When You Don’t Know Where to Head

 

“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.”

Sometimes I sit and look at the map.  I really look at the map.  Where should we go?  What do we want to do?  Sometimes those are very difficult questions to answer … kind of like now.

We’ve had beautiful weather on the Oregon coast.  It may not be as warm as we’d like but the sun is shining and that’s a good thing.  What we don’t like is all of the moisture in the air. We see it over everything and we feel it in our bones.

We’re at a crossroad.  Do we go inland to warmer temperatures and less humidity or do we continue our trek south along the coast?  We don’t know but we do know that the decision will need to be made by Thursday.  That’s when we’re heading someplace.  We’re currently staying at the Elks in Florence.  It’s a great place to stay in the center of town with hookups and for only $15 a night.  We paid for three nights so our intent is to be back on the road again on Thursday.

Toni and Doug are staying a couple miles away at the casino. Since we’d already boondocked for five nights at the casino in Lincoln City, we were ready for some hookups.  There are many places to boondock on the Oregon Coast.  It’s one casino after another and so far it seems they all offer free parking to RVers.  The secret is discovering where the dump is when you get ready to leave.  I guess it’s really not a secret because RVdumps.com has all of them listed on their website.

With three nights in town we wanted to make the most of it.  We had the obligatory visits to the casino.  They were obligatory because if they were offering us money to gamble, we had no choice but to take their money and try our luck.  I can’t say we did well this time because we didn’t but win some, lose some.  We lost some but not much.

On Tuesday Terry and I thought about eating at Jerry’s Hot Rod Grill just because we wanted to take a peak inside.  It was opened when we arrived on Monday but when we were looking to eat on Tuesday, it was closed.  So, we went to  the Old Town district of Florence instead. 

The place was hopping with people but it seems many of the establishments close on Tuesday during their off-season.  The restaurants that were open were packed.

Historic bridge view from Old Town in Florence.  HWY 101 crosses the Siuslaw River.

The Old Town area is on the waterfront and resembles a fishing village.  Many quaint restaurants were there and we walked up and down trying to decide which one to try.  Finally we settled on Restobar.   We love discovering great places to eat and this was an absolutely great place to eat.  Neither the food nor the service could have been better. 

My dinner was parmesan encrusted halibut.  I savored every morsel.  However, by the time I finished there wasn’t any room for the pasta.

Wednesday the plan is to meet Toni and Doug at Mo’s in Old Town. We haven’t been fans of Mo’s but since it’s been a mighty long time since I’ve tasted their chowder, I thought I should give it another try.  I used to call it bacon chowder instead of clam chowder because it tasted more like bacon than clams but we’ll see.

We still have the dilemma ahead of us of where to go on Thursday?   We can only say that we’ll either head east to I-5 or continue our trek south on 101.  We have no idea yet other than we’re leaning towards heading inland towards I-5 and then south.  Or, wait were we leaning towards staying on the coast and heading south on 101?  I’m thinking we probably won’t make this decision until Thursday gets here.  We have no clue.  We just know we’re heading kind of south.

‘Tis life on the road.