Thursday, April 2, 2009

Trip with Sisters to the Oregon Coast

April 2, 2009 To anyone who's interested....I haven't done Blogging properly because I still don't know HOW! But during February this year, my sisters and I---all FIVE of us---went on a little trip to the Oregon Coast and I wrote a narrative about it, and decided to publish it here in this blog. I don't have any pictures available to enter along with my write-up, though, so if you're interested in seeing pictures, sorry......it's just words. (I didn't have a camera with me---what a bummer!!)Originally I sent this writing as a letter to my sisters, so they've all read it, but my son Wade talked me into putting it here, so he transferred it over onto my blog site so that HE can read it when he gets home tonight. We had a WONDERFUL time, so if you're interested in knowing what we did....here goes:


My Dear Sisters---Robin, Darla, DeeAnn, and Kathy….

Wasn’t our little Oregon Coast Getaway Vacation FUN?? Didn’t we have a GREAT Time??? What WONDERFUL MEMORIES we’ll now have, eh?? I just wanted to write a little letter and tell all of you THANKS SO VERY MUCH for putting this together and helping me have such a good, good time!! I LOVED it!! Initially, the trip was a little ‘get-away’ we were giving our sister Robin, but it turned out wonderfully fun for ALL of us!!

Our Kathy Rae sister originally came up with the idea of having the “Sisters’ Getaway”, I think, and I’m grateful to her (you, Kath) for putting all those fun ideas into our heads! And Kathy worked really hard on making sure we had 6 names temple-ready so we could take them through for their endowments, and what a LETDOWN it was that we couldn’t do the work for them!! That would have been SO GREAT!! (Ruth was going to come with us, but wasn’t able to right there at the last….Sorry we missed you, Ruth!)

I hope you all know that I LOVED being with you, and I LOVED where we were! Wasn’t it FUN?? Too bad we don’t do something like that once a MONTH, eh?? I started this little letter the very week we got back from being on our “Getaway”, but now it’s the last part of March, and I still feel like I want to kinda re-cap the trip we took, so at this point, I plan to write down the happenings of the whole thing, through MY eyes….(and if anyone wants to add to or take away anything, you’re sure welcome to do it! J) We’ll pretend like someone is reading this who had nothing to do with the whole trip..ok??

We started out on the morning of Tuesday February 3rd , having a little bit of a ‘fiasco’ at the Salt Lake City Airport. It was quite an ‘adventure’ all in itself!! Kathy had flown into SLC the day before, on Monday, from Nashville---bringing Mom home after having had her since Christmas time. Kathy was out at DeeAnn’s and they started to get in the car to head to the airport when Kathy realized she had misplaced her drivers license the night before when going to the Mortuary to see a former friend. Well, Kathy and DeeAnn (and the whole family??) searched frantically for over 40 minutes for the license---to no avail.

Meanwhile, Darla and Karen had picked up Robin and all three were waiting at the airport for the plane to take off. We called out to see if DeeAnn and Kathy were on the way and found out the situation. So we said a prayer together---(they’d been having lots of prayers also), and we started talking to people at the ticket counter and called out to tell the other two that they could come on in and use a different form of identification in order for Kathy to travel. So they came.

Getting through Security turned out to not be too big a deal for Kathy ‘cause everyone was very nice and understanding with her—especially seeing as how she was traveling with her 4 sisters who all vouched for her. Plus, she was able to use her state-issued library card and other stuff as identification. (She was SO CUTE, too—I’m sure that helped the authorities be so agreeable…) While we were all concerned about Kathy Rae’s predicament, we didn’t notice the trouble our poor Robin sister was going through—getting through Security. She hadn’t done air-travel for a long time so she wasn’t aware of all the security measures that have been implemented.

