Do-Nothing Vacation

So, my birthday was last week. Craig and I decided that we needed to get away for a few days of R&R. We had been to the Inn at Spanish Head in Lincoln City, Oregon, a few years ago, and thought it would be fun to go back again. We decided to spend 2 nights (Friday and Saturday) and planned to do nothing while we were there. That meant no shopping, no sightseeing -- just staying in our room or on the beach.

Friday, we left about 9:15, stopping first at Starbucks. Then, on our way down, we stopped in Salem and visited the Circuit City, Best Buy, and Costco. Always fun to do a bit of shopping in Oregon. :-) We got to the Inn around 5:00, checked in (discovered Casey had arranged for a gift card at the Fathoms restaurant), and then headed for dinner about 5:30. What a treat to watch the sun set across the Pacific! Fathoms (on the 10th floor) has a spectacular view of the beach and water. We started our dinner with fried calamari and then moved on to a light house salad, followed by steak and potato (me) and seafood lasagna (Craig). We swapped part way through, like we always do. Then, to top everything off, we had a chocolate espresso torte. Neither one of us had room for the dessert, but couldn't refuse when we saw it (or when we found out that the restaurant hostess makes all the desserts herself). Our entire dinner was $61 -- not really a bad price at all (we've had a whole lot less food -- and some not nearly as tasty -- for a whole lot more money at other restaurants). We went back to our room (a one-bedroom suite) on the 4th floor, turned our chairs towards the floor to ceiling windows and watched the waves while we played DS Lite games for the next 6 hours. Finally, when our eyes couldn't stay open any longer, we headed for bed.

Saturday, we slept in until the sunshine coming in the floor to ceiling windows in the bedroom woke us up. We decided to try breakfast in Fathoms -- another great experience. I had smoked salmon hash (they smoke their own salmon) and eggs, and Craig had Creme Brule Stuffed French Toast. Neither one of us could finish all the food we were served. After breakfast, we went back to our room and watched one of the movies we brought with us (Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day) and then went for a walk on the beach. This weekend had some very low and high tides, with a nearly 9.5 ft. high tide (around 11 AM) and a -1.3 ft. low tide (around 5 PM). We had a great walk, being chased by some of the waves, and then decided to take a short nap. 2-1/2 hours later, we got up and decided it was time to get some dinner. This time, we decided to try two appetizers (the crab cakes and the shrimp stuffed mushrooms), split a small salad, and then have two different desserts (a lemon cheesecake with marionberry sauce and a chocolate mousse filled chocolate spongecake roll). We had fun sharing and again went away quite full. Back in our room, we played DS Lite games for another 6 hours until our eyes were too blurry to see straight.

Today, we got up around 9 AM, packed up all our stuff, checked out, and headed up the coast. Since we had come down through Salem and hadn't seen much of the coast, we thought we would go back by way of 101. In Tillamook, we could see the big blimp hangar with "Air Museum" written across its side. We had never been to the museum, so this seemed to be as good a time as any to stop (our only sightseeing this vacation). We wandered around the hangar for about an hour or so, looking at all the vintage planes and reading all the signs about the Naval Air Station at Tillamook. We've been to Pima in Arizona, and (of course) the Flight Museum in Seattle, but it seems like they all have different things to display without any real repeats. After we left Tillamook, we continued up the coast and stopped at the Starbucks in Warrenton, near Astoria, before making our final push towards. home. We got back home around 6 PM, with lots of memories of our very nice and relaxing do-nothing vacation.