A Belated Honeymoon

Well, if you're going to have a belated wedding celebration, you might as well have a belated honeymoon too, right ;)?  That's what we did, at least!  After our fun little party on Saturday, we had a regular Sunday.  Then Monday we packed up and headed to Oregon.

My husband's idea of a vacation is being home and being allowed to be lazy.

My idea of a vacation is being out of town.  Otherwise, if I'm home, I feel like I have to do stuff around the house.  Like wash dishes.

I learned that we need to compromise in the future.  Because I'm a little bit of a vacation over-achiever -- if you will.  Or, as my dad likes to call me, a dictator.  I try to cram as much into a little amount of time as possible.  And so I planned for us to go to Tillamook, OR (because Jeremy and I both love cheese and he hadn't been there) and to Crater Lake, because neither of us had been there and I have had it on my list for many years.  And, based on Google maps, I thought it seemed do-able in 3 days.  And that's where I'm a bit of an over-achiever.  (I did this before when I planned a trip to Seattle when I lived in Alabama.  In my mind, travel time does not account for much ;)).  So anyway, in the end, highway 101, while quite scenic and pretty, was not "only 8 minutes longer" like Google maps suggested.  And it's way windy and curvy and uphill a lot.  And by the time we reached Roseburg on Tuesday, we knew we wouldn't be doing Crater Lake.  Because that alone was another 2 to 3 hour drive one way.  And since we took Jeremy's car -- and it's a stick -- he drove all of it.  I can drive a stick.  But I'm not well-skilled anymore.  It probably wouldn't have gone well on all those Oregonian hills ;).

So we went to Tillamook and Roseburg.  And it was still pretty lovely a time.  And here's the run-down!

We got into Tillamook Monday evening and checked into the same motel where my mom and I stayed 2 years ago.  I like that motel. It's roomy and clean, and I really have no complaints.  We went and bought Subway for dinner, and returned to the room to eat.  Then we relaxed for the evening and enjoyed a good night's rest.  We took our time getting ready in the morning and checked out close to 11 (which was check-out time).  Of course, we took advantage of the continental breakfast -- and vacation food is allowed to be unhealthy :).  We headed to Tillamook Cheese Factory and took our first picture.  Can you tell the sun is in our faces?

We got inside and found our next great photo op.  The VW baby loaf!  Prior to us climbing in there, it was populated by a bunch of kids.  But hey...  You have to do these types of things!  Much thanks to the kind gentleman who took our picture for us :).  And just in case you can't tell, I was even wearing my Tillamook shirt that declares "Life is Cheesy, eat it up."  Love that shirt.

So we took the tour.  Jeremy thoroughly enjoyed watching the plant process of cutting and packaging the cheese.  I think it's the engineer in him.  It really is quite cool, and you would not believe the amount of cheese that comes out of there...  It's a cheese-lover's dream.  And I'm a cheese-lover :).  So, the last thing I would expect while I'm at the cheese factory in Oregon is for my name to be called out by anyone other than my husband, who was with me and by my side.  But, that's what happened!  Someone from here was down for a family reunion and we managed to both be at the same place at the same time!  It's weird to have that happen, let me tell you! 

After we meandered around looking into the factory windows, we headed downstairs to the cheese samples.  Very important part of the tour.  We enjoyed cheese curds (squeaky cheese), medium cheddar, white cheddar, pepper jack, colby, and -- our favorite -- garlic white cheddar.  That stuff is awesome.  We proceeded into the store part, where we purchased some chili pepper garlic slices.  And some mint fudge.  And then it was on to the fabulous cafe.  Where, of course, we had to get some grilled cheese sandwiches!  But Jeremy likes food.  And he can afford it!  So we got a plate of macaroni and cheese as well :).  We shared the mac & cheese.  It was all delicious!  See :). 

I couldn't eat much of the mac and cheese, because I wanted to save room for ice cream.  We each got a scoop before leaving.  I got Tillamook Mudslide (which has a thick ribbon of chocolate in chocolate ice cream... Oh my is it good!) and Jeremy got a scoop of Udderly Chocolate, which has white and regular chocolate mixed, with flakes of chocolate.  And some guy, who was waiting for his wife to shop in the gift store, struck up conversation with us.  He told Jeremy not to eat too much of that, or he'd end up like this guy did...  We learned he was a retired state trooper who worked in California and Washington.  We also learned he was willing to give people 6 miles over the speed limit and that he only pulled people over for doing stupid things (which didn't include not using a turn signal to switch lanes).  Funny what you learn while eating ice cream at Tillamook.

And then we were on the road.  Headed South.  We opted to take the 101, because Jeremy like the beach and wanted to stop by the beach for a bit.  And we found a great spot to do so!  As we walked out onto the beach, we rounded a corner and saw this little island sitting right in the middle of the vista.  It was beautiful!  And chilly, with the wind.  Which is why you will see I was wearing Jeremy's sweater.

After a few failed attempts, I finally managed to get a decent picture of us with a pretty background.

And we waded in the ocean a bit.  It was really cold at first (but what do you expect for Oregon coastline?).  The tide started coming in as we were out wading.

But what a cutie ;).  He loved this.

On the island thingy, there was this little tunnel.  I managed to rock-climb (with Jeremy's help) up to the tunnel thing.  I told him, after that harrowing experience (I have tender feet and I'm sorta wimpy...), I was getting a picture to prove I'd survived!  So here are a couple.

