Mimmsical Creations

Well, my last news was exciting - Mike was eligible. (We were led to think that if he was eligible, he would get the job...) But this misleading information was untrue. Although he was eligible, he was not hired (nor even interviewed!) for the job. We were quite upset and sad on Thursday (I started writing this post on Friday, and never finished!) He got the news mid-morning. So... the job hunt continues. We're researching other options for getting ourselves moved out to Oregon. My bosses continue to be supportive of me! That helps immensely!

Well... enough of that bad news. Here's more about our trip!

On our second day at the coast, we didn't go too far mileage-wise. We found a beach called Agate Beach and we stayed there for a couple hours (or more) and walked the shoreline. The weather was still sunny and warm - the water was COLD! We had lunch and then decided we'd find a hotel on the coast since we were already tired for that day. Well, did we ever find an amazing place!! Near Yachats, OR there is a place called the Overleaf Lodge. I can say I HIGHLY recommend this hotel. It was truly five-star! We got a good rate (more than we'd normally spend, but worth every penny!) on a third story suite with a balcony overlooking the coast. And not just any coast - a very rocky and beautiful stretch of coast!! We could hear the waves crashing in our room! We had naps that afternoon to the sound of the ocean and slept that night so deeply with the sea air and sounds!

More pictures at flickr!

Yachats itself is a tiny town, but we found an amazing restaurant there called the Drift Inn. Truly gourmet food, and a wonderful wine list! They even have live music most every night. We wound up eating there that first night and the next as well! It was so enjoyable (and yummy)!

We drove further south the next day to Coos Bay and North Bend and then Bandon. The towns themselves weren't all that impressive, pretty run down and depressed. We did quite a bit of driving around the towns seeing what was what! We came across another really great restaurant find in Coos Bay - a mediterranean place that had just amazing food! Yum! (I had a gyro, but I "regret" not trying something a little more unique. I was coveting Mike's schewerma! {sp?})

Our favorite place of our last trip was Coquille Point, near Bandon. It is beautiful, of course, but our previous find of the Overleaf and its coast made it less spectacular somehow. We didn't stay on the coast long because it was COLD!

We then drove inland to Eugene, Corvallis, and Salem (and Portland a little bit) We spent some time in each town driving around again and finding the houses we saw in the paper for rent. It was a great way to see the neighborhoods.

We like Eugene and Salem OK, but we really loved Corvallis! It's much smaller than either of the other towns, and it has kind of a "hippy" feel to it! That's the town we're hoping for now! (But many of the others will do as well!) Salem felt too big to me. It's not that much bigger than here, but it feels more like a big city! We'd "make it work" though! Portland is too big. Neither of us like it very well. I have never lived in a truly BIG city, and it's scary!

This trip was truly wonderful. We got a needed vacation, but we also did some needed research. We learned that we truly DO want to move out to Oregon! We both love the grey, rainy weather! We're ready, now all we have to do is get a job for Mike figured out! Anyone know a town that needs a reiki master?

I'm working on uploading photos! But, I took a ton, so it's slow going!!

The first part of our trip to Oregon was east of Portland to the Columbia River gorge! We headed directly for Multnomah Falls. It is truly a breathtaking waterfall!! I am blown away by it each time! It is 620 feet tall and the water just absolutely crashes down! It was running VERY full on this visit, so was even more impressive if that's possible!

We spent an hour or more just taking it all in! We got quite soaked from the spray from the falls! It was a very hot day (95 degrees+, very unusual I guess!) so the spray was welcome!

We then headed a few more miles down the gorge to The Dalles where we stayed for the night. We found a Mexican restaurant where we had eaten on our last trip - really yummy food!! (They had actually moved, so we couldn't find them right off, but wound up there!)

The next morning we headed back west (making our way to the coast) and took the time to drive the gorgeous Historic Columbia River highway! This takes you back along the hills and several other waterfalls! We saw Horsetail Falls, Wahkeena, and we hiked the short way back to see the Bridal Veil Falls. It was so amazingly gorgeous the whole way! All of the falls were spectacular. We timed it right! They were running pretty full and fast because of the spring run-off!

