Thursday: I had previously scheduled this day off, because I wanted to have a week-long extravaganza with the husband to celebrate our one year anniversary and make up for not having a honey moon. But, since I got Joe to VTO me for Monday, I figured I'd probably go in. . . Yeah, that didn't happen. Instead we went to Roxy's for lunch, drove around (discovered that Johnathan's 'brand new' bike actually has 15k+ miles) and I dyed my hair an
amazing copper color
. It's one of those, why wasn't I born with this shades. Very much in love with it at the moment.
Friday: Planned to leave once John got off work at 2pm, and here he comes in at 8am raring to go. Not so happy as, you know, I'm me and don't wake up until 11am. Eventually he gets me out of bed, ready to go, stuff packed. He fell asleep during the packing process, and so we ended up leaving at about 2pm anyway. We drove through the lovely summer afternoon with the top down, wind whipping in our hair to Lincoln City, where we had planned to stay at the
Edgecliff Motel. The rooms were surprisingly nice, and the view was breathtaking.
We plan on returning next year. The staff were all friendly, accommodating, and kind - even when we bugged them at 1am trying to find pizza. We met up with Josh and Melissa who were in town planning their wedding and taking care of related things. They decided they'd like to stay the night so once we all got checked in and set up we headed out to the
Surfrider Resort to get some dinner. Johnathan had to have his seafood buffet, but it was a bit on the disappointing end. The fish was eh, it was all kind of random assortment. There were a few tasty items, a salmon pasta dish was quite good, but really the highlight was the view and the wine we ordered - I can't remember the kind. We then headed to the liquor store to get some goodies for the night. Josh and Melissa picked up a bottle of orange whipped vodka and orange schnapps of sorts for creamsicles, and John and I got a pomegranate liquor and a weird Asian vodka -- picked because of the pretty bottles - with some 7-up to mix. Somehow we convinces ourselves this didn't count as drinking soda. The beach was pretty cold by this point, and very windy, so we mixed our drinks in the Poland's room and played an all to informative never have I ever game. There were some very memorable quotes... =D After drinking for a while we decided pizza was required so bothered the front desk and found out the only place open was Safeway. After we got back, John and I decided it was a good break for some alone time and we headed back to our room.
Saturday: A crow woke me up at the crack of dawn with his incessant cawing. Annoying, but the sunrise was beautiful.
After catching a few more ZZZs, I threw on some clothes, roused the Tan from his slumber and got some breakfast from the office.... which consisted of some fruit, yogurt, bagels, and cereal. Pretty basic continental breakfast. The Poland's were up and ready to go, so they headed to the beach while we finished watching
Little Miss Sunshine
and got ready to go... and in Johnathan's case, napped. We met up on the beach and explored some tide-pools. All we really saw were some anemones before the tide started coming back in.
Then we headed to
Galluci's for some non-exciting, overpriced pizza. Then we headed to
the casino. This was my first time ever being to a casino, and I was hoping for some beginners luck. However, in a little over an hour, our set limit was gone... there we some times we were up too - but it was fun, so we kept going.... which I guess is the whole point. After the casino we parted ways with the Poland's and headed back to our room. We grabbed a few ZZZs before dinner and got all dolled up to go to the
Blackfish Cafe.
Before we went to leave we went on to the balcony to catch some pictures and look at the sunset, and we hear this bagpipe music wafting from somewhere to our left. It was a really awesome way to start the night, and kind of neat to see an old guy bag-piping it up into the sunset.
The cafe... I really cannot say enough good things about this place! Our server was either an amazing person, or an awesome actor, and either way he was on point, knowledgeable, and seemed very warm. Our wine for the evening was splendid, the food was some of the best I've ever had. Johnathan had the rib-eye steak and I had the pork brisket. We both were amazed by the deliciousness hitting our senses. We wrapped up dinner to go to savor the flavor for the next day and to indulge in the highly acclaimed (as far as Yelp went anyway) homemade ding dong. Not ohmygoodness amazing, but it definitely did not disappoint. The only thing not amazing about the evening was the price-tag.
Sunday: We woke up to the first hint of fog/cloud our whole trip, grabbed some continental breakfast and headed out to meet up with Brittany/Corey at their apartment in Salem as it was kind of on the way home. We hung out for a bit, playing with animals until Corey got home and we headed to the
Original Pancake house. It was pretty much a giant letdown after the hype Britt & Corey gave it, but... that's okay. After visiting a bit more we headed homeward. I5 decided to be a cocksucker from hell... and the day decided to be as hot. After driving an hour and a half, we stopped in Wilsonville for some Route44 Cherry Limeades from Sonic, and for some browsing and air-conditioning at Fry's. I get pretty affected by hot weather/the sun, and I was having a hard time of the trip. After wandering around Fry's for a bit, we decided it was cool enough / traffic had improved enough for us to give it another go. And... here we are.
All in all I think it was just what the doctor ordered. Johnathan and I got to know our friends a bit better, and discover that vacationing together or living together would probably be awesome. We got plenty of time to spend with one another, and I think that a spark was definitely rekindled, though I didn't know one was missing in the first place. We've got a lot of alcohol left over from the trip to carry us in memories, and I had the foresight to take a few snapshots as well. Thanks to all those that made this weekend happen. Now - back to being poor! True, we could have spent the money paying people back, or on a new microwave, or even for one of us to get our marriage tattoo... but, I think that it formed a wonderful memory, and could be the start of an awesome tradition.
