Dec. 18, 2015---down the Oregon coast to Perpetua.
Technically we still have an oceanview, we're just farther from it then in the phase 1 units.  This was the view from our balcony.

 I did walk down to the fence to get a better view.  Even saw some tiny ground cover blooming.

Right down from the cliff in the bay were a couple seals.  One was really making a lot of noise.

 The other was obviously injured.  Wonder if it had an encounter with a great white shark?

I watched them for awhile and more and more of them made their way up onto the rock.

 another view into the bay area. 

 Around the "back" of the phase 1 buildings.  By now I was realizing that I needed better shoes they I brought with me!  My feet were constantly soaked and cold.  Had to go out and buy some boots later on.

Soon we were on our way south along the coast.  We stopped at a few of the parks and Angie and I took a few short walks.  

Not only was the ocean interesting, but the flora was interesting, too.

I know there are a lot of mushrooms picked in Oregon, but I have no idea which ones are harmful, so no picking mushrooms for me.

We actually had a few streaks of blue skies, too!

I love the trails along the coast.  They're certainly different from anything we have in St. Louis or South Florida!

Josh even joined the walking when we got to Devil's Punch bowl. 

the ol' punch bowl. 

Even the views from the road are pretty spectacular most of the way south.  This was near Agate Beach.

I believe this is part of Seal beach.  

 Down near Yachats

We came across a few of these stoppages on our rides up and down the coast.  The heavy rains aren't kind to the roads here.  Between mudslides and sink holes, the highway workers were kept busy.

Our destination---Thor's Well!  Ken and I had been to this area a couple times, but I didn't realize this was there.  After seeing pictures of it, I wanted to get back there.  With the force of the waves crashing in at this time, we didn't get too close to it. 

 But Angie and I did go down the stairs to the rocky plateau where Thor's Well is.

a view of the plateau.

a couple pieces of the colorful driftwood on the plateau.

 close up of the black and white driftwood.

 Angie spotted this little guy over by the well.  I blew him up quite a bit, thus the blurriness.

 Another view of Thor's Well from above the plateau.

 Then we took a drive up to Cape Perpetua look out.  There were impromptu waterfalls like this all over the place from all the rains lately.

Along the walking trail to the West Shelter observation point near the top of the cape.

 On top of the world---nothing like this in St. Louis or South Florida, either!

Zoomed in from about 800' up towards the spouting horn and the plateau that Thor's well is on.  On days when the surf isn't so high, you can walk out to Thor's Well.  We stayed back on the green area by the cliff.

 at the West Shelter

 During World War II, the West Shelter observation point was used as a coastal watch station, and a large coastal defense gun was temporarily installed.  Now it's a great scenic look out.  On a clear day, you can see about 70 miles of coastline and about 37 miles out to sea.

 there are are twenty-six miles of interconnected hiking trails in old growth forests here in
Cape Pertetua Scenic area.  We only did about a mile of hiking!

I found this lichen growing on a tree interesting.  Reminded me of a Christmas tree with snow on it's branches.

 Back in Yachets I was excited to see palm trees!  I'm surprised they do so well in this climate.

We drove straight back to Newport where we drove down along the bay front.  love all the paintings on the buildings there.

Ended up at the Rogue restaurant on that side of the bay.  A few years ago we had outstanding meals there.  They seem to be slipping.  We went 3 times to give them the benefit of the doubt and it didn't compare to 8 years ago.

 But the beer was still great!

After dinner, when we were walking to our car we could hear the barking of the sea lions in the marina.  So we walked out on a pier and watched them for awhile.

Love all the boats in the marina!

It was another long day, but a good one.  Tomorrow Tim and FAith fly out to join us.

Dec. 17, 2015---up to rainy Cannon Beach.

As I expected for Oregon in winter---it's raining!  But that didn't stop us.  First Angie and I ran to the grocery store.  Here she is being the chauffeur.

