Sat Aug 18 - Down the Washington Coast to Portland

We had a light breakfast and packed up to head back to Portland. Rt101 down the coast in Washington is pretty rural with a couple canneries and fishing towns, and lots of logging trucks. It looks like they clearcut big swaths of trees and then replant them, and then do it all again 30 to 40 years later. I kept checking for a Spotted Owl Cookbook, but didn't find one anywhere. The traffic was light all day and the wind changed direction and blew in off the ocean so it was 15 degrees cooler than the previous 2 days. We pass what must be salt flats at low tide and lots of fishing boats. You leave Washington state when you cross the really long Astoria Bridge which must be 2-3 miles long. Small fishing boats are everywhere under the bridge and you can see them with poles out all sides of the boats as the tide moves in or out, I'm not sure which. The Oregon coast road is closer to the water and there are more beaches here and more tourism. Deb wanted to take me back to Cannon Beach which is a beautiful sandy beach with the classic rock "stacks" that you see in pictures. There were 2 weddings going on at the beach and a young family was burying the dog in sand (he seemed ok with it). Then back north to catch the Rt 26 road to Portland. We are staying with my niece Beverly and her new husband Brett. This was the perfect moment to try the talking GPS app on my iPhone. I plugged in their street address, put my earbuds in, helmet on, turned the music on and stuck the iPhone in my pocket. It works great until I got in the middle of the city and the turns got close together. The it was Mr. Toads Wild Ride all over again. I'll will give it points for never giving up. The problem is, there are roads that merge that are right next to each other and it just gets confused about which road you just got on or off. So after bobbing and weaving around the Portland city streets, we somehow ended up in front of Brett and Beverly's house. Beverly does MRI's at the local hospital and was on call this weekend. She just got back from a call during the day today. Brett found a great Mexican place down the block within walking distance in case Beverly had to take off and we had a great dinner. Then back to the ranch to catch up on the back deck. The temperature was perfect and we slept like kings.