So first of all, she bought a great big coke and had to toss it away after only taking a few sips of it, cause they don’t permit us to take anything “liquid” on the plane unless it’s a tiny amount. Since that’s the rule---in her carry-on, she had things that ‘beeped’ and they took away from her a whole bunch of new cosmetic items like hairspray and lotions, etc. that she had just purchased special for the vacation. THAT was really sad, and we all felt bad about that! Plus, she ended up having to continue a searching process because of her bag beeping. (Come to find out later—it was due to a metal rat-tail comb that they never did find!) Finally, they let her come with us, but it seemed almost as though she had to go through worse trouble than Kathy!

Our airplane trip went without a hitch—with the five of us sitting in seats beside and across the aisle from each other---with us all gabbing excitedly to each other. We arrived in Portland and rode on a shuttle over to the Alamo car rental place where we changed clothes, dressing in our Sunday attire to go to the temple. The mini van we rented held 7 passengers, and there were only 5 of us, so it was very comfortable travel. Darla hooked up the GPS she brought with us, (we named it “Ruth”….cause Ruth wasn’t with us…), and at first we couldn’t hear the little lady’s voice very well, so right off the bat we missed our turn onto the freeway and ended up driving miles and miles through town---catching lots of the stoplights red. A couple miles before we got to the temple, we started wondering if they had a cafeteria at the Portland temple, so I called and got a recording that said the temple would be closed until the 24th of February. Too bad for us!! We then drove all around---“Re-Calculating”---looking for a way to get on our proper freeway (and I do mean ‘drove all around’! J), then finally found our proper street and headed on out towards Newport.

Robin spotted a billboard sign for a place called The Newport Seafood Grill, so we headed there and had our first wonderful dining experience. The food was indeed delicious and the atmosphere at that restaurant was very classy. We had a great time, then followed up our meal by changing from our temple-going clothes into more comfortable attire and finding a Wal-Mart where we bought a bunch of goodies (and replaced some of Robin’s tossed-away cosmetic items….) We drove up to the Portland Temple on our way out of town, and had a picture taken of the five of us in front of the closed temple, then headed on our way.

The drive on in to Newport was enjoyable, with Darla behind the wheel most of the way. She was a GREAT driver!! The road from Corvallis on to Newport was really a curvy, winding road, and took longer than we expected, but we arrived at the Embarcadero Resort in the early evening and just LOVED our set-up! The rooms were nice and comfortable with huge windows and a little balcony facing the sparkling blue water of the Bay, with the view of the majestic Newport Bridge in the distance. The room that Kathy and DeeAnn chose was upstairs---a nice kingsize bed in a little suite, with its own bathroom. Attached to the foot of the bed was a big round wooden life-preserver that said in red printing” TWO SISTERS”, so we knew we were staying at the RIGHT PLACE!! Downstairs was a living room, kitchen, dining area and separate bedroom with another kingsize bed. Robin chose to sleep on the futon couch in the living room where the t.v. was, and she had the gorgeous view of the bay out those big picture windows, and Karen and Darla shared the bedroom.

That first evening we arrived, Robin took a little nap while the other four of us went out looking for a place to eat. The hotel lobby had a menu posted for the upstairs dining room, but we didn’t go upstairs and see how perfectly ideal the dining room was for our evening meal, and we wanted a little ‘adventure’ for our first night there, so we drove down to a place that was recommended to us, called Rogue’s Gallery (I think), and ate our dinner there. It was a bit more rowdy than we were looking for, and the food wasn’t too great, but we had a good time laughing and just being together, so it was considered fun. Our trips just aren’t complete without Wal-Mart visits, so we ended by shopping at Wal-Mart for some breakfast food and stuff.

When we got back to our place, Robin was waking up, so we all went upstairs and received a fun gift that DeeAnn had brought for all of us—darling matching pajamas! They had black tee-shirts with a big ‘love heart’ in the center, with pink and black heart p.j. bottoms, and they were SO CUTE! It was just SO THOUGHTFUL of you, DeeAnn to do that!! We put on our matching p.j.’s and sat around in their room, talking till way late in the night—thinking of watching a fun movie, but enjoying our visiting too much to worry about putting in a DVD, (even though DeeAnn had brought a nice selection for us!)