Behind us is the other way out.  Which looked a lot less treacherous to me.  So I told him we were leaving by that route.  The problem with that route?  Well, it went straight into the water (whether the river or the ocean, didn't matter).  And it was deep.  We tried to find a way around that would prevent us (especially me) from getting wet above our knees.  'Twas an impossibility.  And I finally just said. "Let's just go."  And I crossed -- with cell phone held safely above my head -- in upper-thigh-deep water.  See?  And, of course, my feet got caked with sand -- now that they were really wet.  And my pants came un-rolled and started picking up sand as well.  And I said to Jeremy, "I hate sand.  You know that, right?"  Haha.  That is love, people.  That is love ;).

And here I am trying to get all the sand off me in the fresh water, before going back to the car.  Jeremy was safe-guarding my camera at the time, and I had no idea he was taking these pictures...

Well, until now.

Anyway, it was really pretty.  And I was able to change clothes so I was dry for the remainder of our drive.  And we made great memories.  And life's about that :).  As the day wore on, the driving got old.  We missed a turn in the crummy town of Reedsport, where they do not use "traditional" road signage.  We had to turn around and drive around the Southern edge of the city, looking for our way east.  Thankfully we found it.  Now, I'd had pictures of our hotel in Roseburg.  And I'm a city girl, so it looked on the up-and-up to me.  We had google mapped that as well, based on the address they had sent me in my hotel reservation confirmation.  We were prepared!  And so we went driving into the back roads of Oregon -- where there weren't any gas stations.  (Thankfully that never was an issue for us, but I'm just trying to paint a picture for you :)).  We found our roads.  We were excited.  We turned onto our last road, which we only had to take for .6 miles.  And let me tell you, I was getting a little worried.  As we drove down that road -- slowly, I said to Jeremy, "Aren't you getting a little worried?  I mean, I expected it to look a little less rural."  Because we were in farm country.  Seriously.  People were feeding their horses and cows (and probably wondering who the heck was driving down their one-lane country road).  Jeremy laughed and said, "What is there to worry about?  This is America's Best Value!"  (We were staying in America's Best Value hotel).  He thinks he's so funny.  We went more than .6 miles -- and the scenery didn't change.  It was about that time we decided that we had something wrong.  And I called the hotel.  (Thank goodness we had cell phone reception!).  Well, it turned out the hotel didn't even have their address right when they sent me that confirmation.  There's a big difference between "road" and "blvd."  Road is rural.  Blvd is not.  We got back on the main road, and it did dump us into Roseburg proper.  And the city girl in my heaved a huge sigh of relief :).  Of course, we went from one extreme to the other, because we were right on the interstate.  We heard the traffic all night long.  Oh well.  So we decided, upon getting in at 8 that night, that we didn't want to drive another 4 to 6 hours the next day plus however long a drive it would be from the hotel to my Aunt Sue's house.  Because, since we were down that way, we figured we should stop by to visit.  So instead, we slept a lot on Wednesday and then headed out to my Aunt's around 2.  Ironically enough, we had passed her road on the way in.  Haha...  And she lives way out in a log cabin.  So we got there and visited for about 5 hours.  It was really nice and she cooked us a delicious tri-tip on the grill with twice-baked potatoes and fresh garden peas.  And apple pie for dessert :).  It was relaxing, and I managed to get some sun while sitting out on their deck and visiting :).  And we made sure to take a picture before we left.  We left about 8:20 -- got kicked out by Aunt Sue and Uncle Ernie, because driving in the back country where the deer and elk play is not ideal around twilight.  They like to come down to the river -- which was on our right side the entire way almost.  So we headed back to the hotel and wound down for the night. 

Thursday dawned, and we ate breakfast (continental, but not nearly as good as the one in Tillamook) and then packed up.  We spent the next 5 hours on the road, headed to Jeremy's brother's house.  We stayed with his brother and family Thursday night and it was really enjoyable.  It was fun to get to know them better and to sit and visit and share opinions and thoughts :).  And it was relaxing.  Well, except for the part where Jeremy was trying to prove he could eat a hamburger in one bite -- and he started choking.  That wasn't so relaxing (read: scared me to nearly to death).  His sister-in-law made some yummy zucchini bread for breakfast.  We were up at 6 in the morning for some unknown reason, but we were able to see his brother off to work and visit a lot with his sister-in-law before all the kids got up.  So we laughed and joked and had fun.  And then went to a garage sale looking for a food processor (unsuccessful).  And by about 11:40 we were back on the road headed home.  We stopped off at his parents' house and visited with them for a couple hours.  That was nice too.  We got home and took a much needed nap after we unloaded the car.  Then we got ready to go out to eat.  (Who wants to cook when you come back from vacation?).  We went to this place we love, only this time, instead of getting pizza, we got pasta.  It was good.  We really like that place.  We came home and basically turned in for the night.  We were exhausted!  You know the saying:  need a vacation from the vacation!  And so next time, I will probably provide for that and have us leave earlier for vacation so we have a couple days to recuperate on the return end...

Because today has been trying to get ready for Monday.  Blah.  Laundry and fixing bikes and noticing my back tire is low -- have to fix that, and shopping for food and...  You get the picture.  YUCK.  But at least we made some memories :).

And okay, so I promised another sample question from our questionnaire.  Here goes.  You can feel free to leave your answer in the comments!

What is the ideal amount of time Hila should bake a bun in the oven?

Happy guessing!