Wednesday – Seattle to Bandon, OR
Hello!
Well, talk about a l-o-n-g
day…not sure how far I’m going to get, as I am in definite danger of falling
asleep as I type!
Up about 10 minutes to 4, as we wanted to get Mom to the
airport about 5-ish (we’re very close!).
There is something about me setting an alarm clock to keep me awake most
of the night. I don’t know if it is
thinking that I’ll sleep through the alarm, or what, but I ALWAYS wake up BEFORE the
alarm goes off!! And this time it was no
different. So…up and collected the Mom
and out of the hotel about 4:45 a.m. We
had worried that SeaTac wouldn’t even be open at this time, but absolutely NO worries! Not sure where all those people were heading,
but wow! Lots of activity at SeaTac very early in the morning! We had checked Mom in on-line, but had not
been able to print her boarding pass.
So, to the kiosk in front of Delta, printed the pass and then handed in
her checked bag. The line to clear
security was fairly long, even at that early hour, but boy, were we impressed
by the folks who were handling things!
They had all their lanes up and personed and we made great time getting
Mom to the front of the line! Had to
leave her there; next time we’re going to think about getting a pass to enable
us to get her to the gate; at 93, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem! Then, with Mom going through security, we
headed back to the hotel. Had a very
quick breakfast, then loaded up the car and headed out. We were out by 6 a.m., as we were both a bit
concerned about the traffic in and around Seattle!
Absolutely no problem at all with traffic, and we zipped
through the remainder of Washington fairly quickly. However, leaving Seattle at 6 put us right in
rush hour traffic for Portland, about two hours away! It was bad but not impossible to get
through. Would HATE to have to do that
every morning!
Headed straight downstate toward Salem, where there was a
museum exhibition we really wanted to see at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art, part
of Willamette University. Arrived just
on the dot of 10 a.m. for their opening, and basically had the exhibit – Breath of Heaven, Breath of Earth, Ancient
Near Eastern Art from American Collections -- to ourselves!! It was a truly love exhibition – although they
wouldn’t allow photography – but fortunately for us, they hadn’t told us that
initially, and R got some wonderful photographs! We are now in the process of collecting names
of other museums holding Near Eastern Art that we’re going to have to visit,
just like our Museum Tour earlier this year!
Browsed the collection for an hour, made an expensive stop
at the gift shop (are there really more books on Near Eastern art and artifacts
that we don’t have? Unbelievable!!) and then got back on the road. As an aside, there was a lovely Nordstrom’s
in Salem, and it looked like a truly lovely small city! Besides being home to Willamette University, it
is also the state capital of Oregon; very, very impressive!
From Salem, we took the freeway to Albany, which also looks
to be a lovely Oregon town, and headed west, toward the coast. We went through and stopped at Corvallis
(home of Oregon State) at Panera for lunch.
Robert had their macaroni and cheese, and I had their Caesar salad –
both were excellent! From there, we
headed toward the coast, winding south and hitting coast route 101 at Waldport.
Truly lovely scenery, heading south. Neither of us had had any experience of
Oregon before, other than visiting Portland by plane for a meeting some years
ago. The long, sandy beaches were
absolutely stunning. Robert was a bit
surprised that there was so much development along the coast – small towns,
individual houses, lots of hiking trails and camping spots. Traffic wasn’t really heavy, but it was
fairly constant; moved along quickly. We
stopped occasionally to take photos – and passed through some very interesting
country!
Besides the long, sandy beaches, we hit an area that was absolutely
full of sand dunes – and BIG ones, at that!
Also areas where the road went way up, next to a rocky coast line,
rather reminiscent of Big Sur. There
were areas where there was ocean on one side, and lake on the other; lots of
bogs and marshes; Coos Bay, which remains a huge logging and timber town.
Finally, about 5, we reached our spot for the night, Bandon
OR. Our hotel, Bandon Inn, is really
quite lovely! We are in room 305, which
is on the third floor, overlooking the Old Town of Bandon, complete with
wonderful easy chair and balcony! The
hotel didn’t have a cart for luggage, but it wasn’t a problem, as we were able
to park at the upper level of the building, so it was a straight shot down the
hallway to our room; very convenient, and not a problem at all!
Got everything into the room, and decided to head out for
dinner immediately…I was hungry (cranky) [not so! – Robert] and needed to be fed!
Took the path next to the hotel down into town (meaning we walked UP on
the way back…) and along main street.
Most of the shops were already shuttered, but some were open and had
some lovely things! Went to the
Wheelhouse restaurant for dinner (recommendation from the gal at the desk) and
had a lovely meal!
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Fabulous bread to start…always a good thing, washed down
with some wonderful Firestone Sauvignon Blanc.
We both had clam chowder to start; it was excellent! Then, Robert had halibut with roasted red
potatoes and vegetables. I had their
seared spicy scallops with veggies and potatoes. The scallops (five of them) were in a really
excellent sweet sauce, which had quite a bit of red pepper – a great
combination! The veggies were perfectly
cooked – quite firm, and there was a fair amount of garlic in the
potatoes! We were both VERY happy! To finish, we both had pieces of their
raspberry cheesecake – YUM! Sauntered
back to the hotel and are now in for the night…and I’m getting ready to crash
momentarily, so hope I get this posted before them! (R currently asleep in the chair!)
Lots of love,
m
xxx
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