The next morning, Wednesday, dawned bright and sunshiny and beautiful! Kathy had brought some quick-fixin’ sausage gravy mixes from Tennessee, so Karen fixed a delicious breakfast of biscuits and gravy and other fun stuff, and we all sat around the dining table, eating and having a wonderful time. Oh—that was after DeeAnn and Kathy went for a walk on the beach and around our establishment and got all set up for renting crab pots for our future evening adventures. (And maybe Darla went out walking, too---I can’t remember.) (Oh, on second thought….here’s the way I wrote it in the concise little journal entry I made: “Kathy and Dee left for Beach in car. Left Darla home. Karen made delicious biscuits and gravy breakfast.” hmmmm….did you get that….left Darla home. Hmmmm…) J J

This turned out to be a REALLY FUN-PACKED DAY! ☼ ☼ ♫
A little before noon we headed out for ‘parts unknown’, stopping downstairs at the office and gift-store to check out the crab pot, plus we went up and checked out the dining room too, determining that it was exactly where we wanted to come back for afternoon appetizers (when they would all be half-price!) We then took off for Nye Beach and parked the car and got out and walked and walked on the sand, right down to the water. Robin laid on a rock and let the sun shine down on her cause it felt so good and warm. The day was just BEAUTIFUL!! We drove around looking at the sights---finding other stretches of beach that looked gorgeous, winding up at the Yaquina Head Light-House, where we went in for a tour. A lady told us all about the history of the light-house, then we walked up all 116 steps so we could see out the light-house window (and get our “I survived the climb” button.) It was a fun experience and the view was gorgeous!

Meanwhile, Robin stayed out on the parking lot, just walking around seeing things because she didn’t especially like the idea of the light-house climb. She found a set of stairs that wound down to the ocean, and walked down there and explored the place and told us about it when we came out. My goodness—it was a fabulous stretch of beach!! It was 120 steps down, so we walked down all of them, then back UP when we were done. None of us had ever noticed that beach before, but WOW—it was Wonderful!! The tide was out, so the area was exposed, and there was more sea-life in that one big long reef than I’ve ever, ever seen !! We saw tons of colored star fish—bright colors and dull colors---very fascinating! And we saw lovely bright green sea anemones (or however ya spell it…), and little sea crabs and other fun stuff in little tide pools. The wood and rocks on the beach were all smooth and washed clean from being under water so much of the time. Robin picked up a lot of driftwood that looked like petrified wood. We were all pretty fascinated with the beauty of that beach!

As we were leaving the lighthouse area, we stopped at a stop sign and took several pictures of a statue-like seagull that was sitting on the top of the stop-sign. When we got out of the car to take a better picture, the seagull flew away. ( I only mention this to show that it didn’t take MUCH to enthrall and captivate us sisters---we were having so much fun just being together that EVERYTHING was exciting!!!)

After driving around looking more at the ocean and beaches, we headed back to the Embarcadero, and since Darla was driving, she stopped us off at a Thrift Store so we could do a bit of ‘shopping’…me and Robin and Darla, and we hit a good sale. (Yay Darla!) DeeAnn and Kathy drove on over to a Dollar Store across the street to do their ‘shopping’, but we all had fun. I got myself a nice pair of athletic shoes at the thrift store, for only $3.00, and a nice pink sweater, too. Darla got herself a few items to use on her Mediterranean Cruise that was coming up the very next week. Robbie was lost from us the whole time we were in there, and she ended up not getting much at all, but Kathy and Deed came back with a bunch of dollar store ‘goodies’ for us to eat that night.

We made it back to the Bridges Restaurant at our resort, in time to take part in the half-priced “Happy Hour Appetizers”. They were SO GREAT!! We sat in that nice dining room looking out at the beautiful Bay, just as the sun was going down on the water. It was SO pretty, and our food was SO good!! Most all of us ordered a nice big shrimp cocktail, then we ordered plates of the delicious hors d'oeuvres set in front of us so we could all share them----crusted prawns with apricot dip, spring roll (egg rolls) with apricot sauce, chicken wings in a sweet & sour sauce, and something else with a cucumber dip---( I can’t remember what everything was, but I just remember it sure tasted good!)

