Just Getting Started

Over the years, Tim and I have tried to get away from home on our anniversary. Once we went to Hawaii--and we have plans to do more warm get aways like that in the future-- but mostly we head for my happy place -- the beach! We do some crazy things that no one else would think was fun (camping in a yurt, sleeping in the van, come to mind...), but we always manage in the cold of January to enjoy ourselves somewhere out on a rugged coast line. This year we reached a milestone...30 years together! It was going to be a very wet and wild weekend so we decided on a nice little hotel in....

Astoria, Oregon! Remember when we told you kids that we were going camping but all you had to bring was a pillow?... and we stayed at the Red Lion in adjoining rooms; you were so confused...yeah that was January. Well that hotel is closed up now; this trip we stayed in a really nice Best Western in almost the same location. The rooms were great!

We got a pretty late start; Dad had some work stuff to finish. It was almost dark when we arrived. We drove around Astoria to see what has changed then after a quick drive into Warrenton (gotta love Freddies) for supplies, we camped out and...watched HBO until late! :)

Next morning the rain was coming in sideways, the wind was howling. In this picture it looks like fog but that is rain on the horizontal. The waves were really crashing in the Columbia and the rivers were high!

Of course we needed a stop in the harbor, and found some ships out in dry dock:

Since the day was promising to stay very wet, we decided to head further south to:

I know that everyone has been there, but it was fun to explore in the winter! We found the arcade -- a fun place to be on a rainy day-- with every arcade from wack-a-mole, to dance dance revolution (I always wanted to try that one...)and even bumper cars in the back! Not too expensive either.

All of the bridges over the river (you can only see three here) made me dub the place the Venice of Oregon. I think there were eight in total.

Center of the bridge we were on had this brass emblem on it for Lewis and Clark...

One of the shops had a sweet Carrosel in it, that made us want to have the grandkids along with us... oh yeah and Katie too :) of course...

Seaside has some new condos going up. We took this picture down at the turn-around looking back up away from the ocean. (I guess that is east...)

Looking to the north up the boardwalk

Looking south down the boardwalk...

And out from the turn-around to the sea...

Here is our 30th portrait. You can tell that we like it out in the blow! This was a dry moment in the storm that we took advantage of after feeding a very aggressive seagull with a bum foot. We were sitting in the car with the window open, eating jo-jo's, and this pitiful gull with an injured foot kind of sidled up to the car. I gave it a jo-jo. Next thing I knew I swear that bird was trying to figure out how to get into the car to eat all our food! We left when all of his buddies arrived. It felt a little like a scene from Hitchcock's The Birds!

The rivers were all on the rise and we could not make it to Cannon Beach; hwy 101 was flooded and our little car wasn't going to make it. Since the weather was a mess and we are getting to where we don't enjoy driving in the dark in the rain, we headed for home. We took a look around Raymond on the way back which is the town with all of the iron art. Guess what? The art isn't just up on the highway. We also saw this cool mural so we have added it to the collection:

It was a fun trip and we really enjoyed ourselves. It was another fun memory to add to the collection of our crazy anniversary vacations! I have attached a 360 degree video of the beach in Seaside that Tim recorded--if I can get it to load ...

We found a couple of affordable beach houses a block and a half away from the sweet sandy beach. Anyone for a Bullock family reunion in Seaside? Say around July 4th?

We love and miss you all. We treasure each year that we celebrate the beginning of our family ...30 years, heck, we are just getting started! (yeah I renewed his contract...)