2023 Oregon Coast Road Trip – May 30, 2023 – June 5, 2023
John & Bev and Danny & Nikki met 4 or 5 times to discuss a Road Trip, John and Bev wanted to go up the Oregon Coast to Astoria Oregon. They didn’t want to plan by themselves so they included Danny and I to help put together the trip for 8 Vintage Cars, 16 people. Unfortunately, due to illness the group started out with 7 vintage cars and 13 people.
Day 1 – We left Grass Valley on Tuesday morning approx. 8:30 a.m. and on our way to our planned nature calls, lunch stops and fuel fill ups for a 6-day 5-night adventure together with our vintage cars up I 5 for our first night in Grants Pass. The plan was always to reach our evening destination late afternoon or check in time which is usually 4:00, sometimes, however; we are delayed with a few minor hiccups and arrive closer to a later cocktail hour and dinner. The hotels are all chosen & reserved by the four of us and we try to make sure of comfort and breakfast the next morning. Most generally we have succeeded to be satisfied and comfortable with our choices.
We usually give everyone a game of Trivia to complete on our routes and then a prize for the couple who answers the most questions, our first Trivia Game was a “Song Game” of our younger years to match with the Artist who performed the songs without using Google or Seri to help answer them. Most everyone joins in however; not a stipulation in order to travel with us.
Day 2 – We drive back onto I 5 and venture up towards Roseburg, where we unfortunately lost one of our cars due to breakdown, and that car had to return home. Today being overcast we did have thunder showers ad got a little wet, but it lasted only a short distance on our way.
We proceeded up I 5 until we reached Hwy 138, another beautiful route along the Umpqua River, the entire trip over to Reedsport, then up to Newport making our planned nature calls, fuel stops, scenic stops for a last-minute picture of our cars along the coast with the ocean view. Now we continue to lunch in New Port, we had planned one restaurant, however; you know we always go with the flow and Majority rules and found a lovely Brewery under the “Yaquina Bay Bridge” and there we had a Great Lunch, the Root Beer was outstanding and of course another Kodak moment with pictures of our cars under the bridge. These trips are all about our cars, we caravan down the road receive many thumbs up and at every stop there are people who admire our cars, and we love taking pictures of the local venue we visit. This is the joy of traveling with our Vintage Cars and Friends. One more stop before arriving at our hotel in Lincoln City was the “Yaquina Lighthouse”, we try not to miss a lighthouse, if possible, this area was very popular, so limited parking and the visitor center was closed. So, we continued to our Hotel in Lincoln City “The Coho Hotel” and if you ever get to Lincoln City this is an excellent 3-story hotel. Every room has an ocean view, fire pits outside to enjoy our snacks and cocktails for the evening to watch the sunset. We actually skipped dinner that night because of the late lunch and a few had ice cream sandwiches from the lobby. This hotel included a free breakfast that was the best along our 6 days of traveling.
Day 3 – We continued up HWY 101 onto Astoria Oregon, Bev had ordered lunches from Safeway for our planned picnic lunch. On Our way, however; another stop we never miss is a creamery, “Tillamook Creamery” in Tillamook Oregon was a must stop it is only 10:30 in the a.m. and now it is “ICE CREAM Time” at the creamery, so we check out the creamery enjoy our ice cream then head up Hwy 101 to our planned stop at “Tolovana Beach” in Cannon Beach OR. Where we had our picnic lunch and walked on the beach, before heading out again onto Hwy 101 to Astoria. Many milk farms in this country and the countryside were beautiful along Hwy 101.
So, we arrived in Astoria at the “Columbia Maritime Museum” and spent a couple of hours viewing all the pictures and some ships that had encountered the seas around “Clatsop Spit “were known to be treacherous and there were many shipwrecks, it is estimated that since 1800 more than 2,000 vessels and close to 1,000 lives have been lost at the mouth of the Columbia River and in this context it is referred to as the “Graveyard of the Pacific”. The exhibits take an exciting look at the legendary Columbia River entrance, where the forces of the mighty Columbia River and Pacific Ocean meet to create one of the most dangerous bar crossings on the planet. The coastline of the Pacific Northwest is no stranger to violent winter weather, but nothing can compare to the extreme forces at work along the Columbia River Bar. Here, waves can exceed 40 feet in height during the most severe winter storms. The exhibit features never-before-seen video of rough water passages captured while working with the U.S. Coast Guard and Columbia River Bar Pilots. Also on display is a rare bar pilot pulling boat that was used for decades to transfer pilots to ships. This historic boat is from the Museum’s collection.
After the museum we found our hotel the “Astoria Riverwalk Inn”, with a balcony room for all overlooking the Marina and a beautiful view of the “Megler Bridge” from Astoria over to “Chinook WA” where we had found another “Columbia River Brewery” to enjoy our dinner after driving over the bridge. Amazing how tall this bridge is. A few took a walk along the marina after dinner.
