Sunday on the Coast

We made a bit of a detour on our way back from Seattle so Georgia could experience some of Oregon's spectacular coastline. The 101 crosses from Washington back into Oregon at Astoria, which means you get to drive over this terrifying and impressive bridge. My photos really don't capture the size of this thing, so I suggest we turn to Google image search for a better look. Yikes, eh?

Once safely over the giant bridge, we made a few scenic stops at beaches down the coast:

In the town of Garibaldi, we found some (I think?) now-disused relics of the Great Northern Railway, and the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad, which is a railway museum that runs train tours down the coast. Putting that on the list should we ever be up that way again!

 Trains are pretty big, as it turns out

Reading up on the Great Northern Railway is fascinating - turns out it was the only successfully completed,  privately funded transcontinental railway in US history. Who has that kind of money, I wonder? I think I would settle for having enough cash just to cross this huge and beautiful country by train. One day!

Mid-week Round-up

What's happening here this week?

1. You may remember tales of railway wanderings over the weekend - I neglected to mention that we decided to resurrect one of Paul's childhood pastimes and leave a quarter on the track, to see if we could come back and find it after the next train. We went back down to the tracks today, and look what we found. Flat as a tack!

2. Tonight, like the good little hausfrau I am, I went to a bookclub at the Grass Roots Bookstore downtown. We talked about The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker, and while I didn't love it, it is always (or, usually) a pleasure to talk to people and to listen to people talk about books. I was also able to gather proof for my theory that all book club meetings must include a person who says "I just didn't get the point of it", and a person who relates the plot of the book to overly personal details of their own lives, usually starting sentences with "I had a therapist once who said...". Still, that's to be expected (according to theory, anyway), so it didn't interfere with my enjoyment of the conversation. Next month's selection, A Novel Bookstore, looks good so I think I'll go back again if we're not out of town.

3. It wouldn't be a blog post without a food photo, would it? After book club, I met up with Paul and we headed to Squirrel's, the irresistibly-named downtown brew pub. I think I came across this place by googling "squirrels Corvallis", back when we first got here and I was trying to work out where all the damn squirrels were hiding. Google couldn't tell me, but it did lead us to a nice veggie burger, some nachos and a sample of Rogue Hazelnut Brown Ale. I have to say, this town is a beer lover's paradise and I am making a poor effort to sample all the brews on offer! Perhaps that should be next week's project?

Sunday Something-Or-Other - The Final Installment

Lazy title, I know. After coffee and a couple of hours of reading at the downtown Beanery, it was time to head home. We took a roundabout route to explore more gardens and train tracks.

More lovely nature strips 

Chickens! Let it be noted on the record that these guys are eating pizza and breadsticks from our favourite Corvallis pizza joint, American Dream. 

 The chickens' roomies

 Railway puddle ducks

 We wandered down the tracks a bit, to see what was happening in the land of mass transit. We're not sure if this rolling stock has been idling here for a while or if it's just making a brief stopover. Whatever it's up to, it was pretty cool to be able to nose around without being arrested!

I had hoped that a real live train would go past while we were there, but it wasn't to be. 

Back on our side of the tracks, I returned to garden-spotting 

More poultry friends - there were only a couple of chickens out when we first stopped, but as soon as I pulled out the camera, these three ladies came running up to us. Obviously not camera shy! 

 Some more cherry blossoms for you, on the corner of Monroe

Taking a leaf out of the chickens' book, it was American Dream salad for dinner

Still digesting that giant lunch sandwich, we opted for greenery for tea. We were planning to hit the gym tonight, but we ditched that in favour of watching the breaking news and presidential press conference about Osama bin Laden. This blog is a place for photos of food, cats, and leafy mountains, so I won't get into that (unless it was the cats across the street letting off those fireworks earlier...). Big news, anyway.

Instagrammed Afternoon Wanderings

Although Corvallis is not a big place, we tend to spend most of our time around our apartment and the uni, rarely venturing outside that 5 or 10 block radius on normal weekdays. Some errands took me downtown today, for the first time in a week or two, and fortunately the rain and miserable weather took a break for the few hours I was out walking. I love the walk from our apartment downtown - one of the great things about this place is the way the landscape moves seamlessly from low density business areas around the uni or downtown to beautifully maintained, green and quiet residential streets. I think I'll need to do a "Front Gardens of Corvallis" post before we go, so you know what I'm talking about!

The cherry blossoms have turned from pale to rich pink in the past couple of weeks, and are already starting to drop. There is a fabulous and huge pink house on the corner of Jackson Ave and NW 8th St, and today the rest of the block had very obligingly coordinated: 

 

I did cheat and Instagram these pictures, but the fake Lomo candy colours above are actually much closer to the real thing than the original washed out iPhone snaps.

Another thing I love about Corvallis is the way the freight train tracks run right down the middle of a leafy residential street. There are only a couple of trains a day, and today I was on the right corner at the right time.