From Olympia, WA to Florence, OR on Jun 29

We left Olympia after breakfast, heading for the dunes in Florence, Oregon. Straight down I-5, but we stopped in Portland to visit R.E.I. I had to replace my hat!!! R.E.I. is the American equivalent of M.E.C. You can spend a long time looking around at all the stuff.

We bought Callum a hat there, too. Also picked up him up some swimming goggles and a waterproof bag to protect my camera when around the sand dunes. We had lunch in downtown Portland at a Mexican restaurant and headed out again.

We stopped at a couple of shopping centers along I-5 trying to find clip-on sunglasses for Ann, since hers broke, but had no luck.

Traffic wasn't too bad all the way to Eugene, OR, where we left I-5 and heading west for the coast. It was quite busy on the highway until we got a ways from Eugene. Then it was an easy drive through the forested (and some mohawked) hills.

It was interesting to see wood lots full of logs at mills along I-5 on the drive down. There have been a lot of saw mills and pulp mills close in BC over the last 5 years due to lack of raw lumber. Some BC logs end up at saw mills in Washington and Oregon instead. We did see some closed mills along the highway from Eugene to Florence.

Ate some delicious sea food at the "International C-Food Market". The owner met us on the sidewalk and promoted all his food. We had ate there three years ago and so knew we were getting a good meal.

Lara's Notes
After that good dinner Callum and I went for a swim at the hotel pool. It was nice, but, the heated part wasn't included. Even not going in the hot tub before going in, it wasn't the hottest pool. not only that, but the depth. It was 3 feet on each end and 4 feet in the middle. I wanted it to be a little deeper (maybe 3 feet until the middle and then 4 feet near the end), but at least I could touch! I also liked the hot tub, hot, but relaxing.

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Here's a link to some photos from the day

http://picasaweb.google.com/Mark.Jeffrey.McIntosh/BlogOregonSanFrancisco20090629?authkey=Gv1sRgCLPcj7GVvtmlDg#