Day 3 - Part 3

....Picking up from Part 2 ...this is working great ...it hasn't shut down on me once now. Guess I was making it work too hard 😉

Anyhoo...

After this, we made our way towards the Sea Lion Caves. In keeping with the rest of Oregon's Pacific Coast Hwy, this was a joyous ride. It left sea level and we climbed higher up but expansive ocean views remained. The roadway writhed and twisted along the ocean embankment, keeping everything very interesting.

At this point, it was a perfect day! The blues of the sky and the ocean were so brilliant and the coastline so wonderfully rugged. Pictures just don't do it justice and I would love to return to experience it all again!

I must say that sea lions are really LOUD haha ...and stinky. As you can see in the next pic, they are waaaayyy down there sunbathing on the rocks below ...but you can hear them clear as day! I enjoyed seeing them bellyflop into the waves ...& then try to use the waves to boost themselves back up on the rocks 😉

You could also take an elevator down to view inside the cave where they spend the winter months. They had a nice set of displays down there too.

The pic above is not that great but it's zoomed in on some famous lighthouse ...for all those lighthouse fans out there haha.

We spent a fair amount of time at the caves. By the time we left, it was about 5:30 pm. And our destination for the night was Crescent City, CA ...almost 4 hrs away. We were gonna have to hoof it if we were gonna get anywhere close! No more stopping to take pics allowed!

Dunes City was on the way. I felt like filling a zippy bag full of sand. Don't know why it seemed different from all the other sand we had witnessed lol ...but it did 😛 It was hilarious to see a bunch of sand dunes criss-crossing a forested area. We turn round a bend and there at the foot of a dune was a little pond amidst trees. Seemed like nature had gone a lil wacky!

There were some nice twisties along this route, but to be honest, we were trying to make such good time that it all just kinda flew past. We never did make it to Crescent City that day. Darkness was descending upon us as we reached Brookings, OR.

We found a hotel fairly quickly and decided to walk about 4 blocks to the local McD's. (We ate a lot of McD's on this trip lol ...heck, they have 2 for $5 picks down there! Can't beat that on a budget xD) But that was about the only good thing about this McD's visit. It was like Bum Central in there! One bum was heckling some poor Russian who was totally trying to ignore him. The bum just wouldn't quit. Then another bum comes in & starts playing good bum/bad bum. He's acting like he's trying to get the other bum off the poor guy's case and then starts tryin' to play him himself. Then a group of about 4 young guys who look like they're high on something come in and leave again.

We'd had enough of this, so we head out. As we're leaving, a mini RV drives past us towards the main drag ...it's the high guys. Oh well, off to the grocery store in the opposite direction to pick up a few things and head back. We get to the door of the store and I see that mini RV in the corner of my eye looking like they're gonna get gas at the gas bar in the parking lot.

Alright, whatever ...lets get some fruit. .......Then there they are in the produce section all of a sudden, looking right at us ...no smiles, just straight faced observing us. Ya know, sometimes you just get weird vibes ...and I was getting them pretty harshly at this point.

Okay, we need some sort of candy ...time to head into the middle aisles. Ohhhh, guess who happens to be at the other end? ...Different aisle time!!!

We're all done! Let's pay for this and get out of here! Oh, look who's heading towards the tills at the same time 0_0 But they got there first, so they should leave first ...phewww! This works for me.

They get thru first at a different till. But do they leave? No! The one guy walks towards the doors but then walks back again looking at us. So we're walking out and the guys start walking slowly behind us.

Okay, bad vibes are pretty much thru the roof now ...Hubby's phone tweets! I took that opportunity to stop, pull him to the side and ask him who's texting him (like it's important or something) ...meanwhile keeping an eye on these guys. They sloooowwwly walk on past, continuing to look at us.

When I figured they should have had enough time to leave, we walked out into the parking lot. We got about halfway across the parking lot when I saw that mini RV again ...it looked like they had done a round about around the store and came out from behind it. Why do that when the parking lot is pretty easy to drive across, especially late at night? We stood there watching it drive off.

At this point, the store is closing, the last of the businesses open in this small town of 7000 peeps (besides McD's ...omg ...not going back there!!) I'm about freaking out, trying to figure out the safest way back to the hotel. Hubby is insisting that he would totally protect me. I'm seriously debating whether to ask the parking lot sweeper guy if he'll give us a ride over ............Yeah, wouldn't this all be a lil overkill if everything to do with those guys was just pure coincidence?!?! ...But in such instances, I'm a "better safe than sorry kinda girl" 😛

In the end, we got back with no further sign of those guys or their mini RV. Locked that door good and tight ...and sat down to FaceTime my parents like we did every night of the trip ..."Oh yeah, we had a great day!" No need to cause them alarm ...we still had 7 more days to go. They would've arrived the next day with a SWAT team to escort us home XD

Of course, we did have a great day ...I just didn't imagine I'd be so concerned about walking at night in such a small town. But lesson learned ...we won't be walking to dinner anymore!

And do you know how many mini RV's we saw after that along our travels?! Hahahaha, it became the standing joke that they just kept on following us no matter where we went ;P

Good night & sweet dreams till day 4 ...it better end better than tonight, right? xD