Day one… Oregon City to Crescent City.

Holy cow… how did it take 10 hours to drive 350 miles?? Must have been that stop in Lincoln City for breakfast. Or maybe it was the visit to the Sea Lion Caves. I hadn’t been there in 34 years. It’s a very cool place. Smelly, but cool. And there were HUNDREDS of sea lions. And of course there was that stop in Coos Bay for lunch. We arrived in Crescent City just in time to hit the cinema and see the latest Harry Potter movie. It was good. Not one of my favorites, but as I recall the Half Blood Prince wasn’t my favorite book, either.

The Scenery: Driving the Oregon Coast from Lincoln City south is absolutely beautiful. There’s everything from evergreen forests to rolling hills, and ocean vistas to fields of blue berries and Easter lilies.

The Hotel: Nothing to report here. It’s a run of the mill motel similar to a Motel 6. It’s called the Bay View, and yes, it has a view of the bay! Somewhat obstructed, but a view none the less. And WIFI… gotta have WIFI. Oh, and one of my favorite movies was on TV when we got back from the cinema – My Cousin Vinnie. (Don’t laugh!). Oh, I forgot to mention the fog horn. Or lighthouse horn, or whatever it is. About every 10 seconds we hear this distant, haunting booooop.

The Wine: OK, so we’re not really in the heart of wine country yet, but that didn’t stop us from sampling one of Safeway’s finest. It was a lovely merlot from Sonoma County – a 2005 Rodney Strong. Even drinking it out of the plastic motel glasses I could tell it was something worth writing about – so I am.

Tomorrow, we’re off to Healdsburg – via Mendocino! Hopefully it won’t take us 10 hours to get there.