We're Trippin'

A bridge with a sign that
says Entering Oregon

Not that kind of trippin'.

WARNING: picture-and-link-heavy post!

Caveat: I know the world is shit right now, and I'm doing what I can. Donating goods, time, energy, and money, etc. But Normal Everyday Life with (Young Adult) Children™ is important too. To that end, this post is almost all Just Having Fun, except where All That Out There™ <waves vaguely> insists on sticking itself in.

This trip came about because Lizzy complained that she hadn't been out of the state for nine years (that's about half her life, y'all), and even then, it was for two hours at a pasta restaurant in Idaho. 

Given that that trip was primarily to deliver a third of her dad's ashes to his parents, view an eclipse, and leave Lee with the grandparents for a couple of weeks, I'm sure you can see her point. And it has also been a while since Lizzy and I have had the same spring break, as most years I have out-of-district students to transport, but this time they all had the same week off as we did.

So Lizzy and I spent Monday in recovery mode from the previous weekend's activities; Tuesday, I got a steroid shot in my left knee, we packed, and we attended a birthday party; and then Wednesday, we took off for Points South (and west). Where is Abby, you ask? At school, because her spring break was earlier in the season.

We were gone from Wednesday mid-morning to Saturday late afternoon/early evening, armed with a full tank of gas (in a hybrid, thank goodness, because even then it took two tanksful for the whole trip), a six-plus hour playlist of (mostly up-tempo) showtunes, and reservations for two hotels with pools (one in Washington State and one on the Oregon coast). Oh, and also some arthritis gel because it takes a minute to get the knee back to baseline after the shot.

Amazing "kids' size!" portion of
Macaroni and Cheese.

Last August, we spent Lizzy's 18th birthday at an Airbnb in Olympia, WA, and we so enjoyed The Sensory Toolhouse and Insert Coin Olympia that we planned the first leg of this trip around them. Went to dinner with my brother and sis-in-law (thanks for dinner!), where Lizzy wondered aloud why we would order Annie's Mac&Cheese at a restaurant. She had forgotten (or wasn't aware)  that the restaurant was called Tugboat Annie's (where one can get anything from yummy food to kayak rentals). Also, Lizzy and I kept getting the giggles because there are streets with single-word names like "COLLEGE" and Liz kept envisioning a college called simply that, as though it were a generic product.

I had a similar oopsie later in the trip (also cheese-related, funnily enough), because I asked her why it smelled so much like some of the areas with cows near home. Um, yeah, it smelled like cows where the winding mountain road of Highway 6 dumped us out right in front of the Tillamook Creamery. We did not do the Creamery tour; Lizzy pointed out that there's not enough Lactaid in the world for me to do that, at least not on a short trip like this. If we were there for a week or more, maybe, but not for just a couple of nights.🐮🧀🥛

Then we went down through Portland (Powell's City of Books is still a really good (and enormous) bookstore, but not as cool as I remember it, and it no longer has its own parking garage. It's also possible I oversold it based on 28-year-old memories), and down Highway 26 to Highway 6 to get to the Oregon Coast. Our friends who live down near the town where we stayed had warned us about Highway 53, but Highway 6 was... something. Any road that features permanent Rough Road signs could maybe use a little help. Of course, there were also several somewhat terrifying one-word signs (ROCKS! TRUCKS! SLIDES!) scattered about (COLLEGE), and a wild number of changes to the speed limit. Like it would change a couple of times in the space of a single mile, again with permanent signs rather than advisories.

We were not expecting our double-queen hotel suite to be an

A green-haired girl in a sunflower swim
dress, carrying a pink plastic pail away
from the camera on a beach at sunset

actual small apartment. What hotel room has one two-queen bedroom, a bath and a half, with a full (if small) living room, dining area, and kitchen? The clerk said that the building without the ocean view (I'm unwilling to pay so much more for the view) contains the biggest suites, but Expedia didn't make that super clear. We had lunch with family friends in the nearby town of Wheeler (not that Wheeler), but we didn't stay as long as I would've liked, because Lizzy evidently needed to get back to The Actual Real Ocean™.

Lizzy has been staying at my mom's timeshare on Puget Sound on and off her entire life, but this - the freaking Pacific Ocean - is the real deal. Inlets like the one Wheeler is on are fine and all, but they are not The Biggest Ocean on the Planet either. So we'll have to go for a longer stay the next time, so we have more time for the ocean and for other things as well.

A picture of a sunset over the beach,
where the water is a fried egg.

On the way back home, we experienced more ROCKS! SLIDES! TRUCKS! and my personal favorite, which is "Entering (or "Leaving") Tsunami Hazard Zone." We stopped for breakfast at a cool place called Yolk, where they have agate inlaid into the pathways and funky egg-based art on the walls. This restaurant had a similar vibe to The Braeburn in Langley, Whidbey Island, WA, to me, in spite of different music, decor, etc. Just vibes. We went up Highway 101 this time, and almost ran out of gas at one point, because there is a loooooong way between gas stations up in there, but we did find one in a tiny town while my gas gauge was still at one tick, but hadn't started flashing the OMG-low-fuel indicator. Whew! Also, Washingtonians hold their breath in tunnels (except the driver, of course, if you're smart), but Oregonians evidently honk their horns. It was madness near Portland on the way home!

Once back in Washington State, and with me starting to get frazzled (this has been a long drive even by my standards, and I drive for a living), we pulled off the freeway at Centralia to check out the Centralia (the original; the Olympia one is newer) branch of Insert Coin. The Olympia branch is newer, brighter, and bigger (and has massage chairs, which is not to be discounted), but the original is objectively just cooler, in a nerdy way. The floor tiles (and the tater tots) are all shaped like Tetris pieces. The sink in the ladies' restroom is a barrel a la Donkey Kong. Drinks are called potions, etc.

Lizzy wants to go to the Centralia Insert Coin for her 21st birthday celebration (about 2.5 years from now, on Labor Day Weekend). It's only a couple of hours' drive as long as it's not rush hour, so I think we can probably manage that, and who knows how often we'll be back in the meantime?

Because we will be back.

Also?

COLLEGE! ROCKS! SLIDES! TRUCKS!