I spent some time looking up restaurants with good reviews in the area and came up with one called Nye Beach Café in Newport, which was south of where we were. We could have taken one of the vehicles but decided on two just to have enough room for everyone. I got the address and plugged it into the Nuvi while I had Trish follow me to the café.
We got onto Hwy 101 and headed south. I made sure not to get too far ahead of Trish so she knew where we were going. I have the tendency to speed a little bit. We drove past the actual "town" of Depoe Bay and noticed that is where the whale was. I remember Jessie made a big deal about stopping there and getting a picture with the whale. We would have to do that one the way back to the condo.
As I followed the directions from Nuvi I started to see the various places I've been to over the years. It's been at least six years since I've been down this way as well. We got off Hwy 101 and found the side street the café was located on. There were a few spots to park at along the street so we took full advantage of that. The café looked busy but we managed to find a spot for the five of us to sit.
Our waitress came over and we got our drinks. Everyone ordered coffees and waters and I got a Pepsi. When she came back around for us to order food, everyone ordered breakfast except David and I, we got sandwiches. I ordered the turkey and cheddar on homemade bread. It was delicious. We talked about where we wanted to go afterwards and we all agreed to go see the Devil's Punch Bowl near Otter Rock.
We paid for our food and decided that everyone needed to fill up on gas. I tried to find the cheapest one and it was a few blocks away. Trish went to another one up the road. I really hate getting gas in Oregon because you can't just do it yourself. You have to wait for the person to come out, ask you questions and pump the gas. They hand you the receipt and off you go. I could have done it so much quicker than that and I wouldn't have to talk to anyone (must be the introvert in me.)
Off to the Devil's Punch Bowl we go!
I think the last time I came to the punch bowl was with Jessie and her family when we stayed at the nearby Otter Crest...and I think that was 10 years ago to the weekend. And the last time before that was with my family during the summer before my senior year of high school.
We followed Nuvi to the parking lot and found that the lot was pretty full but managed to grab a spot from someone leaving. I read the cache page to see what we needed to answer while we were here. Sea Caves to Devil's Punch Bowl (GC1HW39) was just as cool as I remembered it being. We had to guesstimate what it would look like in another 100 years of erosion, what elevation we were at and some random things about the location including a picture.
We enjoyed watching the waves splash up against the punch bowl. I saw there was also a traditional at this location, Where Is That Little Devil? (GC7BPB7) so I decided to go look for it. It was either muggled or very well hidden because we looked everywhere! Apparently it was there and we just couldn't find it. What made it especially hard were all the muggles walking around wondering what we were doing so we just gave up. We were there for about an hour enjoying the view of the coastline.
They all decided to head back to the condo while Ben and I had to make a stop at the whale. I got a message earlier that weekend from Jessie basically demanding a picture of Ben and I there. I honored her wishes and got the pictures taken. We had to wait until the fountain spout went off so it could be in our pictures with us.
Afterwards on the way back to the Escape, we stopped and did one more earthcache called Sprouting Horns (GC1CWYC) near the viewpoint. Sadly, the tide was going out so we didn't get to see the ocean sprout out of the hole in the rock. We answered the questions and took the necessary pictures for our log. We headed back to the condo to pack our stuff.
Ugh, I really didn't want to leave. I really needed another day of vacation from my, what it seems right now, crazy life. It's been a rough few weeks and I didn't want to think about the new job I didn't want and my grandmother trying to get better from her stroke. I just couldn't imagine life without her and I struggled with that thought every day.
While we were packing up our stuff, we took a short break and sat out on the balcony with Trish to watch the Gray whales that breached every so often. I've never actually watched whales before so this was a pretty cool experience. We could never get a good picture of them though without the "good" camera.
We thanked Trish for inviting us down there to spend time with them for about a day and she thanked us for making the drive down for Amy's birthday party. They were staying for the entire week and leaving next Saturday. We got all of our stuff and crammed it into the Escape and got onto Hwy 101 north at around 3ish.
I decided to get off Hwy 101 and drive northeast towards Hwy 22 and McMinnville because I wanted to show Ben where I lived for a year. Plus, I had to grab a cache along that road once we got into Polk County so I could check that county off the list. Over the last two summers we've done a lot of traveling into places I haven not cached and have gotten quite a few counties.
Along the way I told Ben a few stories about McMinnville and the places I was going to take him by. But first, we were getting really close to the cache, Four Play (GC10P96) for Polk County. The cell phone services was kind of spotty here and I totally forgot to check the hint and write it down. The Nuvi and phone got us to where we needed to park and get out. I followed my phone to the spot we needed to start looking in. The coords bounced around so much it made it hard to look for it. After a few tries, I finally got my phone and the geocaching app to show me a hint. I couldn't believe how close I was. I was within inches of touching the container! I finally pulled it out of its hiding spot, signed the log and put it back. The cache was really icky inside.
I saw all the familiar areas as we got closer and closer to McMinnville. We hit the junction and continued on Hwy 99W. I remembered we haven't had any food since that late morning/early afternoon and we should probably get something. I recalled there was an Albertson's on the west side of Linfield's campus (almost near where I lived) that we could go get drinks and snacks from. It was still there!
Ben used the restroom while I walked around grabbing some stuff that sounded good to snack on. We were still roughly around 2.5-3 hours away from home. I grabbed some bananas, various drinks, popcorn, a lunchable and some Twizzlers nubs. I paid and took the stuff to the Escape and went back inside to pee before we left. Ben was finally done. I told him what I bought and he was cool with the selection.
We got back in the Escape and I took him to Linfield. I showed him the places I used to live, the building I worked in and the fields I spend time working at. I even told him one of my co-workers was World Series Champion, Scott Brosius. He was the head baseball coach while I was there and even got to talk to him and see his rings!
We drove around the campus and onto the main drag. We then took the backside of Linfield and went into the middle of town to do the statue virtual cache, Strolling Mac's Bronze Art (GC7B7JX). There were a lot of statues to go look at but the cache owners only required us to find at least four of them and we found five because I knew where some of them were already. We had to answer a question or two about the statue to prove we were there. We had a great time.
I showed him McMinnville High School and told him there was a movie that was filmed there back in the 80's. I showed him where I usually got gas and the places that I shopped. We took a small detour because I wanted to take him to one of the coolest caches I've found in McMinnville. It was a giant TB hotel in someone's side yard. I was hoping there were TB's inside. Since I've already found Westside Grand TB Hotel (GC2HTG2) I had Ben go through the locks to get inside of it. There were a few TB's and only took a couple. I left a pathtag as Ben was logging his name. I can't believe the last time I was here was in December 2012.
I didn't even want to try to get to I-5 and drive through Portland at this time on a Sunday...guaranteed traffic! I decided to go the way I learned about while I lived here. It would bypass a lot of I-5 especially through Portland. We left town and headed towards the small towns of Yamhill and Forest Grove. From there, we took Hwy 26 to Hillsboro and got off at Cornelius Pass which dumped us out on Hwy 30 just before Scappoose and St. Helens. Then we went through Rainier and got onto the Lewis and Clark bridge into Longview. From Longview we met up with I-5 north and headed home from there.
Next Adventure: Father's Day
No comments:
Post a Comment