The Coast is a campers.... nightmare?

I don't know if I should tell this story....

About a week ago we, my roommate and I, decided to go camping along the coast.... A beautiful plan right? What could be better? Camping, a big campfire, marshmallows, the ocean sound like a dream trip. So we got up Wednesday, at the ultra early time of 11 AM and packed the car. We hit a drive thru on the way out of town and gobbled a burger while my roomie showed his unbelievably patient nature when it came to stupid slow drivers. OK so he does not have any patience for incompetent drivers but who does? Anyway we finally made it out of town and our first destination was a spot on the river in order to go for a swim and soak up some sun. The little spot was heaven and it was nearly deserted as luck would have it. The water was a little too cold.... the second time I got in there I made myself hang out until I acclimated. Then I swam around a little bit and realized how bad of a swimmer I have become. Anyway after another 30 minutes in the sun we headed to Tillamook where we stopped to get camping supplies like food and stuff. We decided to just go out to eat as the time was flying by and we were feeling a little lazy after sitting in the sun for a couple hours and had no desire to cook. We bought some snacks including marshmallows and a cheesy potato chip (which were pretty tasty). We also picked up a few beverages which included Gatorade.... yeah. Then we decided to go eat and decided we had to sit down and be served because my roomie wanted mashed potatoes and gravy..... he said he wanted a full Thanksgiving style dinner. I think I would have preferred Taco Bell because it is quick and cheap but I figured "What the heck!"

So we found some little place that appealed to him and we headed in. The menu was a little more expensive then I was expecting. The place was connected to a crappy Motel but they felt like 16 to 25 dollars were acceptable prices. This should have been our first sign... the place looked mom and pop but wanted to make us pay like it was a 5 star restaurant. The second sign should have been that the waitress was a complete idiot. I asked for a coke and my roomie asked for coffee and then she had to ask me what I wanted again. She followed up by not asking if cream was required and then disappeared before he could ask for some. He finally flagged her down and she went to get it and like maybe 10 minutes later she showed up with it.... mind you this place is not that freaking big or crowded! Anyway we had settled on a steak (you know because everyone has steak on Thanksgiving) that was around 15 bucks and had some decent sides. She took our order (then had to ask me what I wanted again)and then like 5 minutes later came back and advised us they were out of that particular steak but they had the rib eye. It was like she expected us to just go with that because I had to ask to see a menu again as I am not fond of blindly saying yes to something I have no knowledge of the price of. The rib eye steak was 22bucks.... and I did not like that price. I stared at the crappiest looking menu ever for like 10 minutes before I settled on clam chowder and a Caesar salad (which I had to order twice). My roomie went for another Thanksgiving dinner classic.... a Cheeseburger. Why didn't we just go to a fast food joint for a burger? I have no freaking idea. Anyway the food came and the chowder was mediocre and the Caesar salad was also a let down despite it's large size. We left there full but not exactly satisfied and decided to head to the Cape Lookout campground. It was full.

Seeing as we are fairly optimistic lads we did not let that dampen our spirits. There absolutely had to be another campsite down the road. I mean after all it's the coast! So we headed out and passed through Cape Kiwanda where the fantastic Pelican Brewery sits on the beach. Why did we not eat there? Mainly because I forgot about it.... which is a bummer. There was no campsite at Cape Kiwanda. We drove for what seemed like forever before we saw a campsite sign which turned out to be fully reserved so some hillbilly could have a wedding there. Then we drove some more and saw another full campsite sign. Finally we had arrived in Lincoln City and it was starting to get late and we had no optimism left to deal with driving forever while searching for the fabled empty campsite. So when we saw a sign that said they had rooms for 50 bucks we stopped. Of course the 50 dollar rooms were not available so we got a 78 dollar room.... We unloaded the car and decided to take a rest before exploring the town so we watched the Dragnet movie on HBO. When we had our fill of stupid movie zaniness we decided to head out and explore the local night scene. We stumbled into a place that looked lively. It was pretty lively actually... it was completely populated by really weird ugly people. They had decent priced.... Gatorade... and a pinball game so we decided to stay a while. As I got my... Gatorade... I noticed that some of the ugly ladies were hungrily eyeing us. I was not terribly concerned because nobody was near the pinball game. We were playing our second game of pinball when a guy named Steve came over to us. He started chattering away and next thing you know he is playing pinball with us. He was a little weird but he seemed OK. Which of course was a completely incorrect evaluation but we had to figure that out the hard way. Anyway after a game of the sorriest pinball ever played he headed back to the front were the ugly people congregated and we continued drinking... Gatorade.... and playing pinball. The music was pretty bad and we noticed it was a jukebox and we decided to pick some songs to change it up a bit. I picked my 3 first and headed back to the pinball game while my roomie picked his 3.

That was when Steve came back.... but he wasn't alone. He had a very scary looking lady following him. He introduced us and then proceeded to tell her I thought she was cute. Then he took off. I was a wee bit miffed as this lady decided to give picking me up her best shot. Her method was a little weird she proceeded to talk about how she really missed her belly button piercing and thought she should get another one. She decided to lift her shirt up to show me and after I threw up a little in my mouth I started wondering what size piercing she would need and settled on one of those man sized sewer cement rings.... Anyway she kept talking at me and my roomie finally came back and she started asking us about the Steve guy. She kept assuring me that I was much cuter and that if I came up front she would protect me from the rest of the ugly ladies. Anyway she just couldn't believe that I was not interested or that we had just met Steve like 20 minutes ago. She kept rambling about GHB and I decided to keep an eye or better yet a hand on my.... Gatorade. She decided she needed to return to the front and was promising (or threatening) to be back. She decided to tell me she was going to go and take some guys hat and that I should watch because it "will be so funny!" So my retarded new friend went off to snatch a hat off some guys head to impress me. I turned to my roomie and said "I have to get out of here! Let's go!" His reply? "I want to hear the songs I picked." I was a little perturbed by that and I said let's go somewhere else and I will pay for you to pick the same songs. He decided we should stay just a little longer even though I was completely freaking out. He might have been freaking if he had been the object of this ladies manic desire but I conceded to his desire to hang out a while longer. Then Steve came back over and I asked him what the heck that was all about. He preceded to apologize but I had an overwhelming urge to introduce his face to a pool cue. That was when he kind of exchanged words with a couple people and it just got weirder. He was looking like he wanted to fight them but they were looking like they were his friends. He then insisted that they were totally into him but he wasn't into that. Then preceded to interrogate us about our sexual orientation. Then he headed back up front. This time my roomie agreed when I said "We have to get out of this place!" So we made a bee line toward the door as my retarded and extremely ugly best friend called out to us as we passed. We were moving way too quick for the GHB queen to catch us. We found ourselves in a Karaoke joint where we preceded to sing a song each. When they booted us we headed to the beach and it was empty we spent another hour and a half philosophizing about all sort of important things while watching the tide come in before heading back to the hotel.

The next morning came early and before we knew it the time to check out had arrived. We grabbed some food then walked on the beach (which helped us further realize that the people of Lincoln City are not all that compelling) before calling it an experience and headed back to civilization. Don't get me wrong, it was a fun adventure but it had a few hick ups. To cleanse our souls of Lincoln City we headed to First Thursday. Which is a Portland institution that involves galleries staying open late and enticing people to look around by offering beverages. there is also some artists without a gallery that occupy a street to set up their little shops to display what they do. It also happens to be the place to be and the incredible amount of non-Lincoln City people are enough for any body's people watching. There are a lot of beautiful people at First Thursday. So endeth the tale I should not have told.....