Tuesday, May 9-Friday, May 12

After leaving Redwood, we headed for Mt. Ranier in Northwest Washington.  We drove up Highway 1 through Oregon and then turned east to drive through Portland. The coast of Oregon is just as beautiful as we had heard.

We spent the night in Florence at this seaside motel.  Every room has a view!

It was too cold and windy to sit out, but we enjoyed walking on the beach.  We had a lovely dinner at a local restaurant.  (Maple Street Grill) We ate at the bar, and the bartender slipped me a couple of beautiful little cocktails in addition to the wine we were drinking.  I think I reminded him of his mother or something.  I said, “what’s this?” and he just grinned and said, “it’s for you.”  They were good! My favorite one was called “The Odd Pair.”  It had triple sec, pear vodka, rhubarb shrub, lime juice, and club soda.  No, I didn’t memorize the recipe, Andy wrote it down.

The next day, (Wednesday) we stopped at the famous Sea Lion Cave.  Someone recommended we go to this place, which looked like some kind of tourist trap, but turned out to be really cool.

It’s been a family owned operation since 1932.  The large sea lion colony stays in the cave during the winter, and in the spring they come out to the rocky ledges to mate and birth their young.

There weren’t too many sea lions in the cave; most were outside.

We stood on the viewing deck for a long time with the binoculars, watching these guys sunning and swimming in the beautiful water.

We saw two momma gray whales with their babies; this is the time of year they migrate north to the Bering Sea.  Not a great picture, I know, but we just wanted to show proof that we actually saw them!

I would like to come back to Oregon when it’s a little warmer!  So beautiful…

We didn’t stop in Portland, although it looks liked an interesting city.  We have deliberately avoided making this a city trip; that’s for another time.  It felt a little strange to be driving east.  I started to realize that this trip really is going to end!  We still have a ways to go, though.

The next night found us in Woodland, Washington.  It was rainy and cool there.  We stayed at the Lewis River Inn and ate in a local pub called the Fat Moose.  It reminded us of our neighborhood pub, Rollie’s.  I liked this guy’s shirt.  Mikey would have liked it, too.