Then we made our way to the coast - I believe we met the ocean near Astoria. We stopped at several places we remembered from our first trip! It is so beautiful no matter where you stop and look! I absolutely do love the Oregon coast! (And it wasn't stinky this year - there were dead jelly fish last time because of a storm and it was smelly!) We stayed the first night in Lincoln City. We had an amazing dinner here - recommended by our hotel. It was a restaurant with an ocean view where I was able to get some truly yummy fish! (It was halibut encrusted with macadamia nuts, on top of garlic mashed potatoes, smothered with dungeness crab and parmesan cheese, and a sherry clam sauce. Wow! So unique and totally yummy!!!)

I'll continue with the story tomorrow - if you want to see more (MANY more) pictures - I'm uploading them to my flickr. There will be more, but I've got a good start at uploading them!

And in other news!! Mike is eligible for the job in Salem!!! WHOO HOO!! We're hoping he'll hear more news tomorrow. If he gets this, things are going to move at a whirlwind rate - like we'll be moved in six weeks! Yikes!! I'll keep you posted!

More stories and photos tomorrow!

We're headed off tomorrow morning for Oregon. This is a combo vacation/searching to move trip. We're going to spend time in Portland, Salem and the small towns along the coast - all with an eye to moving to OR!

Be back in a week or so with trip updates (and maybe wedding details - as I'm sure we'll discuss more on our trip!!)

I am slow on the uptake! I am finally just now getting my photos from my trip to visit sisters in AR uploaded!

My best friend Andrea and I left on Saturday morning to go visit my sisters in Siloam Springs, Arkansas! We flew into Tulsa, OK and drove the hour or so to their town.

I'll have loads of photos and stories to share, but for now... my green shoes! A wonderful vacation treat that I bought for me! :) I knew I would obsess about them if I didn't go ahead and buy them. Now I want to get my tattoo re-touched because it looks so cool with my new shoes!

Really, the bulk of our vacation is focused on the ocean. I truly LOVED being so near the ocean that I could hear it all the time. And walk near it whenever I wanted to. We drove and saw other stuff, but all I wanted was to get back to the ocean!

We found a couple of local restaurants that we just loved, and we returned more than once during our week! The first is Whitey's - a local diner where we had breakfast three times! It is down-home, southern cooking and so yummy. I don't like grits, but I ordered grits two of the three days they were so good! And the country ham, don't even get me started! YUM! The waitresses were so friendly, and the food so good - we just had to return!

The other place that we tried and returned to was Flaming Amy's Burrito Barn. YUMMY! The slogan is "Hot, Fast, Cheap, and Easy" - true, and funny! They have a special on Tuesday - show them your tattoo and get 10% off, so we went back on Tuesday! :) Yummy combinations, and excellent homemade salsas - my favorite being Ginger Peach!! I highly recommend stopping if you get a chance!

We also immensely enjoyed some seafood (well, I did anyway, Mike had chicken!) and a great pizza place both visited with Mike's brother and sister-in-law, Jeff and Geeta (they live in Wilmington where Jeff is a professor). The Mellow Mushroom (I didn't get a picture!) is a fantastic little hippy joint of a pizza place. SO good!! We had the Kosmic Karma - pesto, sundried tomatoes, feta... you get the picture!

Other than food... we went to the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher. It was a very enjoyable way to spend a couple hours! I liked the jelly fish the best! So pretty and crazy.

We made the decision to go ahead and drive to Shenandoah National Park, even though we both wanted to stay by the ocean! My feet were quite sore from walking barefoot on the sand, so driving for a while wasn't a bad idea, plus - it was the PERFECT time of year to head into that area. And we were right - the trees were amazing!! I'm glad that we went ahead with our original plan. We'll definitely go back to our place at Wrightsville! It was just perfect!

I didn't like Virginia as much as North Carolina. The feel wasn't as friendly. The views were amazing though. The drive along Skyline Drive in the park was spectacular! We even saw two bears. (I saw both... Mike only saw the cub that we almost ran into with our rental car! The other one was while we were walking on a trail. It was BIG, but thankfully running away from us in a hurry! We went back to the car immediately though!!) I couldn't get a picture of either unfortunately. I took a ton of photos of the trees, but I'll only put a couple here. Go check out flickr for more! :)

Pshew! We arrived safely home last night from our trip to North Carolina (and Virginia).

All-in-all, it was a wonderful vacation! It started on a not so good note with the air travel last Saturday, and ended with another rather unpleasant flight, but the between was great!

