The Joys of Bonine

Saturday took us from Astoria, OR down to Newport, OR.  On this stretch of the trip, Tom had planned for me to do a bit of wine tasting.  The upshot of that is that he would need to do some of the driving.  That being the case, I decided to take the maximum recommended dose of Bonine, so as to avoid the desire to hurl as we wound down the twisting coast highway.

Unfortunately, those two pills made me pretty wiped out and I'm afraid a wee bit crabby.

Still, even with me not in tip-top form, we managed to hit several places on the way.  I enforced a stop in Cannon Beach so I could get closer to Haystack Rock than I'd managed the last time I was there.  Tom is not a big fan of beaches, so I left him in town while I walked out.  I felt bad about abandoning him there, so I didn't go all the way out to the rock.

Next stop was the town of Tillamook.  Yes, that Tillamook, home of the famous cheddar cheese.  We "toured" the plant--inasmuch as touring means observing the production floor and reading the interpretive signs.  It was interesting to see, and I learned why sometimes there's an extra thin bit of cheese on one side of the loaf that peels off really easily.  There's a guy who weighs each loaf and if it's a bit under, he slaps on a thin strip and presses it into the block.  You learn something new every day!

Being lactose intolerant, I did not partake of the delicious cheese and ice cream.

Next on the list in Tillamook was the Blue Heron French Cheese Company for lunch and I had my promised wine tasting.  The best thing I tried was a sweet sparkling red wine. 

That done, I thought it was time for me to take a nap in the car and try to wear off the Bonine-grogginess, but we didn't even make it out of town before we came across the giant building labeled AIR MUSEUM in letters about as tall as houses.  It is safe to say that airplanes were not likely to help with my I'm-tired-and-crabby feelings, but Tom was very excited so we stopped by.

The building itself was my favorite thing; it had been built to house a fleet of blimps during WWII.  Being inside of it made me feel quite insignificant.  I dutifully observed planes of all shapes and sizes and posed for a photo inside of a trainer.

Finally--NAP TIME!  Or not so much.  I didn't sleep well in the car.

We stopped next a place called "Cape Foulweather," which was incredibly windy and had a kitschy little gift shop that was enjoyable.    Better yet, though, was Devil's Punchbowl.  This is a place where the sea has pounded out a massive hole in the stone, and you look down through the skylight of the cave into this swirling mass of waves.  I was glad of the chance to get out of the car and be in nature and enjoy yet more invigorating wind.

For yet more wind, we stopped by Yaquina Head Lighthouse.  We were too late to tour the lighthouse, but the point it's on is beautiful, and there was a beach covered with coal-gray cobbles that had worn down from the end of an ancient lava flow that reached from central Oregon all the way to the sea.

At last, we made it to Newport.  By that time, I was starting to feel more fully human, and in the evening I took a swim in the pool at the hotel, with a view of the sunset over the ocean, and wrote thirteen lines for a trigger challenge at one of my online workshops on my Kindle.

For tomorrow--my car--I'm driving--NO BONINE!