Hi everyone.
We are in Newport Oregon at Schooner Landing, unit 410, for the week. We made this reservation through a SFX exchange.
We flew from Houston to Portland on Friday, 4 hour flight. Before leaving home, I watched a recorded show of Diners, Drive-in & Dives from the Food Network (while waiting on my wife and SIL to get ready to leave) and there was a diner in downtown Portland being featured: Blueplate.
So when driving to the airport, I informed my wife and SIL that I knew where we were going to eat lunch.
The flight to Portland was completely full but uneventful. Probably had the worse movie I have ever started to watch, Dog Hotel or Hotel for Dogs. Just awful.
We arrive in Portland and the weather is beautiful. The rental car area in is another building across the street from the baggage claim. You walk in and experience and "Ellis Island" ambience. After pushing through the kids and suitcases to the Avis counter, I got to wait for a little while until my turn. Finally, I get there and the young man is selling an upgrade to me. Now I have a $21 day mid-size. He wants me to upgrade to a Lincoln Towncar for a reduced daily rate from $100 to $75. I passed. Finally, he tells me that they are out of my size cars, would I upgrade for $10 a day more? Yep.
So we go to the pick up area. I choose the Lincoln, we load all our stuff, go to the security gate. I chose the wrong Lincoln.
So we go back, unload, get the right Lincoln, load up and go back to security. He lets us leave with the right car. Of course my wife and SIL said something to me.
Now I have a GPS I brought from home. So we find a place to park to try to find my Blueplate restaurant. Too new, not in the directory. However, I did remember the name and address of the restaurant and had seen where it was in relation to the airport and downtown. So we start to drive, but my GPS wants me to go the opposite way because it's faster, shorter drive to Schooner Landing or something. Being a maverick, I defy the British lady on the GPS and turn left instead of right. Finally she quits telling me to turnaround about 10 minutes later.
I head south on I-5 and know I need to get across the river to downtown. I missed the first bridge and prayed for a 2nd one. My prayer was answered. I exit and lo and behold, the bridge is Washington street and Blueplate is only 2 blocks into downtown. We found lunch!
We quickly find a parking garage. (7 floors up) and go to Blueplate. Big line. We wait for about 45 minutes until we get seated. By this time, DW and SIL are constantly telling me how hungary they are. But, the wait was worth it. The food was great. I had some sliders and they each had a fancy grilled chees and tomato soup (that was like a loose marinara sauce).
After lunch we headed south. We decided to go west at Salem on Hwy 22 to 18 and then down the Pacific Coast Highway. It's a great scenic route that takes you over the mountains. However, you definitely won't set any speed records. Our 120 mile trip took about 3.5 hours.
Schooner Landing had not moved from where my GPS indicated it would be. Check in was quick and friendly. We have an ocean view with a 2nd story unit, #410. The stairs down to the beach have been closed due to instability. I guess they didn't want to lose any visitors.
The biggest surprise to us so far is that the sun doesn't set until 9:30 to 10 pm and it starts to rise around 5:30 am. No wonder people on the West coast are so laid back, there's always daylight to get something done.
Our first meal was at a pizza place called Abby's Famous Pizza. We thought it was very good.
We were really exhausted at days end.
Apparently, my definition of a shrimp is called a prawn in Oregon. Anyway, when they say shrimp here, they mean shrimp (in size). If you want to taste the thing, you need to buy a prawn.
If you have a chance, visit the 
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