Day 4 – breakfast here in Astoria was pleasant but not as tasty as Coho Hotel’s breakfast. We graded our first game answers for the results, and our newcomers to our group “Don and Kathy Desart” were our prize winners for the “Song Game”. It was time to head inland to “McMinnville OR.” starting out along 202 we ran into a roadblock and low and behold we found another beautiful countryside route, however; a little worried of where it was taking us so we drive for an hour and we finally get back onto Hwy 101 only to have traveled approx. 4 miles from Astoria in that hour. We changed our planned route going over to McMinnville via Hwy 26 which again was a beautiful route, I don’t believe Oregon has anything but beautiful routes, always a river to follow along. So, we make it to the “Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum” and have a wonderful lunch inside the museum the sandwiches were huge so we were able to share and then we found a very friendly museum docent who was kind enough to walk around with us explaining about the Wright Brother’s stories not many of us knew about and of course we saw the “Spruce Goose”. The museum has 150 aircraft, exhibits & displays that celebrate the lives of innovators, pilots, & veterans from all over the world who courageously pioneered flight in these remarkable machines. Amazing museum this is. We then walked over to the space museum and the guys were more interested so us girls found some comfort and waited for them to enjoy this adventure, there is also “Wings & Waves Water Park” that you slide down from a I believe an aircraft, into a pool of water, however; we did not venture over to explore or ride water slides, this trip. Now we arrive at the hotel “Red Lion Inn”, for the evening with reservations at the “1882 Grille” on their top floor for either a Rib Eye Steak, Salmon, Salad, Burger, Lasagna or Pizza dinner with the best wine from one of the many local vineyards of the Willamette Valley and the breweries. Then of course “Serendipity Ice Cream Shop” was just three blocks away so we walked down to enjoy the ice cream of McMinnville OR.
Day 5 – breakfast, a short meeting giving out the itinerary of the day as we did each morning before departure, everyone was given the printed itinerary of our planning for the day. Really, never a chance of losing anyone because we traveled, fueled and ate all together most of the trip. This morning the breakfast was not the greatest, luckily, McDonalds was right next door so some decided to grab their breakfast with Donald next door. Handing out the last Trivia game which was to name a car from the phrase which was quite hard, ex. (Honest US President) however; everyone one played this one and came up with many good answers which we’ll announce the winner tomorrow, day 6, at lunch. Before reaching Ashland OR. Bill and Pat Bowman took over the lead and took us down another country road to the “Grave Creek Covered Bridge” in Sun Valley OR, unfortunately the museum was closed and could not read about the bridge or the creek, however; we took advantage for another opportunity to get pictures of our vintage cars with the bridge. We then continued off to Ashland OR for our last night to the “Comfort Inn”. Bill and Pat Bowman had friends who lived in Medford so we all joined them for dinner at “Cracker Barrell” in Medford, which is always a favorite of everyone’s. After dinner back at the hotel, most everyone joined in at John and Bev’s room and enjoyed the baseball game watching the Giant’s Victory over the Orioles.
Day 6 – Usually we all scatter the last day and find our own way home, however; Danny wanted to keep the group together for the last day and go to “Burney Falls”, well we did not have the accurate address for Burney Falls in our GPS so we passed it on by, however; continued on to enjoy our lunch around 11:30 at “Chatty Kathy’s Burger Stand” in Burney CA, she had the biggest burgers, the best milkshakes so we enjoyed lunch. We discussed the trivia game and the winners were Craig & Denise Cattani, who won the prize, it was a close game, everyone liked this game. 2 cars departed from us at this time and the rest of us 4 cars, we then traveled back up the hill only 5 miles to “MacArthur Burney Falls”, another popular place for people. One of the rangers helped us all find parking places (another advantage with vintage cars, helpful people). We enjoyed the beauty of the Burney Falls which many of us had never seen before other than pictures. Three of us did not walk down to the bottom but got some beautiful pictures from the viewing area up top, 4 of us walked down getting to the bottom of the falls. We then traveled Hwy 299 over to I 5 stopping at our last nature calls stop in Cottonwood CA rest area, where Don & Kathy departed from our group because they lived in Granite Bay. The last 3 cars depart I 5 going over South Ave of Corning, CA to get onto Hwy 70 and then gas up the last time in Chico, CA and home we go.
We try to make everyone happy, comfortable and safe. Enjoying great places, wonderful food, everyone’s company and the “Comradery” we have with our friends and members of our club. We learned from the best “Dick and Dottie Teague” who put on many 8-day road trips with 25 or more cars at once, those were wonderful road trips. We encourage you all to drive and enjoy your cars, we do and we hope you have “Many Happy Trails” in your “Vintage Cars”.
We would enjoy joining in a “Road Trip” organized by other members, this is not a difficult task once you start planning it just flows together. A trip can be planned by just a couple or a group of people, Day trips are always fun as well.
A “Special Thank You” to the couples who could join us.
John & Bev, Danny & Nikki
