His first suggestion was Japanese Gardens, and I wasn't disappointed. It was the perfect day for something like this. Many of the trees started flowering, and everything was lush and green. There was a mix of dark clouds and sun which just had a stunning effect on everything. I brought my umbrella, but it turned out to be completely unnecessary. The pictures will speak for themselves. I was able to get so many lovely photos, I just can't share them all.
Isn't it lovely here? I have at least 20 more photos of the gardens, but I had to pick and choose a wide variety. I have some videos too...
Part 2:
The most interesting thing about the Japanese gardens for me was the planning involved. Each tree, each path, each smaller garden was planned so precisely and so beautifully. If you ever hit Portland and the weather is nice, it's worth a few hours to stop and see it.
Next I headed down town to have some lunch. My friend suggested I check out the Portland City Grille for a good panoramic view of the city. It's located on the 30th floor of a bank tower (forgot the exact name), and it was indeed a lovely view. We were getting those same dark fluffy clouds mixed with sun. It was a challenge to take photos because the dirty windows were getting a bit of a glare, but I took a few...
The menu was quite nice- a bit on the pricey-side for lunch, but I can see it being a nice place for a business lunch. I didn't mind the splurge for a lovely view. Actually, they even had a business lunch section with 3 courses for $15 and $5 glasses of wine. That's really not bad, and the selection looked good, but I was eying(??? that spelling seems right but looks wrong to me) the crab cakes on the appetizer menu. I wasn't sure they would be enough, so I ordered a spicy tuna roll off the sushi menu.
Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo of the spicy tuna roll. It was quite massive. I have a large mouth, but these were too much. I hate having to bite into a sushi roll, but this one was impossible to tackle otherwise. Fortunately, it was well-made and held together despite having to eat it in two bites.
I did get a photo of the crab cakes:
They were excellent! Mostly crab, and completely delicious. Totally worth the $15 for which I could have ordered a complete business lunch. The sauce is a kind of vinaigrette which was also excellent with a bit of a kick. I highly recommend these.
Here's the view I was talking about. I got a few more photos, but you can see me in all of them through the window glare. This one is really subtle and I liked it. Can you spot my face?
After lunch, I headed back to the car and left Portland. I started south on 5 and then cut over on route 20 to route 101 planning to find a hotel a little bit south along the coast.
I reached the Pacific coast in Newport around 5:00pm, and I was ecstatic. It felt like a road trip milestone... from one coast to the other. I watched this video after the fact, and unfortunately a little cell phone camera does nothing to capture how pretty it was. The video does capture my mood driving along... I couldn't have been happier.
I was tempted to camp since there were a few state park campgrounds open with spaces, and plenty of other people for safety, but the state park just wasn't far enough south, and I didn't have enough cash on me. I arrived in the small town of Bandon, Or, and began looking for a hotel. I couldn't find anything under $53 plus tax. I was tempted to just take what I could find, but it was just too much. I sat in the parking lot at one of these hotels and used their wifi to find a cheaper hotel. Nothing really came up within a hundred miles. Even the Motel 6 was $45 plus tax, plus their $2.99 wifi charge and I would have had to drive an extra hour.
The woman at the desk of one of the hotels said that it would be difficult to find cheaper than $53 at this time of year. This surprised me because no one was full- vacancies absolutely everywhere. If someone showed up offering to pay up to $45 at 9:00 at night, and I had empty rooms in my independent motel, I would think it would be smart to take it... especially if a room only cost $53 plus tax to begin with, but the rates were rigid. Unfortunately, so was my budget. I won't always be staying in hotels, but there are many stops where I won't know anyone. If I spend an average of $40 per night at hotels and stay 30 nights (perhaps that's a high number of nights, but that cost is a pretty low average hotel rate), I'm still spending $1200 just on places to sleep. That's a lot for someone on a small budget without a job and a very finite amount of money saved. So it had to be less than $50.
I decided to keep driving. I passed an expensive looking place, but the further I got away from the touristy "historic" town center, the more promising it looked. I ran into a quirky-looking place called the Shooting Star Motel. You can see what I mean by quirky right here on their website: http://www.shootingstarmotel.com/. The man who ran it was a super nice guy who just seemed really happy that I stopped in to stay there. He gave me a great deal straight away (he included the tax in the $45 rate). He gave me the choice of three rooms, and said "this is an older motel, but we keep it clean". The floor and bathroom did look really clean, and I was happy with it. Free Wifi, too.
When I said the guy running the place was super nice, I mean he went overboard (he may have been of middle eastern descent... I thought so, but I can't be sure). He kept offering me food when he discovered I had been driving a long way. He assured me it was safe there knowing I was traveling solo. He even offered to have me over for some dinner and said he had chicken in the oven. When I politely declined even his offer for pound cake, he said, "Well I need to give you something. How about something to drink?". He then offered me about everything in his fridge. I finally agreed on an orange crush, and he gave me directions to a place where I could do takeout and the local grocery store. It reminded me in some ways of Moroccan hospitality, and it was welcome for a weary traveler.
Stay tuned for my trip the next day through the Redwood National Forest, and my stay in Sunnyvale, CA.
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