The Dynamic Duo

First I want to say thankyou to those who comment on my blogs and keep me motivated to continue. That would mostly be Kristen. I do appreciate your encouragement. To some other people who may or may not be closely related to me, I would just like to say that I ALWAYS select the category for UltraMom Posts, and that being extremely busy is no excuse for not responding to each and every one of your mother’s posts. There, got THAT out in the open.

Okay, I guess we’d better get on with this vacation! For those of you who have just joined us, we are just leaving the Japanese Gardens, and find ourselves in the vicinity of the Portland Zoo, which was on UM’s list of must-do activities. We meander around a bit and finally find a parking lot or two. There seems to be a system here, wherein you drive continually around the lots hoping you are in the right place at the right time; namely when someone decides to leave so you can grab a parking spot. After fruitlessly playing this game for about 20 minutes, UltraMom interjects (for probably the 4th time or so) that there are signs directing one to a shuttle parking lot. This turns out to be several miles away, and it turns out we have just missed the shuttle bus back to the zoo. But we are nearly first in line for the next on. We are finally ferried back to the zoo, and we notice a line of about 100 people r so winding about the perimeter of the zoo fence. I guess a nice Sunday afternoon in May would be an attractive time for Portlandians to decide to take the kiddies to the zoo. I have a nice photo of the line. I need to learn how to put some pictures in my posts.
At last we are IN. You know, in all honesty it probably was a perfectly lovely zoo though it seemed a little lacking in some areas. For instance it was BEAR MONTH or something like that, but I only could find a total of 3 or 4 bears in the whole zoo. The polar bear was so bored that he continually threw a ball up in the air and caught it. (Nice photo of that also) The monkeys were entertaining, and I think they have a well established elephant breeding program. But is was so crowded, rather hot, and we still hadn’t had lunch. There were little kids everywhere; and Johnny rather grumpily noted that in his opinion, children should be banned from places like this. He’s probably right; the zoo is no place for kids, or at least not for these particular ones….....
Well, we shook the zoo dust off our feet, shuttled back to our car, and started towards the coast. I had made reservations for the night at Yachats, a smallish town in between Florence and Newport.The drive ended up being kind of winding, and a little confusing as we made most of it after dark, but about 11:00 P.M. we pulled into the parking lot of the Dublin House.
It was kind of an older motel, but it had a large indoor swimming pool, which the UltraBoys and I availed ourselves of the next day. We paid a bit extra for an ocean view, but it turned out that we had to look over the houses and yards of a couple of blocks to see the water. I really thought I was getting a heck of a half price special, but it seemed I had misunderstood, and the price they quoted me WAS the half price special….oh well.
Since it was only a couple of blocks to the sea, Johnny headed there first thing in the morning, and was back before the rest of us headed out. Mostly this stretch of beach was pretty rocky, but it was really interesting; lots of tidepools mostly full of green sea anemones and purple and orange starfish. As soon as we found a sandy spot, I took my shoes off and waded in. Jim was pretty busy hitting stones into the ocean with a makeshift driftwood bat, but he was finally persuaded to join me. UltraDad was recruited to take a photo. He is really a slow picture-taker, but this time he outdid himself. I found out why when a really big wave came in, soaking me up past my knees, and Jim to mid thigh or so. At this point, the photographer was laughing so hard he could hardly take the picture. I almost lost my shoes, and DID lose a sock. Luckily, it was the sock with a hole in the heel.
It was Whale Watch week, and we talked to several Whale Watch Week volunteers, but we never saw hide nor hair of a whale. We had lunch at a little fish and chips type place that had award-winning clam chowder. They must give out a lot of clam chowder awards, because every single restaurant we stopped at had award winning clam chowder. We had a relaxing, aimless kind of afternoon, looking in some shops, and decided to have pizza and snacks in the motel for dinner, and play a friendly little game of pinochle. If memory serves (and I think it does) Jim and I were victorious. But we finally had to quit because noone could keep their eyes open!
Well, I’m moving a little faster. You got a whole day and a half that time.
Stay tuned…..................