Wednesday was a day for saying goodbye, tying up all the loose ends and making ready to break camp. We have gotten way to comfortable here over the last three months.

We started out with some last minute shopping for some Christmas presents to leave behind. We had the oil changed in the Honda to get ready to park it for the winter. Then we went to meet long time friends and sailing buddies, Ed and Sarah. It didn’t help that Wednesday was a cold, rainy, miserable day. We met Ed and Sarah at the appointed hour at the Red Cross donation station. They had a place in mind for lunch, so we just planned to follow them. That worked for a dozen blocks until we missed a light… a long light. I only had a vague notion of what the restaurant’s name was and no idea where it was. Bad planning. We drove on down the street watching all the cross streets but saw nothing. I had the computer along, so I fired it up and did a search on restaurants in that neighborhood and finally got a lead. We found a restaurant that met the criteria. We parked, went in and queried the Matri’d: Indeed a couple had been there and waited for ten to fifteen minutes and then left. Now Ed and Sarah are still hold-outs from cell phones so that was not an option. It took a while but we did finally connect up. We had a nice lunch and long chat.

By now the afternoon rush was starting to plug up the freeways and we had to work our way back to Hillsboro and borrow a car from Neil and Renee, so we could shuttle our Honda Civic over to a friend’s house in St. Helens. By now it was full dark and raining buckets. The back roads over the hills were inky black, or as Ed likes to say, “like trying to find a black cat in a coal bin.” We dropped off the Honda and then we picked up Sister, Cher, and went for supper in Scappoose.

We still had to make our way back through the “black cat coal bin” to Hillsboro and return the Mustang to Renee. This trip had some extra fun; there were traces of snow on the road in Cornelius Pass. (Oh Dear! Have we pushed the season too far?) Yes, we made it back and didn’t even dent up the Mustang or burn out the clutch.

Thursday in contrast was a delightful start of our next journey. We drifted out the southern side of Hillsboro and drove through very rural Washington and Yamhill counties until we reached the main artery to Lincoln City, Highway 18. We ate lunch at the beach alongside the Dee River, “The shortest river in the world.” It drains Devils Lake under highway 101, across the beach directly into the Pacific Ocean. It’s about 500 feet long. It gets about 10% longer at low tide.

We next drove into Newport and parked the rig on a side street and walked over and visited with old time friends, Dick and Maxine. We found a nice camping place just before dark and settled in for the night. After supper we had a nice hour long walk at the Newport Harbor area. It was crisp, but the winds were calm, the stars were out and you could hear the sea lions all up and down the harbor front.

It is good to be back on the road again.

Love to all from Gary and Judy on the road south.