First off - never fly AirTran airlines! It was a bit cheaper, but not worth it! After we were pushed back from the gate Saturday morning, we returned right back to the gate. After about 20 minutes of sitting (and wondering) we were told by the pilot that an "eyebrow" window was shattered and the plane wasn't air worthy... So, off the plane we go. And then we wait, and we wait, and we wait some more... for info about when we'll be leaving again... FINALLY, we are rescheduled to leave at 3:40 p.m. (our original flight was 11:40) and we finally make it to Atlanta, and then Raleigh at about midnight. It was a terribly LONG day, and boy, were we glad to arrive... (Mind you - I was glad the broken window was discovered before we took off, but the way the aftermath was handled was unpleasant to say the least!)

Finding a hotel was the next order of business... come to find out it is the NC State Fair and everything is full! Yikes!!!! We took the one over-priced room we could find and literally crashed! We decided the next day to go ahead and head for Wilmington to get away from the busy-ness of state fair! We spent much of the morning and afternoon at Duke University walking through the gardens. Wow! So amazing! I'm just in awe of the green-ness of this area! Vines, trees, ferns, moss, everywhere! Something I haven't seen a lot of living in Colorado!!

Duke was impressive to say the least. I took so many photos of the chapel. The architecture was stunning. We drove onto campus just in time to hear the bells at noon too! We left in time to make it to the coast at Wrightsville Beach just around sunset! We made a beeline for the shore! When we returned to our car, I realized we were parked right in front of a hotel I'd researched online! I hadn't made reservations because I couldn't tell what it was really like. Well - it was really amazing!! So, we rented a room - well, a suite really! For $69 a night, we rented a wonderful suite at the Sandpeddler Motel right next to the ocean!! WHOO HOO! It was about as close to perfect as it comes! We had an ocean view from our balcony and could hear the waves crashing! LOVED it!!

I've decided that waking up and hearing the ocean right out your door is just about the best thing. And then taking a walk on the beach before breakfast - even better! That's what we did every morning!

I'm going to have more to share, but that's it for tonight!! I'll be back with more and more pictures!! You can see all of our trip photos at my flickr.

(Alternate title: Learning about pretty new places in the state I've lived in since birth....)

Mike and I took the day off on Thursday to go into the mountains with his dad and step-mom (Jim and Bev). When we were planning this, Jim told us he wanted to go to the Maroon Bells. Now, I've lived in Colorado my whole life, but I'd never heard of them... Turns out they are gorgeous - totally worth seeing - BUT, VERY far from home, and a very long one-day trip!

We started out at about 8 a.m. and headed for Aspen which is the nearest town to the Maroon Bells. Aspen is also somewhere I've never been. I hear about it - isn't that where all the celebrities hang out in Colorado? It is a really gorgeous town, and I'm sure the skiing is wonderful (although, I wouldn't know this either, since I've never skiied... I know... I'm a native Coloradoan, I should be an expert... yeah, whatever!) Mapquest tells me that it should take FOUR hours to get to Aspen... well.... yeah, in a perfect world. Add in that wonderful summer phenomenon in Colorado - Road Construction - and it took more like SIX hours! Yikes!

Once there, you catch a shuttle bus into the Wilderness area - which is great - no car traffic is allowed in order to preserve it. I like this idea actually. They scare you though with stories of missing the last bus down - I can tell you I didn't like the idea of being left behind!!

It is truly a gorgeous area. We spent about an hour wandering around taking photos and enjoying the relative silence (save for some rumbles of thunder....) and the amazing views. The lighting was a little odd because of the clouds rolling in, so the maroon color of the Maroon Bells wasn't as bright as would normally be. It started raining pretty good, so we caught the second-to-last bus back to our car at that point! We're at our car ready to head home at about 4:30 p.m. with a six hour drive ahead of us... again... YIKES! And it rained - and rained hard - we're talking torrents of water, water standing on the road - cars ahead of us spinning out of control and losing their bumpers in the road... yeah, fun rain. I was glad Jim was driving (I'm not sure he was at all happy about this though!)

We made it to Dillon - about 3 hours from home and had dinner at the Dam Brewery - yummy! We headed out on dry roads and made it to Jim and Bev's at 11 p.m. Mike and I headed out from there - and guess what? More road construction - we were delayed a bit more as we both tried to keep our eyes open - wishing for bed!

All in all though, in spite of the long drives, the rain, etc., it was a nice day. I would highly recommend going up to see the Maroon Bells for yourself if you're ever here! It's beautiful. I would suggest, however, making it a TWO day event, rather than one! :) Now here is a collage of the photos of the day. You can see them all over at my flickr.