A week in the life

Acknowledging that Andre and my postings have bounced around a bit in the past week, I thought I would take the time to fill in some blanks about where exactly we are and the geography of our travels over the past 7 days.  Tonight, we are in a hotel room in Eugene, Oregon. By tomorrow we expect to cross into California once more and begin heading south in earnest.  Now that football season is in full swing, we have developed a pattern of timing our hotel stays for Sunday nights so we can enjoy the games all day Sunday and Sunday evening.

On that note, it has been quite an adjustment getting used to being on the west coast (Pacific time) for football games. The first games are on at 10AM, which is usually the New England Patriots time slot, so it has been an adventure finding sports bars that are open at that time to watch the game. Last week, when we were in a small town on the Olympic Peninsula no such place existed, so we listened to the game on-line via satellite radio.  This week, although we were slated to be in a small town on the Oregon coast today, we detoured an hour and a half inland to put ourselves in a city big enough to have sports bars that would have  NFL Sunday ticket and be open early for the early football games. We enjoyed watching the Pats game in Wetlands Brew Pub and Sports Bar - although it was weird sitting down in a bar at 9:30 Am.  It was likely the first time we were ever in a brewpub and Andre didn't have a beer! It was just too early. We enjoyed the game and then checked into our hotel in the early afternoon.

When we are traveling, our hotel nights usually serve multiple purposes. It gives us a chance to clean out the van, to do laundry, to fully charge all of our electronics, catch up on e-mail, pay bills on line and any other necessary business/finance stuff. We usually take the opportunity to re-freeze all of our ice packs and clean out the Yeti cooler, dry out anything that might be wet, and also make any necessary small interior or exterior van or equipment repairs that have crept up during the week. Of course we also take long enjoyable showers and to indulge in some cable television while we are at it!  Last Sunday we performed this ritual in Port Angeles, Washington. Here are some photos of the what happened over the course of the week in between...

OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK

 (BOTH THE COASTAL PARTS AND THE RAIN FOREST)

 

An Elk in the HOH Rain forest

ÏI

Coast Guard Lighthouse near Lewis & Clark State Park

 

 THE SEASIDE TOWN OF ASTORIA, OREGON

AT THE MOUTH OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER

 

Hundreds of Sea Lions pause for a rest in Astoria on their way to the
 Sea Lion Caves further south along the Oregon coast

 

Not an inch of space to spare on these docks!

 

THEN IT WAS A VISIT TO PORTLAND OREGON BREWERIES -

OUR FIRST STOP WAS AT THE HAIR OF THE DOG BREWERY

 

GOING

 

GOING

GONE!

 THEN DRIVING ON THOUGH BEAUTIFUL COASTAL OREGON

 

 

 

NOT A BAD SEVEN DAYS......