Beautiful Oregon

Nov. 10, drove to Portland, Oregon. I was driving along a hill when I noticed large container ships along the river. Strange thing: it's 100 miles(160km) inland. I was taken by surprise as I never thought it was a port city, being so far inland. The ships come up the Columbia river. Who would have thought! Anyways, it's a beautiful city with nice bridges. I then had my third couchsurfing experience at the home of Holly and Ben, their three children and a boarder, Patrick. All of them had interesting stories to share. In the evening, we were all on computers doing different stuff, me trying to find more couch hosts and looking at e-mails, others playing games or watching videos. Holly had us listen to some weird music videos of "dogs in drag" or hand puppets with a "whatever" attitude.

Then it was off to the Pacific Coast again, heading to Coos Bay. I took side roads because you can't see much from the freeways. When I came to Newport, I was in for a treat: beautiful coastlines with gorgeous vistas. It seemed that I stopped every other mile to take pictures. In one bay, there has to be thousands of seals warming themselves on a beach. I was way up on a hill and your could hear them even with the sound of waves crashing against the rocks. Later, past Florence(my mom's name), the seashore was all dunes. These huge mounds of sand for miles and miles. Tomorrow, I'll see if I can put my kayak in and go do some exploring near them.

I arrived at Coos Bay and met with my CS hosts Tony, Chrystal and 6 year old Stella. They live in the south end of town and have chickens, cats and a big dog on their property a few minutes from town. For the first time, my GPS failed me as it refused to accept my host's address so Tony came to meet me at the highway.