Day 2 :: 22 January 2007 :: Philomath to Crescent City, CA
aka "California, here we come!"
Parts of this leg of the trip were rather familiar, as we'd just done them in October when we did the Southern Oregon lighthouses tour with Lorre and Will. Plus, I'd done much of this trip from Philomath when Lorre and I took a Spring Break road trip to San Francisco back in 2000. We stopped in briefly to gaze upon the Heceta Head lighthouse and take a couple of pictures. This also meant that we stopped at the vista point around the inlet to get more pictures…and see the sea lions again. I really do love that part. Probably 200 or so sea lions all on the rocks sunning themselves or playing/hunting in the surf. What a lovely cacophony of cries, too. I never get tired of that sound.
We also stopped by the Umpqua lighthouse again. The gift shop there is a deadly place, and we spent a good bit of money. But we also got a lighthouse passport book finally, so I could start collecting stamps from my lighthouse visits. I've wanted to do that for a long time, but never really had the impetus to do it. Going down to see California lighthouses seemed like the right impetus, all right. *hee* We also got a couple of smaller lighthouse statues for our collection, which is growing by leaps and bounds. I'm quite chuffed and can't wait to actually get the collection up for display.
Anyway, after Umpqua, we headed down for a nice breakfast in Yachats at a place called Leroy's Blue Whale diner. The waitress was quite nice and the food was fabulous, so I chose to use this situation to fulfill one of the items on my 101 in 1001 list. We gave her a 50% tip [a little bit more than 50% actually], and it wasn't only because our entire bill was like $12 either. Like I said, she was very nice and attentive, and the food was fabulous.
We also got to stop in at a bead store. Yeah, you heard me. A bead store called Sweet Creek Creations in Florence, OR. We spent another lovely chunk of change on a variety of glass and semi-precious beads, for ourselves and for Mayme. Got their card, as they're online, too. We'll be purchasing from them in the future again. My major find in this store? A strand of denim sapphire beads from Malawi, Africa. I'll so be working with those in the very near future…
We also saw several herons alongside the road. This is not surprising, really. We like seeing herons, and they tend to be a good harbinger of a good trip for me. Ever so appropriate…