Memorial Day Weekend on the Oregon Coast

Sun, Sand, Bare Feet, What a Treat!

We had an amazing four day weekend on the Oregon Coast.  Took an extra day for Memorial Day weekend and we cruised down the Oregon Coast.  Left Friday night and camped a little south of Newport, Oregon in our Subaru.  Then we moved very slowly down the coast stopping at art galleries and the beach often getting lots of photography practice.  So slowly, it took us six hours to drive the 124 miles to Bandon, Oregon.  We checked out the Wild Animal Safari park and walked, pet, and talked to many little animals. Spent three nights at a nice place where we could see the ocean at all times.  The sun came out a few times and it's been a rare sight for us as it's been raining almost every day since February.  What a joy it was to sit on warm sand in the sun on the coast.  On the way home, we drove the up the coast, took the mountain route through Vernonia and then the back way to Rainier.  We made it all the way home without hitting a major highway once.

We found a cute little natural grocery store and deli in Bandon, Mother's Natural Grocery and Deli.  We stocked up on a few items we like, had a wonderful lunch of vegan enchiladas and bought some freshly made vegetarian lasagna and ravioli for our dinner.  We also enjoyed some fresh vegan apricot pie. We didn't have a kitchen in our room, but we did have a refrigerator and a microwave. We brought a small cutting board and a good knife. Had no problem creating a little kitchen in that hotel room.

There was a community art project in Bandon celebrating the year of the rabbit on the coast.  Paintings submitted by school children and local artists were displayed on the dock.  There were hundreds of awesome paintings all along the walls of the boardwalk. 



One of my favorite stops was at the Art 101 gallery, which exhibits the works of the Washed Ashore Project. 

The Washed Ashore community project aims to educate and create awareness about marine debris and plastic pollution through art.

Community members are working together to clean-up our beaches and process the debris into art supplies to construct giant sculptures of the marine creatures most affected by plastic pollution. This has resulted in thousands of pounds of debris cleaned up from Oregon beaches and an educational touring art exhibit to showcase the sculptures. If I lived close by, I would so be there volunteering and helping with this wonderful project.



This weekend we have summer!  The sun came out to play yesterday and it's expected to stay for a few days, it supposed to get into the 80's this weekend.  That means we'll get more of the garden planted.  We worked for about three hours yesterday getting some more plants in the ground and the corn finished.  We planted some corn seedlings before we left and they made it through the weekend.  I was a little nervous as we had to plant corn three times last year.  Last night I planted three more rows of corn seeds, a few more cucumbers, broccoli, acorn squash, 8 ball zucchinis, and a few more peppers.  I'll have a garden update soon.