Day 2: Where the sand meets the trees

After a night of lying awake freezing with intermittent naps, we could not get out of Cindy's Kitty Campsite fast enough. We sought refuge in a little restaurant in Cannon Beach were an enormous man made us fantastic soy lattes and we ate veggie omelets and hash browns (no cheese of course). We got almost warm and full and then braved the chilly beach, where Laura finally got to see the Pacific up close and personal. And cold. After a brief walk down the beach we were on the road again. We had a couple failed attempts to find some wireless internet-- the first Starbucks we came to had no wireless (how can this be?) and we even braved McDonalds (eek!) because they had wireless, but it was not free so we got away from the scary fried smell as quickly as possible. After the McDonalds nightmare, we had a short stop at a camping store in some town we can't remember the name of-- not so exciting but for some reason had really bad traffic. We decided to get some metal skewer sticks after our sad limp sticks from the previous night and also bought some more ice. Unfortunately, the ice freezer at the store must have had a power outage or something because the bags were frozen TO the freezer. We took turns battling with the ice, until Laura emerged victorious, minus part of the bag.

We got stuck at a road block where some construction/tree cutting stuff was happening and the construction guy holding the traffic direction sign was incompetent and confused. We sat there for probably 10 minutes before it was our turn again. At first we were annoyed, but then decided to take the opportunity for a dance break, which no doubt entertained the cars around us and the confused construction guy. We shook our groove things for a good 2 songs.

We finally found a wireless equipped Starbucks in Lincoln City and spent too much time there drinking green tea lemonade (highly recommended) and updating our blog as well as doing some work.

I would like to take this moment, to congratulate Laura on passing the Biostats competency exam. Now she doesn't have to suffer through biostats-- pretty good for a week of cramming, yes? Anyway, in celebration of that news we ate rice cakes and peanut butter with banana slices for lunch, which I prepared in the moving car on my lap. Laura helpfully held the peanut butter jar while she drove. I swear it was all much safer than it sounded, and I managed to avoid getting peanut butter all over me which was nearly as impressive as Laura passing her test. Really. Okay not really, but I had a couple close calls with the peanut butter.

It was 3:30 when we finally left Lincoln City-- we were very behind schedule as we had initially planned to drive all the way to Crescent City in California today. Obviously that did not happen. We did make it to see the sand dunes, which were outrageous. We found one spot on the side of the road with access to the dunes. Initially, it looked like we would never make it up the mountain of sand before us, but we found an alternate route through the forest. We still had to climb a pretty steep sand hill, but nothing like the initial one where would take one step forward and then slide down! At the top of the dune, it wasn't surprising that more sand lay before us. Every time we got to the top of a hill to see over it, there was just another even bigger hill ahead. We eventually just turned around. I couldn't get over the sand being IN the forest-- I have no idea how those trees grow in sand!

We noticed that Oregon likes to be very concise with their road signage. Signs such as "elk", "rocks" and "deer" are favored. No messing around with, "watch out for..." or "crossing" just a single word-- take from it what you will.

We still had another two and a half hour drive to Bandon, where we had decided to stay. Along the way we found a little co-op where we got some more sausage and found kombucha-- yay! Definitely our official beverage this trip.

We were determined to sleep in a KOA (Kampground of America) where they have cabins you can rent rather than pitching a tent. The cabin has lights, heat and wireless internet (also an office cat-- it seems every where we stay has kitties). It is 9pm and we are still cooking dinner since we didn't get here until after 8pm. We are dining on lots of veggies and cut up sausage wrapped in foil. I think it will be an early night for us-- we have a long drive to San Francisco tomorrow, where we will be staying with Marc's aunt and then meeting with the UCSF internship director on Friday morning. Always an adventure.