Last week I went to Bandon, a town on the southern Oregon coast, with my mother as an end-of-the-year vacation. It was lovely. Here, have some pictures and nattering! (This is really pic-heavy, natch.)
On our way down, we stopped at the Pancake Mill in Coos Bay, which has delicious foods (not just pancakes!), and got brunch. I neglected to take pictures (of most of the food we ate, whoops), but if you're ever in the Coos Bay area, you should stop by! Awesome link sausage. Then we stopped by Shore Acres, a gorgeous state park on the coast. It was originally owned by a lumber baron, and was donated to (or bought by? I'm not sure) the state after he died. It's got amazing views of the ocean, as well as some truly stunning gardens.
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| Ocean! |
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| My beautiful mother :) |
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Me, in my movie star sunglasses and glamorous hat
(I didn't want to get sunburned! And yes, it worked) |
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| More ocean! |
They decorate everything with thousands of lights during the holidays, which is apparently quite the sight to behold. This time of year, there are oodles of blooms, though sadly we were past the time for tulips and rhododendrons, and some of the roses hadn't started blooming yet. I took too many pictures. Here are some of them:
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| Wild iris! It was so adorably tiny. |
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| Wild clover! Also adorably tiny. |
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| Explosion of roses! |
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This rose kind of reminds me of Guerlain's LE
highlighter, Cruel Gardenia. Also, it's just pretty! |
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Super-prickly rose. I climbed over the hedge to take
get close to the rose bushes that were back there.
Such a rebel |
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| Yum |
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| Yum |
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| YUM! |
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| The Japanese garden pond, with pretty egret statues |
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| More adorably tiny flowers |
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| I have no idea what these are, but they're so cute! |
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"And to your left, you'll see the truly enormous green leafy
plant. Don't worry, it won't eat you. Much." |
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Close-up of one of the leaves from
underneath |
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| More roses! Ain't it purty? |
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This one I took a picture of not because it's particularly
beautiful, but because it smelled amazing. I want
this as a perfume. It's Wild Blue Yonder, and it smells
like sweet fruity white sparkling wine. DELISH. |
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| Preeeeeetty |
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| It has 4 centers! Crazy! |
There was a small wedding there the day we visited, and mother made me take a picture under the (falling over) arch thingy. If I look awkward, it's because a few members of the bridal party were standing there waiting to take the arch down but my mother made them wait so she could take my picture. GOOD TIMES.
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| Roses growing over the arbor on our way out |
Got to the hotel, which was lovely. King size beds are awesome, even with two people (one of whom likes to scootch over and put her cold feet against my warm legs, *ahem*). Ate at the hotel restaurant since we had a voucher, and the food was great, though our waitress was a little spacey. It was also ladies' night (Tuesday), so we got 1/2 price wines! I got the macaroni and cheese, which was amazing. It had, like, 3 different kinds of cheese, applewood roasted bacon, shallots, and breadcrumbs. If only all mac and cheese were so delicious. It's called Bandon Bill's Seafood Grill, if you're ever in the neighborhood.
The next day, we went to the river and collected a bunch of rocks for the new pond in our backyard.
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One of many hauls; they're much more beautiful when they're
wet. |
It's actually way lots of fun, though unfortunately, I was hunched over and my sweatshirt rode up and I got sunburned on my lower back.
But my face was fine! Thanks to Neutrogena Ultra-Sheer Dry-Touch Sunblock SPF 45. I got a two-pack on Amazon for less than $12. Great stuff; doesn't break me out, dries down pretty quickly, and only makes me marginally oily (I can still go ~5 hours without blotting). (We're going to count this as a review, ok?) We wanted to go down to the beach and watch the sun set on the longest day of the year, but Bandon decided to have beach weather and the fog rolled in, hiding the sun entirely. Ah well.
We stopped at some lookouts on our way home to take pictures, though I never got to go down and walk on the beach (my mother did earlier in the trip, but I chose to sleep instead. It was a good choice).
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| Bandon! And cute walkway |
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| Beautiful, right? |
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Pulled off at a random place, only to find it was a marsh.
Not particularly interesting. |
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Also stopped to pick up driftwood,
though Mom was only able to find
one piece she wanted. |
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| I spent the time taking pictures of the wildflowers. |
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| And rocks. |
When we got back to Eugene, it was stupidly warm (80), but we decided to eat at Papa's Soul Food anyways. The food was delicious, and quite cheap ($10 for each of us). All in all, a lovely trip!
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I had a mint julep (turns out bourbon? Isn't great.), Mom
had a Savannah Gimlet, which she liked a lot |
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My choice: RIBS! And red beans and rice and potato salad.
Next time I want to get hush puppies! |
How has your week been?
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Mom's choice: Fried chicken, red beans and rice, and collard
greens. |
