincoln City, Oregon, which must be one of the biggest continuous beaches on the West Coast. I don't know any information other than my own eyes, both on this visit and one 37 years ago when I traveled cross country with my friend, Bill, to support this ... but I feel pretty sure it must be. It goes on and on and on.

There were large birds and at least one large sea going animal on the little tidal island across from us. (Can any of you identify them? How about you, Grace? Is the picture good enough, once you click on it, to tell me what other animals and birds are on that island shore? To readers who aren't Grace: Grace is our neighbor in Vermont and a very bright young lady. If I haven't lost track, she's a few months from turning four years old. She knows way more birds and bird songs than I do. She also carefully explained to her mom that the bighorn sheep that we took pictures of earlier in the trip can only be seen in the wild.)

We also stopped at a cheese making plant that says it produces the best on the West Coast. It's not bad, but it's not Cabot.

We tried to stay at the Sylvia Beach, which came with a great review from someone we met in Tokeland. It's an old hotel with all its rooms named after authors. Sylvia Beach was the owner of perhaps the most famous bookstore ever, Shakespeare & Co., in Paris.

There's no way to properly summarize its ongoing history on these pages, but if anyone of you has a special interest in writers and authors from one of the great ages of English writing, around 1925 to 1945, Google her or Shakespeare & Co. and be prepared to be awed. Anyway, there were no rooms available, except a dorm type situation, which is perfectly fitting with Shakespeare & Co. philosophy ... but not quite fitting with our trip's.

We ended up at the Shiloh, overlooking the Pacific. We stayed an extra here also, getting some things done: washing the car, sending our final big bin of extra clothes home to make room to easily lower the top of the convertible whenever we want to, adjusting the pressure of the car tires, resting a little more, and discussing whether we might head inland to Crater Lake - which we finally decided not to do ... we're going to continue down the coast and hopefully visit a redwood forest tomorrow afternoon in northern California.

We've been getting a little better coffee with half-and-half on the coast and had some interesting and tasty meals. Be warned, however, that whatever they call their breakfast potatoes out here, they come out as hash browns. No home fries. Not yet anyway.

Long ago I swam in big waves in the Pacific. I thought I was going to do that today, but the waves seems more powerful and there is a rip current out there and I'm just not who I was, so I got about waist deep, got hit by a couple of decent waves and called it a day.

I'll let pictures and videos tell the rest of the story.