Our vacation started officially on June 12th. Wendy and I did what we could on the Wednesday before to tidy up loose ends at work. I was successful, Wendy was not. Because of the status of a hot project, she had to put in a couple of hours Thursday morning as well. That was no biggie since we couldn't check into the beach house until 4 pm. We still needed to finish packing and get everything into our two vehicles though. Luckily Wendy is an expert packer and I knew we'd be fine.
While Wendy worked, I went through one of our many lists and gathered things into a staging area: Coolers, folding chairs, beach towels, plastic storage containers. Then the items that went into the storage containers like kitchen supplies, games and some non-perishable food items. Wendy got home before noon with the last of the food items on the 'to buy' list. She did final packing of all items and we started loading up the truck and the Subaru. Oh, and somwhere in there we packed clothes for ourselves and Zelly.
We left town at somewhere close to 1 pm and headed south on I5, Wendy, with Zelly and the Subaru, in the lead. I followed in my red Toyota pickup, accompanied by the radio and a small multitude of tapes I'd gathered for the trip. Oh, and for those of you who know us well, we each had our own onboard diet coke supply.
We didn't plan for any specific stops, I just had to follow Wendy closely enough to see if she signaled for a rest area or gas station. This wasn't always easy since the truck is an old gal ('88) and doesn't have the acceleration offered by the Forrester. I can maintain a good speed, but it takes me a while to get there and if I hit a long uphill, I'm stuck for a while. For example, when we crossed the Columbia into Oregon on US 30. As we crested the bridge, I looked across and saw a long uphill grade on the other side and knew I was in trouble. Sure enough, we had to slow down to turn onto that road and I didn't have any momentum. Wendy left me behind along with most everybody else including an empty logging truck. The truck and I finally worked our way up to 50 mph with me chanting "come on, Old Red, you can do it, come on, Old Red..."
It took us around 4 hours to reach our destination, Twin Rocks, Oregon. We made a couple of potty stops and attempted to teach Zelly the art of 'peeing by the side of the road'. She didn't accomplish much but gamely hung her little heinie out in the breeze and tried. Luckily she held out until we got to the beach house so there were no frantic 'clean-up by the side of the road' sessions.
The route we took was very twisty and it seemed that we were just driving the same 'S' curves over and over again for ever. It was mesmerizing and I had to keep reminding myself to pay attention to driving instead of just following the Subaru.
The only real bummer about driving separately, besides the additional gas money, was the missed opportunity for good conversation. Wendy and I usually have great talks during road trips. We talk about our relationship, our jobs, our families, house projects and, of course, how much better the world would be if we were in charge ;-).
When the road finally wound itself out of the coastal range and onto the coast, I was ready to be done with driving for a while. We arrived at the house around 5 pm and found the Portland crew already there. They helped us unload the car and the truck, which was very good since we were staying upstairs and some of those crates were darned heavy.
The view from the upstairs balcony was awesome. The beach was just a quick stroll away and the Twin Rocks were almost directly to the west of us. The weather forecast wasn't stunning, and it was overcast that evening but not cold. We all hoped that we'd get minimal rain and be able to spend a lot of time on the beach and on the decks rather than crammed into the house.
In the next installment, we visit the Tillamook Cheese Factory, more people arrive and we discover that Zelly is a true Beach Girl.
Posted by buggy at June 22, 2003 09:54 PM