Angie was on a mission to see Haystack Rock, so north we went.  We made several stops along the way.  First stop was just north of Depoe Bay at Shipwreck Beach.  We've made this stop probably 100 or more times over the last 50 years, but it never gets boring.  I'll have to admit that even with rain and it being cloud shrouded it's still quite beautiful.

Heading north we passed by several farms.  The one bad thing about heading north on 101 from Lincoln City is it leaves the coast for quite a ways, but the good thing is the farmlands are beautiful, too.

We detoured from 101 and headed in towards Pacific City and the Three Capes Scenic Drive.  We didn't actually go to the lookouts since some of them were closed, but we did go over to Sand Lake recreation area to take a quick look at the dunes.  They were impressive, even though they were too wet to wander around on.  

Found many interesting barns along the scenic byway.

 and another.

The end of the byway took us into Tillamook and back to 101.  Can't go to Tillamook without checking out the cheese factory.  

 Much of this area was still pretty flooded and it was raining some more. 

 We decided to get lunch before continuing on our way and decided to check out this cute little restaurant---Kendras.  The food and atmosphere was very good, but it sounds as though they're having to move in a few weeks.  Too bad, the "house" atmosphere made it really warm and cozy.

 After lunch we continued on up the coast stopping here by Geribaldi.  A couple years ago we took the little steam train that runs on these tracks for a little scenic ride.  It was a lot of fun---and our weather that day was about the same as it was today---only it was early Sept that time.

crossing a bridge on 101---love this view.

One of the lookouts we did stop at.  It was cold, wet, and windy!

 Our pretend minivan with no 3rd seat legroom!

 our distant view of Haystack Rock.

Note the manhole cover with the water fountain coming out of it!  This was on top of a hill and there was still a ton of water running through it.

We finally made it to Cannon Beach.  I was a little surprised it wasn't totally cloud covered.  Angie and I took a walk along the beach while the guys sat in the car.

Took us 2 or 3 hours to get back to Depoe Bay that night.  Stopped at a grocery store and Angie made us a dinner of spaghetti and salad.  Good way to end our first full day in Oregon.

Dec. 16, 2015---on to Oregon!
Over a year ago, the "kids" and I discussed going away for Christmas.  That was before all the moving and shaking taken place this past year.  So I wondered if it was going to happen.  I'm glad to say it did!  So on the 16th, we left Fort Lauderdale with Angie and Josh and flew off to Portland.  It was a beautiful day.

 I always love taking off and landing in FLL and seeing the ocean and beach.

 Yep, we're living somewhere down there now.

I'm always fascinated by the patterns in the landscape from 33,000', too.

We were fortunate to get a great view of Mt. hood on our approach into PDX, too.  That doesn't always happen.  It was obvious that they've been getting a lot of snow there!

In the lower elevations it was obvious they were getting a lot of rain.  There was a lot of flooding.

 We landed about 5, I headed over to get our car (minivan) while the rest got luggage.  Unfortunately, as it turned out, they were out of minivans and gave us a Chevy Tahoe full size SUV.  At first I was pretty jazzed about that, but a few days later when Tim and FAith arrived, I discovered the Tahoe has no place to put your legs in the 3rd seat.  You would think a vehicle of that size would seat 7 comfortably!  Anyway---it was comfortable for 4 and we were soon on our way into the Portland rush hours traffic.  Took about 1 1/2 hours to get away from Portland.  We headed down I-5 to Salem where we cut across to Dallas.  There we stopped at my nephews pizza parlor (Ugo's) for dinner.  There's no better pizza then a freshly made Ugo's pizza! 

After dinner, we continued on 22 to 18 to Lincoln City, then south to Depoe Bay Worldmark where we spent our first 3 nights.  Here we had a 2 bedroom Phase 2 condo on the little bay to the south.  I hoped we'd get a unit in Phase 1 overlooking the ocean, but I was only able to get phase 2.  Still nice!  I see I didn't take pictures of it, but here is one in reverse of our unit that we stayed in a couple years ago.  The master bedroom is rather unique in that it has a window with blinds looking into the living room. 

living room towards doorway.

After a very long day, we settled in for the night.