Catching up

I’m sure everyone is curious about what we’ve been up to the past couple of weeks. Unfortunately this last leg involved more driving than planned; we have managed to have some fun though.
Spending time in Eugene, Oregon, was like a breath of fresh air. Eugene is allot like Athens in some ways. It’s a college town with plenty of music and young people. But Eugene also features several local theaters, dance groups, and other centers for preforming arts. Eugene is full of artists, but unlike Athens actually features many venues for the artists to sell and promote their work. As we mentioned, the annual Eugene celebration is like Athfest only much larger. The downtown is like a larger (and more mature) version of downtown Athens. There are more artisan shops and organic /local food restaurants than there are bars. Also, there is another “downtown” area closer to the university where the cheaper pizza beer and chicken wing crowd can converge. There are many neighborhoods within walking distance of european like shopping districts. The whole town seems to have cultivated a sense of community and appreciation for nature and the outdoors. When It was time to check out of the hotel we had over the weekend, we discovered that somehow we had been approved for an extra night that we never paid for. So we spent our labor day exploring what Eugene was like minus the festival crowd.

Once we got on the road again we headed south down the 101 into the Bayside town of Florence, Oregon. Florence is a small town fueled by tourism, and home to some fantastic eating establishments. We set up camp in the state park right near the beach. The Beaches of Florence (and for miles to the south) feature gigantic sand dunes. Dune surfing and dune bugging are big attractions for Oregon and California tourists. While we were camped, we decided we should go into town to experience at least one of the little seafood restaurants which seemed to rival the dunes as the town’s most popular feature.

The place we decided on was tucked away in a shaded corner right on the bay’s edge. It was so small you actually entered through the kitchen! The feature which attracted us the most was the chalkboard menu. They had no permanent selections; instead, whatever was freshly available was written on the chalkboard outside the restaurant and then again inside, but in greater detail on a larger chalkboard.
That evening we enjoyed a New Zealand white wine and lamb appetizer , along with panko breaded calamari, fresh baked artisan bread and a fruit de mere angel hair which included mussels, clams, shrimp and halibut in a delicate Marinara sauce.

After Florence our next stop was in Brookings. Brookings is another small Oregon tourist town, but was very different from Florence. For one thing Brookings is right on the coast rather then on a bay. Brookings also lacks the giant dunes that were so characteristic of the town just a few miles north. However Brookings had it’s own charm. For one thing the rest area there was the entire reason we decided to stop for the night . That is to say the rest stop in Brookings was one of the nicest parks we’ve ever been to. The state park was even nicer, but crowded with R.V campers enjoying the absolutely perfect weather and pristine beaches. We of course joined right in and had a fabulous time on the beach.

Further down the coast we saw giant redwood forests, dense fogs and cougar tracks. We promise to get some pics of this on Flickr soon, but right now we are getting ready to spend two nights exploring San Francisco before we depart to New Zealand.

Matt