Thelma & Louise's Big Adventure

This past week has been a busy one for me. Stepped out of my comfort zone and left the county on a road trip with my pal, Ann Robson. (Judy Scott from high school days) On Sunday morning, May 6th, I left the house at 7:30 a.m. to drive to my cousin's house in Gig Harbor. My plan was to leave my car there and my daughter would come pick me up from where she lives in Renton. Traveling freeways and I-5 has become more of an issue year by year and she arrived about the same time I did (9:30). After taking  pictures of Cindy's grandkids with my grandson, we headed down the road for our first stop at Southcenter.

                                Jon & Pearl Renner with Jacob Krogermeier

I needed a new battery for my cell phone and you can't just go in and buy one. You have to get an appt, go to the apple store, leave your phone so they can charge it mechanically (or whatever that word is) and then you come back and pick it up. Crowded and time consuming.  We had extra snags involved because of my memory issues on forgetting to bring the phone into the store but we won't go into that now.We had lunch there and can I just say.....I don't care if I ever go to a mall again. Too crowded, too expensive, too much walking, and entirely TOO LOUD!

Most interesting "people watching" I saw was this dude in what looked like Taliban uniform with writing on his white clothes. He had large brown shoe/boots on and marched around and around the mall staring straight ahead. Wish I had thought to take his picture but I was too enthralled just watching him move on by.  After leaving the mall, we stopped by a wig store as the one I have just hasn't fit right and I wanted to try a different color.  Here's the new one  (grayer) and my old one. Wish I could figure out how to position pictures on this dang blog!

Mary fixed grilled brauts, corn on the cob, and potato salad for supper. Delicious. She had an Amazon Echo speaker on her kitchen counter and she told me about how she uses it to let Jake know he's got just so many minutes left before he has to get ready for bed at night.  She says: Alexa. Give me 10 minutes on the timer.  One night she heard Jake say later:  Alexa.  Give me 100 minutes on the timer.

 Ann picked me up at 10 a.m. on Monday. Her house in Issaquah isn't really that far from Mary's so we loaded up her Subaru and proceeded to see what kind of mischief we could get into.

Our first stop was in Columbia County in Clatskanie. We saw a bar and grill and decided to try it out for lunch.  The hamburger was pretty good. We were the only customers although a couple of loggers were at a corner table when we first came in.  We entered through the bar where the back parking lot was, and walked to the cafe section.

Funniest moment was when we decided to use the restroom before taking off.  Ann went in first and was chuckling when she came out because she said she had never seen such a thing before.  When she walked in, the toilet (nice and tall with a grip bar) and sink seemed normal but once she sat down and glanced across the room, she saw the men's section with only a stall door separating.   I, of course, had to take a picture of that!

Other photos I took along the way....

I took this one of the Astoria bridge as we were returning home. I just adored this bridge. So big. My pictures don't do it justice. Go to Google images to see better shots.

Taken from a viewpoint that we stopped at -- the bridge

I think this is the Longview mill. (click to enlarge)

Ann's knee and my hip gave us a lot of grief the entire time so this was my favorite way to sightsee -- on my butt!

We went up a very narrow and winding road into Ecola Natl Park to get this  view of Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach.  Beautiful views up there but I was nervous on the narrow road.  I'm such a weenie.

                                        Kites blowing on Seaside Beach.

                                             My sunset picture at Seaside.

Our second night we stayed at Rockaway Beach at the Silver Sands. This was the view from our doorway.

                 And this was the spectacular view from our bedroom.

These trees were bent by ocean wind at Cannon Beach. Interesting.

Our Seaside room. Cost us $79. We didn't bother getting reservations anywhere.

This was our Rockaway Beach room that was right on the ocean for $110

The Silver Sands is where my cousin, Susie Johnson Schipper has been going for years. The ladies at the office (Carla and Anna) were excited to see relatives of people they knew that were regulars.  They went on and on about how cute Tyler and Amber and all their kids were.  I took their picture and they'll be surprised when it arrives in their mailbox in a couple days.

                                  me and Ann at another  viewpoint.

Road construction was everywhere. I guess it takes a lot of work to keep highways nice when they're so busy with traffic and right on the ocean. This crew was putting netting up to guard against falling rocks.

This waitress had big foot tattoo on her neck and told us how she's really into the subject.  Goes hiking and has sound tracks and video and it's a big part of her life.  Was in a documentary about it too, I think she said. She's 33 and has five boys, from 11 to 15.  Outdoor type. Really nice.

This was our tv with picture on wall above. I only posted it because Ann was screaming while watching the No Hitter game that Paxton did for the Mariners.

Two little souvenirs I bought. A tiny giraffe and a little bottle with sand and shells. I also bought a little salt water taffy, a rabbits foot key chain, and three other little key chains. Oh, and two pair of earrings and this neat bicycle wall hanging which I'll post another time as I'm making a special wall display using it. One of the tourist shops clerks asked me where I was from and I said Port Townsend, WA. He said: Oh....An Officer and a Gentleman.  I stayed at the Tides there. The only place that would allow my dog.

We had fish and chips at a place call Finn's in Seaside and ate breakfast at two different Pig & Pancake restaurants. Very popular place. All in all, it was a fun trip. I just wish we had been feeling better physically so we could have done more beach walking. Even with my walking stick, it was difficult to maneuver most of the time.

But then again, the beaches don't offer good beachcombing finds like shells, rocks, driftwood, beach glass, etc. It was the first time I'd been to the Oregon coast since the 1980's when I went to Newport to attend a friend's wedding.  I'm glad we went. I really need to get out more.

I don't plan on attending the Sequim Irrigation Festival this weekend or the Rhody Festival in PT next weekend but I will head to town for one or two memorials. Not a fun outing but it seems to be a regular occurrence on my travel schedule lately.

Next month will be my high school alumni social hour at the Elks on Saturday afternoon and a graduation party at Jenni's the week after for the twins. Maddie is getting recognized at a school board meeting on May 24th (in the high school library) so I think I'll tag along with Jenni to that.  Maddie won't even be there as she'll be at a track meeting.
She got a new car yesterday.  Soooooo pretty!

Well, that's it for now. Gotta work on another story for the Leader regarding my Facebook pages about PT and Jefferson County of Yesterday.  Happy to be home.