We were at the gate before it opened and it was fun to people watch while we waited for the gate to open.
I love the Art Deco stylings of the gate.
From there, we went to the rope and watched all the people staying at Disney properties enter 30 minutes before we did. Those are two cast members on the other side of the rope.
Once the rope dropped we headed over to the Spider-Man ride. Here, we had a fun intro before climbing into our ride and trying to blast the spiders that were taking over the lab. I did not do well, a theme that would continue throughout all the shoot-em-up–type games.
From there, we got a bit wet on the Grizzly River Run. We had the raft to ourselves because it was early and a little chilly. It was good we did this early on, though. The ride shut down at some point during the day.
We enjoyed seeing the various characters. Here, Matt does Black Panther with Black Panther in the background, not to mention an Avengers vehicle.
From that point, we stood in lines. We had Lightning Lanes, so we signed up for those. And we payed extra for Radiator Springs Racers to avoid the line there.
After some advice and help from Fairyweather Travel, we planned a trip to Disneyland. Our first day involved traveling to Anaheim. The flight from Portland to LAX is only two hours; it seems like it should be longer.
Once we checked in to our hotel, the Anaheim Hotel, we walked over to explore Downtown Disney.
There, we found a taste of the crowds to navigate over the next few days, and also this display at the Lego Store.
We also took a picture of Matt in front of the Downtown Disney Salt and Straw, though we did not partake. Thinking about it now, we should have checked to see if they had any Disney-specific flavors.
The lines for food at Downtown Disney were long, so we returned to our hotel and bought breadsticks and salad at the on-site Pizza Press restaurant.
After that, we completed another Exit game, the Haunted Roller Coaster.
Matt holds up the pumpkin task.
I enjoyed how clever this task was.
Here is our certificate.
At the time we were visiting, fireworks at Disneyland happen only on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. I had plans for us to walk back to Downtown Disney for the fireworks, but travel is exhausting, and I was in bed by the time the fireworks started at 9:30. So there were no fireworks for me. Matt did go out and watch a few of them from the hotel.
On this day, I stayed in, embroidered, and looked at the pretty views while watching movies. The hotel advertised a DVD library. I noted that there were three copies of The Goonies (filmed in the area) and that the acquisition of DVDs seems to have stopped around 2012. I watched 17 Again (because I hadn’t seen it and because RIP Matthew Perry) and Spanglish.
In the evening I popped into Newmans at 988 to see if they had room for me. They did, and I had a delicious dinner. From the future, I can say I’m glad I stopped there, because it is now closed and has become Little Yellow House.
I then went to the Coaster Theatre Playhouse to see Miracle on 34th Street.
From there, I walked back to my hotel, which gave me a chance to capture their festive lights and the stairs that take you to the hotel.
After taking in the view, I headed off to find food and finish some Christmas shopping.
Many restaurants were closed, but I found Oros’s Fireside Restaurant to be open. I had a steak omelet. (A splurge).
Aside from the very lovely log cabin interior, it had this really nice stone exterior. A sign on the building said:
Original log cabin restaurant built on this site in 1925 by Paul Bartels for his sister Marie. He was a stonemason who built most of the historic beach rock fireplaces in town.
The Hallmark Resort and Spa is a bit of a walk from the Cannon Beach main drag, but I walked the length of the drag and arrived at this park where I sat and watched the ocean for a while.
On the way back, I picked up some Christmas gifts in a sock store and a houseware store.
I also grabbed this picture of Haystack Rock poking above a hotel I passed on my way back.
I walked down to the beach for some official beach time. Look at the supports added to the motel’s structure:
Here’s a nice shot of the way the rooms are positioned for maximum view. You can see a few people enjoying said view.
I stopped on one of the lower decks and when I looked over, I saw some local wildlife.
A sunset shot of Haystack Rock
Visual evidence for Matt that this place provides maximum pillows. (Matt prefers one pillow, no matter the size of the bed.)
I haven’t explored Cannon Beach much, and the bus goes there, so I took a short vacation. I stayed at the Hallmark Resort and Spa, which was a hop, skip, and a jump from the bus stop. I arrived on Thursday night after sunset and climbed a bunch of stairs to get to the front desk. I’m pretty sure I reserved a queen partial view room, but my room looked like this.
After I dropped my things and took this picture, I tried out their sauna and did a bit of paddling around in the pool.
Our vacation continued in Portland (because it’s important to vacation in your own town) with a visit to Hopscotch, an immersive art experience.
I loved this mural, and would love to have the artist paint a mural on the side of our house. Someday, maybe.
This installation was made of plastic garbage bags, and the lights changed colors making things seem otherworldly.
