Trip to Oregon

So, it was the last official holiday of summer and it would be a waste not to do something to enjoy the nice weather and long weekend. H suggested we go to Gold Beach in the southern end of Oregon since he had an awsome time there last year. It took a bit of fanagaling (sp?), but K (H's friend) came with us. It was a really great trip, even though the drive was REALLY long (about 9-10 hours each way). The boat ride was the highlight of our trip. We took a jetboat which took us through some white water rapids through the Rogue River. Along the way, we saw a bunch of wildlife. A few seals, one of which was catching and eating a fish, bears, an elk, a beaver (which I was not able to find), numerous different kinds of birds, etc. I have never seen a bear that's not sleeping in its cage at the zoo before, so it was really cool to see one walking around in the wild. The boat pilot was haming it up and did some crazy stunts with the boat. It was a lot of fun. There was a fish market at the dock area. A poster advertising the end of the crab season sale at $5 each. H had wanted to buy them out, but settled for picking up two instead. Dinner was VERY plentiful as we stopped for dinner at the 3/4 way on our boat journey, ended up going back to our room to clean up, shower and relax a bit before heading out for dinner (there was a coupon involved). After that, we went back to our room, watched some TV, had some wine, and chowed down on the two crabs that we bought. As I mentioned earlier ... it was PLENTIFUL. We took our time heading home. Stopped at some pretty interesting places. Picked up a few cool things. Salmon jerkey at one place, kettle corn at a farmer's market. We also stopped at this lady's booth at the farmer's market and picked up a few pieces of natural soap each. Then we stopped at this Indian (Native-American) run place where they were smoking salmon by the roadside. See the yellow and white lines next to the fish on spikes. That's Hwy. 101! They weren't cheap, but they were quite good. H had this idea about getting his own smoker so he can make his own. Mysery of the Trees was our next stop. There was a giant Paul Bunyan and his blue cow out front. By giant, I meant HUGE. Paul must have been at least 4-5 stories tall. It was actually really weird since his eyes move, he can wave his hand and some guy kept talking as him to little kids by his feet. Overall, a cool trip, but I would probably want to stay longer next time. Just because the drive was so long.