By the Sea, By the Sea, By the Beautiful Sea

Daily Mileage =250; Trip total=5190(MILESTONE we passed 5,000 miles and reached the Pacific Ocean. Just like Lewis&Clark but a little easier than they had it!!)

Today we drove up the coast of Oregon on Rt. 101. It was beautiful. The ocean is on your left and the mountains with the tallest pines trees ever are on your right. We had a little idea of this from driving in CA years ago, but there aren't quite as many green trees there.

Our best surprise today was stopping at the Sea Lion Caves. I thought it would be a cave that maybe you could occasionally catch a sea lion at. Boy, was I wrong. It is this wonderful little secret (maybe not so secret if you live here) place that actually has an elevator taking you down into a cave where sea lions live in the wild! Yes, I kid you not, we're not talking about sea lions in a zoo but rather, a place where they live and come back to birth all the time. Apparently a family decided to open and protect a "wild" sanctuary for sea lions back in the 1930's. They still own the operation. It's wonderful! You go walk down a paved path and you can hear hundreds of them on the rocks below. Then you take an elevator down 2000 feet to the caves where they live. You can see them and hear them along with some seals and a host of birds that are native to the area. It is really unbelievable. It's not like being in a "zoo" at all and it has been working for years. We never would have known about it but we happen to stumble on it as we drove up the beautiful coast line. (Those "rocks" in the photo down on the cliffs are not "rocks" but actually "sea lions." By the way, here is Rich the bull, which is what the male sea lion is called. Somehow I can think of other reasons why he might be called, bull!

So, the Oregon (Western) coast, what can we say? It's gorgeous. Not that we don't think the Eastern coast has great beaches (because I personally think we have some of the best in the world). This coast changes as you drive along. We saw cliffs with jagged rocks, sandy wide beaches (the tide was out), we saw walking trails to the beach with tidal pools on them. That is different than the east coast.
Parts of it reminded us of the Maine rugged, treed coast. Some of the towns along the way reminded us of Seaside Park, NJ or even Atlantic City (yes there are some towns that have casinos and are rather honky-tonk ) . There are parts of the road that run along the very high cliffs that have nail biting turns on them. Suffice to say, it's great and we loved the signs that kept telling you that you were entering the "tsunami area" every time you came down to sea level. On the way to Portland, our final destination for tonight, we saw quite a few wineries. They looked beautiful on the green hills as we drove by. (We have actually been drinking OR wine since we're here. When in Rome do as the Romans.......

We eventually ended up in downtown Portland. We are staying in high rise hotel similar to NYC. In fact, it reminds us of mid-town Manhattan. Lot's of older buildings that have been redone to house new shops, restaurants and hotels. Tomorrow we will explore the city and let you know what we think about it. The biggest disappointment to us so far is that at this rather expensive Marriott in downtown, we actually have to pay for WIFI or use the business center computer (guess where I am now?).

So I'm going to try and attach my photos into the blog, if not successful, I'll have to do it when I get to free wireless Internet. (There's something about paying for this service that is just annoying and I won't do!!)

Love & joy to all of you, Mare & Rich