Here’s a close-up with slightly different colors.
This was my favorite installation. Because a ball pit is a very fun thing, especially when not in a Chuck E Cheese and with fun lighting.
Matt really liked this room, but I did not. You put on a headset that showed you, but from a different perspective. Then you got to walk around and shoot a basket and other fun things while dealing with that perspective.
This installation was a maze of neon.
From there, we went to Clarklewis and had a delicious dinner and many, many people wished us a happy anniversary (and also engaged us in conversation about our wedding.)
In Sisters, the air quality was terrible. Smoke from two forest fires was funneled right into the town. Because of that, we didn’t do any walking back and forth to the downtown area as I did on my last visit. But our very large room was a perfect place to hole up.
On Monday night we saw Blue Beetle at the Sisters Movie House and concluded that while Blue Beetle didn’t want to hurt anyone, he didn’t mind if his family did.
We also did another Exit escape room game, getting out of the labyrinth in just under an hour and a half.
On Tuesday, we stayed inside and played another escape room game, this one called the Deserted Lighthouse. It included four puzzles that you had to assemble in order to solve it, plus other things. I didn’t love it. Putting puzzles together while a timer is ticking isn’t my favorite thing. And we didn’t do very well, I think maybe getting 2 stars out of ten.
From there we drove to downtown Sisters to find food and stopped in at the Open Door to see if they happened to have a table. They had us wait a few minutes because someone was a no-show for their reservation and they wanted to see if they would appear. They did not, and we had a delicious dinner. Thanks, Open Door.
On Wednesday, after eating breakfast and lounging around, we took our timer photo and headed home.
On the way there, we stopped at On Any Sundae, and had a frozen treat. I tried the frozen “lasagna,” which was many layers of delicious fun. Matt got an overstuffed waffle cone. Both were quite good.
On the previous day, we left the Walker Trail Trailhead and headed to Lakeview for some lunch. We heard a squeal. It was intermittent, so at first we ignored it. Eventually we pulled over and had a look. But we know little about cars, so that wasn’t helpful. On we continued to Lakeview where we ate at a Chinese restaurant and headed back to our lodgings. Unfortunately, as we drove through town the squealing was super loud, so much so that people’s heads were turning. We pulled over and again looked at where we thought the source was, our front tire.
A man in a truck pulled over, immediately diagnosed the problem as a rock stuck in the wheel. He first crawled under the car to see if he could work the rock out that way. That didn’t work, so he asked us to pull the car up onto the curb and did another check. No rock. From there, he got a jack out of his truck and asked for our tire iron. That’s the level of car knowledge I have, so we could supply that. He took off the tire, but no dice. Back to the truck he went for more tools and he disassembled the breaks. It was at this point I did feel a prickle of worry that he might not be able to put things back together, but it was late afternoon on Sunday in a small town, so he was probably our best bet.
It turned out the rock was buried as deep as it could be in the workings of the tire. Our good Samaritan found it, reassembled everything, and was on his way. We compensated him for his time because when someone helps two city folk with no car knowledge in a small town, that is a very lucky thing.
We took the rock with us, and here Matt is modeling it for the camera.
So tiny, yet so loud! The rock then joined the other rocks in the driveway of our cabin.
On this day, it had rained all night and into the morning which wasn’t great for stargazing, but made for a cozy night playing board games in the cabin.
From there, we took the very long way to Bend taking Highway 395 past Lake Albert over to Highway 20. On Highway 20, driving became normal again, with much traffic. We stopped at Hampton Station for lunch and found it was overwhelmed with customers and almost out of food. Our sandwich choices were limited, but they were good.
In Bend, we did a Riddle Route and had fun exploring the city that way. I grabbed this picture of a very stripy couple walking while we were on our route.
The air quality in downtown Bend was hazy, but not terrible. But once we got to the north part of the city it was very smoky and then increasingly smoky on our drive to Sisters, where we checked into 5 Pine Lodge and shut ourselves in for the night.
We took a drive to see if we could find the place where hang gliders launched. The dirt roads challenged our Honda Civic, and we ended up pulling over and Matt exploring the last bit by foot. We then looped back to a scenic lookout for a picture.
We then did a short hike on the Walker Trail, going nowhere near the 30 mile length of the trail, but appreciating the scenery.
I liked these dollops of bright red-orange against the greens and browns on the trail.
From there, we went to Lakeview for lunch. On the way, an intermittent screeching began. More on that tomorrow. In the meantime, here is another pretty view of our cabin. While the cabin is darling, we discovered that the screens weren’t tightly fit into the windows and it got a little buggy inside once the sun went down. I’ve set my sights on the Sunrise or Sunset cabins for our next visit.
