It’s a strange twist in circumstance as we navigate closer to home, fewer miles at a time. For the past 40+ days we have mostly traveled a few hundred miles daily and today when we set out from Florence, OR, we had 75 miles to travel.
Our morning was spent in Florence, OR at Three Rivers Casino. Tyler was on call after call as I cradled our needy old dog like a baby. She was being quite the diva today so when Tyler was on the phone, she chose to faintly whimper. I was forced to hold her and lightly bounce her up and down until his meeting was over.
The dogs, for the most part, have been the easiest part of this trip. There are days, however, that one of them will be needier than we are used to. Today, was Chloe’s day! When Tyler finished up his meetings, we began our travels towards Lincoln City.
The drive to Lincoln City was slow. While it was only 75 miles, the slow-moving highway made our travels take longer than anticipated. I enjoyed driving through the curves and it was fun passing through so many beach cities. I think this is the first time in my life I have been so far south and driven north along the coastline. Oregon and the coast specifically have no shortage of beautiful scenery.
It was much cooler today than we have been used to. When we woke up, Tyler was freezing. So much so, he immediately put on his sweats and a long sleeve shirt. I am cold much of the time, but I sleep warmer so I was fine. The biggest change came while we were driving and the wind gusts nearly picked our whole trailer up from the road.
We have noticed more and more travel trailers, motor homes, and van conversions traveling as we navigate the PNW. It would seem that many are taking advantage of this time to travel. We have also noticed a lot of RV rentals on the road. I can’t help but think how ripped off they are getting by choosing that method and find myself so grateful we chose to purchase a travel trailer when we did to explore the whole USA without restrictions.
Our arrival in Lincoln City came just after 2:30 pm. Since we have found casinos to be quite accommodating, we decided to see if we could stay at Chinook Winds for the night. We weren’t really hoping to game, but many casinos have certain restrictions to stay within their grounds. Chinook Winds required us to be members and earn at least 50 points on our member card. We signed up for their card which came with $5 free play. Since each of us signed up, we both received free play which we chose to use at the little blackjack machine. Tyler used his free play and it was established the machine was not player-friendly. Our main goal was to get our points up without spending our own money. He earned 9 points. Then we used my free play. My $5 last us a while and we ended up with 55 points and $5.25 without using a dime of our own money. We aren’t gamblers as we both value our earnings enough to not want to throw it away. We were so happy we earned the 50 points so we immediately cashed out and headed to retrieve our overnight voucher for the lot.
Once we made it back to the trailer, we prepped ourselves to do a workout on the beach. It was WINDY to say the very least and we weren’t sure how it would turn out. We drove to an area we could walk our weights to the beach and completed a WOD, beachfront, with the wind nearly blowing us over. When we finished, I had sand EVERYWHERE.
We couldn’t stick around for long as the wind was much too strong and it was cold. Both Tyler and I completed the WOD in our long sleeve shirts and never broke a sweat. Afterward we headed to the store to get dinner supplies and we ended up cooking dinner in the trailer while watching a UFC fight.
It was a relaxing night, knowing tomorrow Tyler has a full schedule of work meetings. We will likely be in this lot for much of the morning while he holds back to back meetings. We will leave in the early afternoon and head towards our next FREE night at Spirit Mountain as we get closer to Corvallis. We wish we would have known about casino stays before we left. When given the option to stay for $30-$40 in a state park or private RV park, or stay for free in a casino parking lot, the answer now seems obvious! Free is never a bad price, especially as we near the end of this adventure.
I am counting down the days until we arrive at our best friend’s house in Corvallis on Friday. We have been anxiously awaiting this day for a while and with it so close, we are beyond excited. Only two more sleeps and we meet the most handsome little man that will capture our hearts forever. There is something so special about watching your best friend start this next chapter in their lives and we cannot wait to be a part of it!
The Church Hideout 