B-Day Weekend

What a great weekend.  I took Friday off work and Heidi and I drove down during the afternoon.  When we arrived at the Heceta Head Lighthouse, after a short 3 hour drive, it was raining hard.  Because of the rain it was hard to appreciate the view of the ocean from the road as it S-curved all over to get there.  I was hoping it wasn't going to rain all weekend but if it did, enjoy it anyway.

Our room was excellent.  This is my 3rd stay in a bed & breakfast and I'm liking them over hotels.  We had our own bathroom.  The bed was a cool four poster bed high off the ground.  It had a step stool to get into it.  We stayed in Victoria's Room.  It was supposed to be haunted.  There was this guest log with a bunch of entries from people who saw ghosts, or just proposed marriage, or just had a great weekend.  We didn't write anything in it.  I will say that although I was hoping to see something ghostly I didn't.  But I did have strange dreams both Friday and Saturday night which the log did mention people had.

Here's a view of the lighthouse from the lightkeepers house (the bed and breakfast).  It's just a short 5 minute walk away.  Like the nice white picket fence?

So after we settled in the room Friday we checked out the house and then went out for dinner in the small town of Yachats (YAH-hots) about 11 miles north of the lighthouse B&B.  Chicken pot pie, a guy playing guitar, and a fireplace.  Later that night it was a flashlight walk up to the lighthouse.

The next morning, and this is the best part of a B&B, you get to have a nice breakfast.  This place goes way over the top and the breakfast is seven (7) courses!  It takes about 1 hour 30 minutes and it's well worth it.  It's also nice getting to talk to the people staying there.  It feels more comfortable than the antiseptic feeling of staying in a hotel chain.

Here's the table we all ate at.  Those cold disks are called 'chargers'.  Which I never knew until that weekend...

Thankfully it was a nice sunny day so we drove about 1/2 mile south to the Sea Lion Caves.  They were all out enjoying the day so there were none to see in the cave.  We did see several out in the water though.

After that we picked up some cheese, crackers, and sausage and settled on the couch at the lighthouse and did some reading in the afternoon in front of the fireplace.  This was the view out the window...

 Later that evening we went back into Yachats for dinner.  We found this really cool place called the Drift Inn for some fish and chips.  They have live music every night.  We ended up buying the CD for the 3 guys playing that night.  Ukrainian music.  The guy playing the violin was great.  I find out later that it's a family affair.  His dad plays the guitar and made, that's right, hand-made, the violin, that his son is playing.  Their website isn't up yet but perhaps it'll be someday and this link, Zach Konowalchuk & the Pieces of Eight, will be active.  I took a little video.

The next morning we had another great 7 course breakfast, took a little tour of the house to learn about the history and then headed home.  We drove up the coast abit, which I'm always completely awed at.  I guess when you grow up living in WI/IL you can't help but marvel at the waterfalls shooting out the side of mountain into the ocean.  Hopefully Heidi doesn't get tired of me shouting, "Holy sh*t, look at that!  Way cool."

We stopped at a state park along the way, I forget the name, to look for whales and learn about the local history.  I liked the "Bear Country" sign... of course it doesn't say anything about the Cougar / Mountain Lion population. .. They think the disappearance of one of the cats at the lighthouse is due to one...

As usual more pics here.  I took some movies which I'll upload as well.

Later