A couple years ago, Leif's longtime barber moved to - guess where! - Oregon and opened a little hole-in-the-wall barber shop in Lincoln City. So we decided to pop in since we're so close now. (Close being a relative word, of course, as an hour and a half is still a bit too far to travel for regular haircuts. Now and then is doable, though, especially as it means a trip to the coast!) So after the da Vinci Days parade we headed west, stopping at another hole-in-the-wall location: a restaurant we'd discovered on last year's trip along the coast. It's this little Mexican restaurant called Mazatlan, with incredible food and very nice folks working there. It only has about a dozen or so tables, and most look right out to Depoe Bay, Whale-Watching Capital of the West. And while we didn't spot any grey whales, it wasn't for a lack of trying!
Each table has a pair of binoculars for the guests to use.
Mike's barber shop is quite conveniently located right next to a family-owned, old-fashioned candy shop. They make their own fudge and taffy, as well as all sorts of other sweets, and they have a viewing window so shoppers can drool over whatever is being twisted and poured. Joshua never used to like sweets very much but has recently discovered he very much likes suckers, so we found him a close match in a sour apple rock candy stick. I think he liked it.
Finally, on the way back home (by the way, it still gave us shivers knowing that while it felt like we were on vacation, we were actually about to drive only an hour and a half back home!) we stopped off to try out Taft Beach. Taft is an area in Lincoln City and this beach was well populated. It's located at the mouth of the Siletz Bay so the water just inside the mouth was very calm and easy for children to walk out into and play. Although I don't know how as it was FREEZING!! Driftwood covered the beach (as did some debris, sadly), and several DIY crabbers. (What do you call someone who brings their 5 gallon, old kitty litter bucket, weighs it down and attaches their crabbing net?) However, just a short walk toward the ocean brought an entirely different beach into view. Since the waves were quite active in this area fewer families had set up camp here, but the view was amazing. It was that gorgeous time of day when the sun is starting to set and casts its lights into millions of diamonds on the water. The beach itself was so flat that as the waves came in and eased back to the ocean they left a smooth, shimmering, foamy layer behind. It was just beautiful. Pictures cannot convey the beauty, much less the sound, the smell, and the awe we felt as we stood here watching the water...but here goes anyway. :)
View of Taft Beach from the mouth of the Siletz Bay. See those yellow spots on the beach? Yep, old kitty litter buckets holding down the crabbing lines.
Leif took a picture of me wandering down the coastline to the mouth of the Bay. This is our pattern: we arrive at a beach, Leif sits down and plays with Joshua (he's so good at that) and I tend to start wandering along the water's edge. The water here is very calm as part of the bay, but the water's edge curves to the right and then over to the left. That's the mouth of the bay, and just beyond that curve is where the waves are coming in.
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