Road Trip!

We drove down to Klamath Falls, Oregon, to visit Doug's parents. We left the day after our anniversary, a Thursday, and got back the following Thursday. It's a nine hour drive if you go straight there, but we decided to take two days and go down the coast. There were parts of the coast that Doug had never seen before, and he felt that, as an Oregonian, he was remiss in not visiting that area. So we went out through Montesano, crossed over at Astoria and went down from there.

Kate did pretty well in the car, especially the first day when it was all new. We stopped in Neskowin and she got to experience her first real sandy beach. She was quite intrigued.

At a lookout over Heceta Head, Doug got out to take a picture of the lighthouse. It was so windy we could feel it inside the car.

We hit Florence as it was getting dark. We had dinner at Mo's. (The clam chowder was yummy, but disagreed with me later, unfortunately.) One of the ladies there gave Kate a little stuffed fish from their gift shop. We named it Florence.

We spent the night at a hotel in Eugene. The next morning we discovered the Market of Choice right by a little Korean place where we had eaten a couple of times before. What a cool store. (Kind of expensive, but very cool.) We were particularly impressed by their pizza oven.

We drove on to Klamath Falls, stopping at Salt Creek Falls and Collier Park on the way (where Kate wanted to ride in a swing, but they didn't have the right kind), and got there in the afternoon.

We had a nice few days visiting with family and friends. Kate got to meet a couple of cousins, and had a great time playing with Grandma's toys. The slide in the backyard was just her size.



She was also quite fascinated by the covered fire pit. We managed to keep her from getting too dirty.

We had dinner one night at the Thai Orchid Cafe in town. As soon as we got Kate strapped into the highchair, she started saying, "Rice! Rice!" She knew what she wanted. We got her some rice. (After the rest of us got our food, though, she kept asking for more of my noodles.) The food was very good but disagreed with me, again. I had bad luck with food this trip.

The morning that we left we were having oatmeal, and Kate asked for rice again. When I told her there was no rice she started to cry. Grandma made her some rice. (Basmati! Yum.) She just likes rice.

We drove up to St. Helens (near Portland) and spent the night with Doug's brother Craig and his family, where Kate had a great time bothering their cats, and we didn't get any pictures. From there it was just a couple of hours home, a nice easy drive. (Kate was getting pretty fractious by then, and didn't sleep at all on that last leg.)

We had a good trip and were glad to get home. It was nice to get away together, and renew some ties. We've been relaxing and recuperating, since Doug has just a week before he starts teaching again. It feels like the season changed while we were gone, which is kind of startling. It's quite suddenly autumnal.

I still haven't processed our pictures from Ohio. I need to do that.