3RP Musings: The Pacific Coast Highway...

...and Oregon...and stuff.

OK, so yesterday we were leaving Seattle (Sheryl Crow's Leaving Las Vegas has been going through my head for like a week. Pray for me...)...and now today, we've finally left. We drove part of the night down I 5, through Portland until we reached Eugene Oregon. Most of this through pea-soup fog. We stopped for the night at a Motel 6 (don't laugh, they're cheap and clean...) just outside of Eugene. Get this: that night, trying to find what the weather's gonna do to us the next day, come to find out that nobody knows. I mean, these people get The Weather Channel (I mean, look at that name. Aren't they supposed to KNOW?), but there is no actual weather. Right, what I mean is that all you get is an extremely general forcast for the entire west coast up there. Completely not helpful. At all.

So anyways, next morning we get up and it's still foggy. You can't see your hand in front of your face. So we get in our gas guzzler anyway, and poke off toward Grant's Pass. This is where we'll pick up I 199 toward the coast of California. The fog stays with us for much of the way, up mountains, down mountains and so on. Finally, a bit before Grant's Pass the fog lifts, and the drive actually gets interesting.

Twisty turn-ey two lane road through the mountains, we see pine trees, smell the fresh air, and darn. Life is good.

Finally in early afternoon, we have a sighting: "Pacific HO!!"

I'm so excited I can hardly stand it.

So, we're blasting along these twisty turneys and on occasion we come accross little establishments. Out in the middle of nowhere:

It was time for a late lunch, and wouldn't know know it - closed on Tuesdays during the off season. Argh.

But, behind the lodge, there was something that almost made up for it. Georgeous clear, cold creek:

POW. Really brings out the conservationist in me.

Karen by the creek:

Me, looking serious:

It's just an act. I'm not really that tough. :-)

A little path beyond this, down along the creek, and some interesting trees...their bark was like velvet. Very cool:

Not too much further down the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) and we get to see some of our old friends up close and personal this time. Maybe you remember that Uncle Bill showed us some wild elk while we were visiting them in Thorp, WA? Where we were like half a mile a way and they looked like little elk dots even with my long lens?

Well these guys were hanging out just off the PCH...there was a sign just before the turnoff saying something like "Elk Viewing Area". No fence, no long distance...just...elk. Hee.