We've Gone On Holiday By Mistake!

So, we finally made it to Portland. Or at least somewhat close to Portland. By the way, Portland at night is simply the most beautiful city anywhere. We ended up driving around for an hour or two trying to find the campsite that was near there. The one we ended up setting up tents in the rain at. The next morning we made an attempt to brew some coffee. We were successful in making the coffee and good coffee it was, but there was no sugar to be found anywhere. We had forgotten to pack some. So I drank sugarless coffee. NOT FUN. And to top the morning off, as I was packing away the kettle the handle on it decided to break off. This put us in a relatively fine mood for the drive to the coast. We drove through Portland again, this time during the daylight. Oh, and more rain. It is very beautiful during the day as well. Just about the cleanest city I've ever encountered. And I've been to many. The people are incredibly nice too, just plain happy to be alive. It's weird.

We made our way to the coast. This took us through some even more lovely mountainous country. We finally got to the KOA in Astoria and found that it is not only close to the seaside, it's right across the street from the state park with all the beaches. After getting ourselves checked in and registered, we set up tents and discovered that we had miscalculated the days and could stay another day at that site. So we decided to register for another day. Little did we know that there was a fishing expo about to happen there and we couldn't get the site we had already set up our tents on for the next day. We got another site 3 spaces down. And were going to have to tear down our camp the next day and set it up again in the new location. *rolls eyes*. So after going through all of that hassle we finally got to the beach and saw the Pacific Ocean. What a site. I tell ya, it actually feels bigger than the Atlantic.

One thing I really love about camping is CAMPFIRES. Yes folks I'm a pyromaniac and I love to burn stuff. BBQ anyone? BWAHAHAHAHAHAH. Of course we were severely overcharged for firewood by the KOA people but we only ended up buying a couple of bundles cause like I said the people out there are really nice. A couple of our fellow campers had brought their own firewood and so were more than happy to loan us same firewood. We ended up with sooo much I was burning till about 4 in the morning (6 am our time) on the last night we were on the coast. We left the next morning for Portland to actually see what the city was like from the inside. After diving around a bit and rather quickly finding a 99¢ per hour parking facility right in the middle of the city (weird huh?). We got in and found clean streets, nice people, and one of the most unique malls I have ever seen. It is a 4 building mall covering 4 actual blocks and split by 2 streets made up of red brick pavement. And they have beautiful sculptures inside and glass ceilings of varying shapes. It was fantastic.

We also needed to find a rather inexpensive Hotel near the city and had no internet connection and so we set out to find an internet cafe or something to do some looking up. And what should we happen upon but the Portland City Library. This has to be one of the most beautiful libraries I have ever seen since I left New York. And they were really nice there too. We walked in and asked if we could use the internet there and they gave us free one hour passes and quick and easy access to their computer, which they had a lot of. And we found something right around our price range very close to the city. And were finally able to sleep on some real beds. I tell you, after 3 nights of tenting it, that was fantastic. It also fortified us for the trip home.

The homeward trip is coming soon...and what a trip it was.