Portland to Lincoln City

Because I still needed to re-acquire some summer gear for my last week in HI, I took advantage of Portland’s plethora of outdoor gear stores and stopped by REI. While shopping for summer clothing in the middle of December is obviously not ideal, I was able to find a few items. Combing the racks and trying everything on ate up two hours.

By midday I was back on the road, heading west to Lincoln city. I took the backroads and had identified a few of destinations that looked promising - a couple of water falls, a National Wildlife Refuge and an overlook. The waterfalls and overlook were a complete bust. At the locations where the waterfalls were reputed to be located on the side of the road, no waterfall was visible, nor a road or trail that might lead the them. The overlook would have required me to trespass on private property. I did find the National Wildlife Refuge, and took one of the short trails leading to a view of the Pacific. I did not have time at that point to hike the longer trails to a different viewpoint.

I drove down the coast to check-in at Surftides hotel in Lincoln City. I had a bit of a scare when they told me that they were scheduled to be closed until December 21 because of storm damage from the first week of December. Apparently they were able to make repairs earlier than expected and were, in fact, open. They claimed they had called and e-mailed to let me know. I certainly did not receive any e-mails or phone messages. I found a call from them around that time, but no message. I was quite relieved to be able to check into a room, and pleased that it had a balcony facing the ocean.

It is kind of interesting that the last few weeks of my trip, during which I should have been coasting down hill in familiar territory, have presented some of the greatest challenges of the trip.

I then headed down to meet my friends K & J, who are staying in an RV campground near Depoe Bay. We drove a few mile to Depoe Bay to have dinner at Tidal Raves and had a wonderful time catching up over dinner and planning our next few days in the area.

Tomorrow we will drive the coast in search of photo ops to capture the King Tide.