Epic Adventure 2013 Day 7 - Corvallis, Newport and Portland

Colleen and me at the beach in Newport, Oregon on a foggy day! I love it! still good friends after all these years!

We slept in the next day which was perfect because I'd done all the marathon driving the day before...and Colleen said she'd drive us to Newport because I really wanted to go. I can't go on an epic adventure without hitting Newport, Oregon where my journey as a single Mom begin and where many memories of my own mother still reside! I had hoped to meet up with my mother's friends, but it just didn't work out on this trip...so I've decided to make a return trip next February (when I have vacation again) because, well I must...there's something special about Newport, Oregon...Jean and the dog came along for the adventure, which was really awesome. The dog absolutely loved the beach and was all for running and jumping into the water to get his ball... and it was good to visit with Jean whom I hadn't seen in so many years. 

the fog is so beautiful and mysterious!

We walked around Nye Beach which has changed DRASTICALLY since I remembered it -- it's much more yuppified now. still with lots of charm though...even walked into the Sylvia Beach Hotel which is too touristy for my taste...remembering how my mom's and her friend Michael Marsh talked about how that hotel used to be called the Gillmore and had quite the sorted history from the 1800s...an old hotel overlooking the ocean... I tried to imagine it like that..now the rooms are set up like various authors which is really cool...but it's become quite popular. and new buildings line Nye Beach with a Starbucks of course...which is kind of a stark reminder of change if you ask me.

We had lunch at a lovely Irish Pub restaurant that's only been in existence for five years...but I still dug it. had a corned beef sandwich. Where else can you get better corned beef? We were able to sit outdoors with the doggie...and then the sun came out...

HERE COMES THE SUN, DA DA DA, HERE COMES THE SUN!
Nye Beach, ohhh how I remember this place so well! the turnaround my mother always stopped at...where I took the kids to the beach when we first returned from Germany back in 1986...

1986 - Nye Beach - Jeremy, Melissa & Stevie. :)

me and Jean

me and Colleen

We had to go back down on the beach...it was so beautiful and sunny! We tried to get to the Yaquina Head Lighthouse but it costs money just to drive into the parking lot now. My mother's ashes were scattered a mile off that lighthouse back in January 1997... if we only had more time I might have been able to get into that lighthouse. I'd been there once before when Megan was young. We even climbed the spiral staircase to the top and got buttons that said, "I climbed to the top of Yaquina Head Lighthouse!" and there are tide pools down there...not the same as that rough, rustic road me and the kids traveled on with my Mom's friend in an old pickup truck with cliffs on either side, the truck banging down the road on a thrilling journey to the lighthouse back in 1986. it's all paved now and fancy and now you have to pay money to get in? What the heck!?

So we headed back to Corvallis on Highway 20...and I was thrilled that we got to stop at "Imagine Coffee" in Philomath on the way. I had spotted that coffee shop last year on my adventure and loved the name. Come to find out Colleen knew the place well and had even donated her old piano to them! I'd never been inside the vast coffee shop before.

One thing I love about Oregon are the coffee shops. of course we have them here in California -- many of them and I've found some lovely local ones in neighbors of San Francisco...but there's something about the Oregon coffee shops -- they are even more of a way of life in Oregon and Washington I think than here...I don't know how to explain it.

Imagine -- COFFEE!

friendly!!!

We hung out and Colleen got a free coffee for her birthday and tried to play her old piano but said it was way out of tune...! we sat outside and enjoyed the late afternoon sunshine and sipped on coffee before heading back to Colleen's place...

I repacked my car to prepare for my journey further north -- to Portland, Oregon where I'd visit my nieces Merehuka, Te Rui Hui and for the first time my great nephew who just turned a year old.

But before I left, of course Colleen and I played a couple of songs!!! 

I set up my GPS -- not realizing it was over 90 miles to Portland! piece of cake after driving 530 miles in one day!