I guess it was at this point that we picked up our crab ring to go crabbing, because the fish that was to be used for bait, had been kept cold all afternoon. We went to our room and changed our clothes and went to the private on-site crabbing dock out back of the resort, and went Crabbing. (Rob didn’t feel too good at that point, so she rested while we had this interesting adventure.) DeeAnn is the one who had purchased the crab license, but Kathy’s the one who mostly worked with the crabbing. She put the fish out into the ring and tossed the ring out in the water and we waited for 10 minutes and eagerly pulled in the ring. The crabs in the ring were too little. The ‘keepers’ had to be at least the size of a dollar bill—stretched from side to side. A man who was on the dock next to us, kept telling us the rules. I guess we were supposed to figure out the difference in a male and a female, and just keep the males, but after SEVERAL 10 minute intervals of throwing out the crab ring, bringing it in and finding no keepers, we were finally excited to find that there was now a big enough crab to save…and we didn’t care what gender it was!

There were two big pots of water sitting on gas burners, and after the harrowing experience of figuring out how to start the gas burners, we got the water to boiling, tossed in our prize crab, and ran back up to our room to grab butter---using the microwave to turn it into ‘drawn butter’ for eating our delicacy properly. One crab doesn’t feed many, but it was sufficient to whet our appetites for dinner! The whole thing was really fun, but what I think I liked best about the whole affair was the lovely NIGHT that it was! The stars were out and the moon was bright---it even had a complete circle around it---and it was just a wonderful, beautiful night! Us four sisters stood on the dock, laughing and talking and just enjoying being together in the soft lights that surrounded us. Darla was all decked out in super warm clothing---a heavy coat, a big scarf, gloves, and a hat---and the rest of us were in our jackets, cause it was such an unusually warm night. (but Darla had been there just a week or two earlier with Larry when she about froze to pieces, so she was well prepared!! J) It was really a memorable evening. I think about it often, even now.

We ran back up to our room and grabbed our swim suits and went down to the pool and went swimming. But we didn’t actually ‘swim’. A man was there who talked with DeeAnn and Darla about how great God is, and before we knew it, it got too late to do much swimming. But the dressing room was really nice and pleasant, and the sauna felt great for the few minutes we were in it. Robin had stayed up in the room, and when we got back, she was all ready for us to head out to go to dinner. It was a late dinner, but we had a really good time---eating at “Georgie’s”. The restaurant has great big windows that face the ocean, but outside lights weren’t turned on and it was too dark to see the huge waves on the sand, but we could hear ‘em. The food was delicious, and we stayed and ate and talked right up until past closing time. Robin had a rib-eye steak, Kathy had shrimp scampi, Darla had a sautéed seafood combination plate, Dee Ann had mushroom chicken, and Karen had a fried sampler platter. It was all ‘fine dining’, and we had our fill!

We went back to our room and got in our cute little “love jammies” and took pictures of ourselves, by setting the camera up on the counter-top. Then we just laughed and talked and ate and stayed up late and forgot again, to take time to watch the fun movies DeeAnn had brought.

Now what we did this next day---Thursday February 5th--- is a bit ‘hazy’ to me. The weather was very typically Oregon Coast-type rainy weather, and was not nearly as beautiful of a day as we had had before. But it was okay. Our One Day had been unseasonably beautiful, and we were happy. We ate stuff in our condo and Darla took Robin over to get her hair done at a nice beauty salon---(it was a gift from all of us to her cause she said that sounded like fun to her….) and we also took Kathy to see about getting a replacement drivers’ license so she could maybe get on the plane easier next time. (That didn’t materialize, but the guy we talked with was nice and as helpful as he could be…) I don’t remember much of what we did until Robin was finished, but when she was, we went and picked her up and drove down to the bay-front and walked along the little shops there and went in and had a delicious clam chowder lunch at Mo’s. The clam chowder truly WAS wonderful, and we walked along---going into the little shops checking out the souvenir-type items there.

