So here goes the account of our Oregon trip... We came to Portalnd last Friday at about midnight, and for that night slept in a hotel, which was quite nice. The next morning we set out for Brookings, which, per Mike's description, is the most beautiful city in Oregon, with gorgeous ocean and views and just the best place on earth. Brookings is about 350 miles from Portland, so it's a LONG drive. So on Saturday we did about half of that distance (took us till about 7 p.m. at night, from about 9 a.m. in the morning, with couple stops on the way) - and then finally, totally exhousted, entered a camp site (which are actually all over Oregon). Camp site is basically an area where ppl set out their tents, it has a wooden table and that's about it. Everyone gets their own private site, it cost only $11 per nite, so not expensive. Since it was weekend the site was almost full, we got the very last one, the smallest one in a worst location (right by the garbage ;). But ok, we set out a tent and made a fire and I was so tired I really couldn't eat anything anyway, so we just sat by a fire a bit and then went to sleep. In about an hour - I just started to fall asleep! - we heard some weird rustling near the tent. It didn't stop for a while so finally Mike got out and apparently there was some guy, a biker, who just like that started to set up his tent near ours on our campsite!!! And of course Mike being Mike said oh that's okay, no problem. I got rather mad to tell the truth, b/c it's pitch dark, he doesn't really know who this person is, we have valuables with us, and this dude could totally kill us in the middle of the night! Call me paranoid, but you totally don't know. So I took all my blankets and pillow, went inside our car and locked all the doors. So yeah, first camping night I slept in a car. It was rather uncomfortable but I figured the dude had less chances to break into a locked car than into our little tent which takes nothing to break. Nothing really happened, but it still wasn't the most pleasant night.

The next day, we continued driving to Brookings, and finally made it at about 4 p.m. on Sunday. What can I say. The most gorgeous city in the world turned out to be a tiny little town, more like a village ;) by my standards - it really was nowhere, had nothing in it civilization-wise, and yes, there was ocean. Mind you, the tempereature in Brookings was steadily 10 degrees lower than the rest of Oregon, so we had to wear sweaters all time through. The ocean was nice, with huge rocks inside it (kind of like sticking out of the ocean) - however, it was very gloomy, covered with clouds, and we haven't seen the sun the whole time at all. So for the next few days we hanged out in Brookings. Mike kept on saying how gorgeous it is, and how it has "all kinds of different beaches." So we went to all those beaches, where the differences were that one was a sand beach while the other was more like a gravel beach. Other than that, I didn't see huge differences. However, the major highlight of the trip was when I found a huge field full of wild strawberries! Mike never had it before btw, so we had a ball collecting it - we got a huge jar!!, and it was quite delicious. For food, we went to grocery store in Brookings - considering there was really nothing else, they just had one grocery store, and one Taco Bell for restaurants ;) So we cooked steaks on fire, stuff like that. I don't know, for some reasons I didn't have any appetite this whole trip, somehow I barely could eat. We also went and saw Red Woods - it was unbelievably pretty - huge tall trees, just like in some fairy tale ;)

So after 3 uneventful days in Brookings, on Thursday we set out to go to the lodge which Mike rented - which actually was in Washington, and distance wise was about 350 miles as well! So once again we spent Thursday driving, went about half-way, and stopped at the city of Newport, Oregon. Newport is a small town as well, but unlike Brookings it's more tourist-oriented, and is kind of almost hippie - half the small stores sell tie dies, and just really funky stuff ;) So we had a ball just going around little shops - there was one shop called "Everything Cats" ;) where every item in the store had to do with cats - dishes, cards, cat toys, you name it! We got a very funny looking salad bowl with cats on it. ;) We slept in a hotel taht night b/c after another 8 hours of driving I said that's it, I need a bed! It was nice to be able to take a hot shower as well ;) Then on Friday we continued on driving and came to Lake View in Washington. The lodge was gorgeous! It was huge, just like on pictures ;) The hostess showed us around, and it's like a huge farm with a lake. They have horses and cows, and two huge German shepherds, which were actually nice. So we both took a long nap and then at night D. and D.G., and couple of their friends showed up. We had a nice little dinner on Friday night and anyway, both Friday and Saturday were nice and relaxing. Went on the beach on Saturday which also was rather cold but at least a bit of sun showed through ;) Saturday night we watched the sunset, which was nice. Then we had to leave very early on Sunday morning to drive back to Portland for our flight. That was another 4 hour drive... after which we checked in, were selected for extensive search, so they went through every single of our bags and searched us as well. Guess we looked suspicious. Finally we got back on a plane and after another 4 hours were home. So to conclude, basically 3 days out of our vacation we spent in a car. Brookings was cold and boring. Only the red woods and strawberries were ok ;) Lodge was nice.

Of course I'll never go to Oregon again. But I'm glad we finally got Mike's dream fulfilled. Hope that the next trip will be mine though, and hope it will be somewhere in Europe! ;)