Day 186 - 190

Like last time Sam and I went to the beach, I thought it’d be a better idea to write about the whole trip as one entry instead of every night. This time, instead of Lincoln City again, we went up to the Seaside-Astoria area. We couldn’t get a hotel in Seaside because they were either fully booked or way too expensive so we stayed in Warrenton. I thought it was going to be a pain being outside Seaside and Astoria, but it ended up being a really great place to stay.

Before we started heading towards the coast, we stopped for a few hours at my great grandpa’s house (the one with all the cool stuff) to hang out and get some work done in one of the back rooms. It wasn’t a very productive work day, but it was awesome to see my grandpa and Sam getting along so well. Army buddies I guess.

Anyways, we got to the hotel pretty late so after we checked in, we found a place to eat that was actually open in Astoria. I’m so used to Eugene where it’s easy to find food at any hour, but it’s a lot different on the coast. The Mexican restaurant we ate at was one of the only ones open and it closed at 9. The food was really good though and they were the kind of place that doesn’t rush you out the door at closing time.

After that we tried finding the beach. It took a bit longer than expected. Siri told me that there was a road near our hotel that went straight to the beach so after missing it once and having to turn around, we took it only to find ourselves at a gate to a military “reservation” guarded by a Master Sergeant. He was really cool though and gave us easy directions to get to the beach. Seriously one of the most awesome beaches I’ve ever been to.

 It was already dark by the time we got there but we still drove out on the beach (for my non-Oregonian readers, that’s totally legal) and the beach was so flat that we could drive down a ways. There were a bunch of other cars out there too, some of them just driving like we were, a few were parked by some bonfires (also totally legal here) and some were sitting with their lights off, so you can use your imagination with those ones. It would have been a lot more fun if we were in my old beat up Ford Explorer that sadly died last year instead of my dad’s car because I was paranoid of anything happening to it. We ended up getting stuck in some deep sand trying to get off the beach because some jackass parked right over the hard sand so no one could get out and then ran off somewhere. Some pre-boot camp Marine helped us get unstuck and then they helped another guy (Air Force) get some lady unstuck. By the time we got back onto the road there were a dozen people waiting and the jackass blocking the way never showed up.

The next day we woke up late and headed over to Seaside. We had to make a stop on the way because I don’t think it’s possible for Sam to pass a knife shop without going in. That’s okay though because I know half of his Christmas present. He wants a badass fixed blade and apparently that’s okay to send to Afghanistan, so that's what he's getting. I'll probably bring along his dad because I know nothing about knives except what looks cool.

We went to Seaside after the knife shop as well as the next two days, so I'll just write about Seaside all at once. We found a really amazing Japanese restaurant, so good in fact that we ate there twice. The rest of the time we spent walking around, shopping and going to the arcade. The first day we went, the weather was beautiful. 

The beach is NEVER that nice on the Oregon Coast. 

I also got my mama's birthday present and Sam got a lucky charm amulet thing from a Scottish lady at the Celtic shop. The arcade was probably the most fun though. We blew so much money, especially on this game:

All you do is roll balls up the ramp and try to get 5 in a row (or the whole board, depending on the game). That's it. But it was soooo addicting.

We also went to Fort Stevens, which I've written about before. I was worried that Sam wouldn't think it was as cool as I do, but he was into it, so that was awesome. I even let him tell me things I already knew. 

There were only two things that kind of sucked about our trip...

1. I had nausea issues the whole trip, reaching their peak at the last night where I thought I was going to lose my dinner in the middle of our date. We didn't get to do our bonfire because of it, but it was alright because we just relaxed in the hotel room. 

2. The hotel we were staying at screwed us over with the TV. You couldn't watch regular TV, they didn't have a DVD player and even if you brought your own, it was impossible to connect it to the TV. That means, if you wanted to watch anything at all, you had to rent a movie through the TV. We spent $14.99 to watch Django. It was a fantastic movie, but still. We had the whole LOTR trilogy with us. 

On our way home, we stopped at Hug Point (we didn't stop for the cheesy name, we stopped for the awesome looking caves).

Overall it was amazing trip and I'm glad I got to have alone time with him before he leaves :)