Darla, DeeAnn, and Kathy enjoyed spending lots of their time at the Leather Shop, getting leather products for nice low prices. They even bought extra suitcases so they could take stuff home. Robin and I spent lots of time in a souvenir shop, picking out things to bring home to our grandkids. Later in the afternoon we started for Portland---our stay at the Coast was over. But we had made the most of it, and we were delighted that we had had that whole wonderful time there. Oh, and as we were leaving the condo, out in the parking lot we met the man that had talked in the pool about how wonderful God is to us all. He and his sister and her husband were there, and they believe strongly in family ties, so DeeAnn and Darla gave him a Book of Mormon. He seemed really happy to get it.

We arrived back in Portland at the Residence Inn we had reserved, and after a few funny episodes of trying to find the right unit, we changed our clothes and headed out to the Rheinlander for dinner. Now, this turned out to be a pretty strange experience. Over 30 years ago Dennis and Karen had been to the Rheinlander and had taken Darla there when she was a teenager. It had been a very memorable experience back then, and we figured it was going to be SUPER ENJOYABLE this time!! So Karen made a great big deal of, “Let’s be sure to get back in time to go to the Rheinlander”….and all kinds of stuff like that. Well, we made it there just fine, and it truly was a beautiful little restaurant. But the Prices were exorbitantly HIGH, and the food had names we couldn’t pronounce….so after sitting in the little booth in the cozy German setting, we eagerly got up and changed to the adjoining restaurant…..Gustav’s….where we sat in a Bar-like atmosphere, eating not-quite-as-high-priced food that had weird names that sounded “exciting” for us to give a try, but didn’t taste quite as “exciting” once we dug in. I guess we’re just not German-ish enough to appreciate Genuine Authentic bratwurst, weisswurst, sauerbraten, buttered spaetzel noodles, braised sweet & sour red cabbage, and weinerschnitzel. It all SOUNDS “exciting”, but……hmmmm. I think we were all quite “unimpressed” with how it actually tastes, so I’d like to formally apologize to all you sisters for RUINING our last night there!!! L I’m truly SORRY! It just wasn’t up to our expectations!

Actually, our night wasn’t exactly ‘ruined’….We went back to our rooms at the Residence Inn and packed us up for morning and cooked some microwave popcorn and ate other goodies and had a ‘one-last-night good time’. The nice hot breakfast bar the next morning, served in the dining area of our hotel, sure was great. We enjoyed a somewhat leisurely breakfast and headed on across town for the airport. We left nice and early and didn’t have to rush, and didn’t encounter too many problems upon arriving at the airport. People were really nice with Kathy and let her on the plane without her driver’s license just fine, (but she almost had to produce her Fishing license as proof that she wasn’t a Terrorist.) J

Our flight back to Salt Lake City was rather uneventful. We didn’t all get to sit beside each other that time, and we had to pay $25.00 per bag for that extra luggage we were taking back, but everything went fine and we didn’t have any hitches with our rides home or anything. Shortly after Kathy got back out to DeeAnn’s house, her daughter Jenni said, “I’m going to search your luggage, Mom, and find your driver’s license cause I bet you had it with you all along.” Sure enough---she did! Jenni found it in a little zipper compartment right in Kathy’s purse, and Kathy said she didn’t even know she had that zippered compartment. (Kamber says she believes that angels just come along and put those little zippers in places where they didn’t used to be…..)

Our whole “Sisters Getaway Vacation” turned out to be gloriously fun. We just LOVED being together and seeing and doing all those things. We give sincere thanks to DeeAnn (and Superior Asphalt) for footing the bill for our Embarcadero stay (and to Imperial Asphalt for our Residence Inn stay.) The generosity of those two companies helped us feel lots more at ease about affording the trip. It turned out to be SO FUN, though, that we’re already in the process of planning another getaway like this for NEXT year!! (husbands, beware!!) :) Girls-keep your eyes out for just the RIGHT place for next time. THIS time we sure had the RIGHT place, eh???!! Lots of Love to you ALL---from your Karen Sister (the Oldest!!) :