Portland must be rubbing off on me, because this past weekend, I went camping and ran a 5k, and I enjoyed it! When we finished our first 5k, I searched for more upcoming events on active.com, and the Ocean's Edge run in Lincoln City sounded nice. Patrick had been angling for a camping trip for a while, and it just so happened that his new camping book recommended a campsite that was only a few miles from Lincoln City.
And so it was that on Friday, we drove out to Beverly Beach State Park. We got there after dark, set up our tent, and went to bed. The next morning, we woke up to rain, but luckily the tent kept us dry. I didn't feel particularly inspired to run a 5k in the rain, but we headed out to Lincoln City anyway.
It was cold and windy on the beach, but at least the rain had stopped. About 40 people showed up for the run, and I was the only one wearing a hot pink skirt and stripey green socks. Go figure! I got the impression that most of them were from around Lincoln City--more of a neon windbreaker crowd. The run was kind of demotivating--we started out running into the wind, on a sloped beach, and the sand wasn't packed in a few places. And my socks kept rolling down, which was super annoying! I just wasn't feeling motivated, so I stopped and walked for a little bit, and Patrick ran ahead (and made good enough time to get the camera from the car and take a picture of me crossing the finish line). I actually finished this run faster than the Starlight Run (~35 minutes), probably because it was a flat course. Still, I'm glad it wasn't my first 5k. I would have felt bad that I stopped and walked so many times after all that C25k training.

After the run, we headed to Otis Cafe to try their famous brown molasses bread on our friend Chrissy's recommendation. There were a couple other people from the run there, which was cool. I had the hangtown fry, along with hashbrowns and brown bread toast. I'm not sure if I'm a fan of cooked oysters, but the hashbrowns and toast were excellent. The brown bread was so good--kind of like eating huge buttered slabs of gingerbread (but a little less sweet and a little more bready). I'm excited that the recipe is available online. I'll have to try making it someday!
We had originally planned to get pie from Cafe Roma after the run, but luckily we scrapped that plan, since on our way back through Lincoln City, we found out that it had been replaced by a Thai restaurant. Bummer. We bought saltwater taffy instead.
Next, we headed down to Newport to visit the Oregon Coast Aquarium. They have a really cute ad campaign, so I was excited to visit. The grounds were nicely done, and I liked that some of the exhibits (like the otters and giant octopus) were outside. Although it had all of the standard exhibits I enjoy in an aquarium, it mostly made me miss the Monterey Bay Aquarium--I hadn't realized how awesome that place is. That's okay though, it was a still a fun visit.
Next, we stopped at the South Beach Fish Market to buy some salmon for dinner. Unfortunately, we weren't hungry enough to try their fish and chips, which are supposed to be tasty. In fact, we didn't eat any fish and chips on this trip. That seems like an oversight...
Back at the campsite, we showered (so nice to have a hot shower after running a 5k and driving around the coast all day!), and Patrick successfully started a campfire and made an excellent dinner of salmon, biscuits, and asparagus with sugar snap peas. And we had s'mores for dessert! We also managed to scare off a wily raccoon that was coming to raid the campsites while our neighbors were at a free lecture on how to stop raccoons from stealing your food (Lesson 1: don't leave all your food out at your campsite while you go learn about raccoons!).

One of the main drawbacks of the Beverly Beach campsite was how close the neighboring sites were, which meant that it was pretty noisy with very little privacy. Definitely not the kind of place where you can sit and enjoy the solitude of nature. Instead you can enjoy the sound of RC cars and drunk college guys cheering. But it was a really pretty setting (very close to the beach and full of lush greenery), and the bathrooms and showers were nice, so we were happy with it. Maybe next time we'll try for something a little more secluded. Some of the other sites seemed to be a little larger and more screened off by trees and bushes, so maybe campsite C27 was just a bad choice.
The next morning, we had a campfire breakfast (leftover biscuits, bacon, and fried eggs), hung around the campsite for a little bit and visited the beach, and then headed out. We went back to Portland by way of Tillamook so we could check out the Tillamook Cheese factory.
The drive to Tillamook was beautiful, and we stopped at Munson Creek Falls to spend a little more time in nature and have a picnic. We only saw a couple other people along the trail, which was nice. There were salmonberries lining the path, but I wasn't confident enough in my foraging skills to eat any. I guess that's just as well, since Wikipedia says they're "insipid." It was a pleasant little side trip on our way to Tillamook. I'm glad we decided to stop there.
In retrospect, it was a bad decision to go to the Tillamook factory on a Sunday afternoon in June, since I guess everybody visits the Oregon coast on summer weekends. It was packed! We waited in a long line for some free cheese samples (mmm, curds), took the self-guided tour, and then waited in two more lines for the legendary Tillamook ice cream (we bought our ice cream at the upstairs counter, which seemed to have a considerably shorter line than the ice cream counter downstairs). It was tasty ice cream! I had the marionberry pie flavor in a waffle cone. We ate outside and then hightailed it out of there, back to the peaceful silence of our car. Phew! I'm not a big fan of crowds, but I do like dairy products.
We'll have to try visiting the Oregon Coast again during the week or in the fall. At least we know that our tent will keep us dry if it rains.
P.S. I wanted to mention again how much we like Lori at Rainy Day Pet Sitting. Our sweet kitty had some unexpected dental surgery (3 teeth pulled because of cavities) a few days before our trip, and Lori totally took it in stride. She added extra visits and had no trouble giving Patches her antibiotics and pain meds. Plus she texted me to let me know that everything was going fine. I'm so glad to have found a reliable cat sitter in Portland!
This is Patches right after she got back from the vet, all hopped up on kitty painkillers and with a shaved area on her leg from the IV (it looks like she has a little furry go go boot on that leg!). Not to worry--she's doing much better now. We'll have to do a better job of brushing her teeth in the future so she doesn't need to have any more teeth pulled!