Whenever I say mini trip, I think of Bridget Jones Diary. I'm a dork, but yes that is one of my favorite movies. Bridget says she's going "on a full-blown mini-break holiday weekend." It's cute (or at least I think so). Anyway, I bring this up because Josh and I took our own mini trip to the Oregon coast for his birthday - my gift to him.
We started out Thursday afternoon (he doesn't have school on Fridays and I didn't have work either). We hopped into the car (not a convertible like Bridget, but my reliable Honda) and headed out towards Florence. Florence is the closest beach city to Eugene. We went there in early September with my parents actually (check out
that post). I made reservations at a little restaurant called the
Waterfront Depot in Florence. We sat at a window seat which looked out onto the inlet. The restaurant was very quaint and was an old train station I believe. I was a bit upset when we first arrived and the hostess said we didn't have reservations and thought we were supposed to come the night before - whatever, I KNOW I made the reservations correctly and when she frantically flipped through the pages, I didn't see my name anywhere. Errr. But, we only had to wait 10 minutes or so and they squeezed us in at the originally requested window-side table. Whew! The food was good seafood fare and we enjoyed the dinner. I had crab encrusted halibut and Josh a seafood linguini.
With full bellies, we continued up the coast to our final destination for the evening,
The Shamrock Lodgettes. These were little lodges that are right on the coast. Josh saw them featured in Sunset Magazine's
Top 10 Romantic Cottages a while ago while looking up the Waimea Cottages in Kauai (I couldn't afford to take us there unfortunately). We got the Bay View lodge room which was pleasant and had a little wood stove fireplace inside which was cozy (and indeed has a bay view).
The next day we grabbed a muffin and latte at a tiny coffee shop (no Starbucks there) called the
Village Bean. We then drove up the coast making random stops when we felt like it - Beachside State Park, Waldport Bridge viewpoint, Seal Rock. We ended the coastal cruising once we hit Newport. There, we popped over to the
Rogue Brewery to check out the local Oregon brews. Josh bought an interesting one called Chipotle Ale (I say, "ehh" to beer, but than again he doesn't complain about some of my froyo creations). Also, we grabbed lunch at the same spot we did just about 2 years ago on the day after our engagement! It's a small seafood restaurant called
Local Ocean Seafood.
Lastly, we cut inland from Newport over on the 20 (yes, I will and will always say "the" in front of highways) towards Corvallis. The drive inland was also gorgeous with all the fall colors. It also went alongside an old railway route. We pulled over for a stroll in Corvallis and to check out enemy grounds (that's Oregon State which rivals University of Oregon). The town was nice - reminded me a classic college town (that doesn't sound too descriptive, but not sure how else to describe it).
The 5 took us home to Eugene which thus ended our mini trip. We had a great time, and I've posted some pictures on Flickr (and just a few on FaceBook as well).
