Ian Rambles
The car had been progressively coated with dust and insects for days. It was good to get it back to the shiny state we collected it in.

Oregon looked like a place that it would be rewarding to explore more thoroughly - preferably without the need to amuse boys at the same time.

Fiona's Journal
Highlight of our morning was putting the car through an automated car wash! I have to confess that I never wash my car at all and I have only once put a vehicle through a car wash and that was more than 25 years ago when I was working for a car sales firm as a holiday job. I don't remember it being such fun. First we got squirted all over in multicoloured soap suds which was extremely attractive and rather psychedelic from inside the car. Then huge red rollers came thundering past from all directions, followed by rinsing and polishing and blow drying and the car was gleaming as if new off the production line while we were all creased up with laughter inside it, much to the bewilderment of bystanders. Very cheap entertainment at seven bucks.

We have driven almost the full length of the State of Oregon today, from Brooking in the South to the outskirts of Portland in the North. Ian and I both like the look of this state and are rather sorry that our schedule obliges us to rush through it. The beaches are of clean white sand backed by huge dunes, some of which have full sized coniferous trees growing out of the sand and others are bare. The shore is littered with bleached and sea-worn timber, presumably the legacy of the logging industry. Just off shore there are numerous rocky pinnacles and columns and arches around which the Pacific breakers crash. It reminds me of the West Coast of Scotland with its craggy mountains rising up from just inland from the coast, some of them still coated in coniferous forest, others bare and stark.

Much of this coast appears devoid of habitation and there is no evidence of a fishing industry but there are some attractive small towns and villages around sheltered bays and inlets and there is still plenty of evidence that forestry and logging are thriving. Flatbed trucks carrying half a dozen huge tree trunks are a common sight on the highway.

We stopped at Sea Lion Cave half way up this coast and observed this colony of Steller Sea Lions first from the cliff top observation platform. Then we took the speedy lift (it drops 220 feet in 50 seconds) down into the huge natural cave where we could see them closer to. They are very beautiful creatures, sleek and rather cat-like, slightly cumbersome on land but so utterly streamlined and slick under water.

Towards the end of the day's driving we started to see a dramatic snow-covered peak on the distant horizon to the NE of us. Looking at our map we decided it must be Mount St. Helen, the volcano that erupted back in 1980, over ten thousand feet tall and about 100 miles away but none the less an imposing presence. We stopped at a Quinta Motel tonight which was pretty reasonable at $110.00 for a room that was bigger than the entire upstairs of our house!

Arthur's Log:
Car wash, very unlike me to have a clean car but there you go. I was highly amused as the whole car got plastered in multi colored soap buds .

The cave was epic, there were more seals than rocks so they were constantly fighting over space, pushing each other off and so on. In the roof of the cave there was a Indian couple that had died a hundred years ago or more that were fossilized into the roof of the cavern holding hands with their faces horribly distorted.

We finally found a motel (they were all full on the week end by the sea) that had a room spare. It would have been a really nice room if it wasn't for the fact it was a two person room with 5 staying in it. It had a huge TV, leather couches, jacuzzi tub and free coffee.

George's Musings
Very artistic car wash! I saw sealions that looked like they were playing Twister.