Relaxing seaside in Seaside!

Every year or two for nearly 30 years I've spent some time in Seaside Oregon.  It is always a great vacation, relaxation, destination!  We stay at the same Motel that has charming cottages or ocean view condominiums to stay in.  We love the ocean view and the easy access to the ocean, since it's right outside your window!
It also has a great boardwalk that you walk along the beachfront to the town, where there are some great shops, activities and restaurants.

This is the view from our room.

We usually went to Seaside in the summer but the last two years we've gone  in late September and it was the ideal time.  The weather was absolutely gorgeous.  The crowds were greatly diminished.  Peace and quiet were easily found.

One of the things I associate with Seaside is delicious, fresh seafood.  The first thing we do is go to the fresh fish market and pick up some delicious salmon jerky.  Usually a pound or two will do it.  I also have to have one of their crab cocktails and my family usually likes the shrimp cocktails.

Yum!  This is the peppered salmon jerky.  They also have teriyaki and plain.  I would've included a picture of my crab cocktail but I ate it too fast!

Most evenings we eat dinner at our favorite restaurant Norma's.  Great seafood!  My mouth waters just thinking about it!   After dinner we spend time in our room either playing family games like yahtzee or racko or watching TV as we watch the sunset.  We're usually munching on the great salt water taffy we pick up at the Candy man store.  They have so many flavors of salt water taffy to choose from.  I just usually grab a big  plastic bag and start down each row grabbing small handfuls of the flavors that sound good to me.  That's usually a lot of flavors!

One of the beautiful sunsets!

The next morning we head out to one of our recent finds, thanks to the in room local sights guide.  This place is called Camp 18.  It is a fascinating restaurant, gift store and old logging memorabilia museum all rolled up into one.  The food is fabulous!  They serve lumberjack portions and that means big!  I've had the cinnamon roll both times and I can only finish about half of it.  This time, as we were preparing to leave I saw a guy get one of their burgers and it was so big that it was held together with a large knife!  I'm getting one of those next time!

The very large ceiling beam.  This picture doesn't do it justice. That was one really big tree!

The antler chandelier.

The fun games they have at the tables for you to play while you wait.  This was a real brain buster.

The cinnamon roll.  That's not a saucer it's on.  That is a full size dinner plate!

This guy couldn't believe the size of that cinnamon roll either!

This is the first receipt I've received that told me to "please pay at the stump"!

This is the stump.  It is large enough for the cashier to stand inside of it while she rings up our bill.

After our large breakfast we headed down to Tillamook to visit our favorite cheese factory.  We decided to take a different route.  Big mistake!  It was very twisty and not the best road to take when your stomach is overloaded.  I haven't felt car sick in a very long time but I know that my daughter and I were feeling a little green by the time we got there forty something long miles later!  Thanks to the fresh air streaming in from our open windows we managed to keep it together and felt good enough to actually look at cheese when we arrived.  After picking up some cheese to take back to our room and later home, we headed back.

 The rest of our stay consisted of my husband and daughter going down to the ocean and to the aquarium in Seaside.  I stayed in the room reading my good book and watching people with dogs going back and forth to the beach.  There was one old dog that walked so slowly and stiffly, but you could just see the joy on his face each time he went down to the ocean.  His owner walked slowly by his side as his little dog buddy trotted ahead of them.  It brings a tear to my eye just thinking about it.  There are a lot of dogs at the ocean!  We don't bring ours for a few reasons.  No dogs at that motel and one of our dogs doesn't like car rides.  Plus they are both little barkers and I'm not sure how good they'd be in a motel.  Relaxation, in this case, means watching other people and their dogs.

The next morning we packed up and headed home just as the rains moved in.  Perfect timing!  The flat tire just as we drove out of town was also perfect timing, since there was a Les Schwab's right there and they fixed our tire for free in no time and we were on our way!  Good times and memories were made!

The Lure of the Local Casino.

In the distant past I have enjoyed vacationing in Las Vegas or Reno.  They were fun destinations, not just because of gambling but there was entertainment, great food and local attractions to visit.  Sure, I would gamble but it was included in my planned vacation expenses.

Several years ago, sometime in the mid 90's, a small casino opened locally.  My husband and I had heard  about it and decided to go out there and check it out.  I was very disappointed.  First it looked like it was in a large tent.  The machines weren't the same as in Nevada where you put in your coins and pull the handle and hope a bunch of coins spill out.  You bought some type of pull tab type thing that you fed into the machine and then played off of it.  The buffet was a line of roped off tables running down through the middle of this tent.  Needless to say I wasn't impressed with the experience and didn't want to go back.  Unless it was a "real" casino I wasn't interested!

Fast forward several years to 2010.  My sister and Mom decided to take my daughter to that same old local casino for her 21st birthday.  I wasn't interested in going.  I still had that mental picture of how it looked the one time I had been there.  After thinking it over I decided to go along and see what it was like now.  After all it was my daughter's birthday! Was I ever amazed!  This was a big casino.  No more tent!  It had restaurants, bars a hotel and lots and lots of machines.  You walk in and it looks like something you'd find in Reno or Vegas!  I was thrilled!

You still didn't feed coins in and pull the handle but at least you could put your own money in and then cash out and carry that little ticket around, which is actually easier than a big bucket of coins.

That was the beginning of numerous trips to our local casino and even venturing out to other casinos within an hour or so drive.  We would go there for a fairly inexpensive but delicious dinner at their deli or buffet.  We would play a few dollars and hope for the elusive "big" jackpot and then we'd go home.  It became our local entertainment.

No I haven't become a gambling addict.  I would hate to become one of those many gamblers I see that win a $1000 jackpot or larger and don't even bat an eye because it's not that big of a deal to them.  I get excited when I win $20 and you should've seen my face when I won a $400 jackpot! I go with a budget and don't spend more than what I plan, usually.  I don't withdraw more money out of the ATM.  If I win a jackpot I cash out and hit the road before I spend it all trying to win more.  More often than not I don't win that jackpot so, if the machines are tight I lose the desire to go back for a while until the craving for some of their delicious Pho hits me.  They really do have good food!

Last summer my husband and I drove down to Reno for the first time in 13 years.  We had a good time but this time I was disappointed at how it compared to our casino, back home.  The machines were older and worn.  The food wasn't that great.  My own bed was more comfy.  Next time maybe we'll just spend the night at one of the casino resorts nearby and save a lot of money and a numb butt from all of that driving, although I really did like those jumbo frozen margaritas! :o)