The PENguin Blog

We spent Sunday driving the Oregon coast from Brookings in the South to Pacific City. Along the way there were several stops, for Sharon it was a search for yarn for a crochet project. I was looking for scenic coastline and for tidepools, which obsess me whenever I am on the coast here. In Coos Bay, Bandon, Newport and Florence, Sharon had no luck with yarn, nor I with pens, but at Sunset Bay I got my scenery and tidepools. At this wooded cove we found scenery and . . . sea lions To get detail, I had to punch my 400mm lens out to 1600 digitally, thus the noise Then at Sunset Bay We found another lighthouse Point Arago and tidepools As one father warned his daughter just before she fell, the rocks were "slicker than snot."

Saturday dawned clear, at least relatively speaking, and so I shot a few more pics from the balcony of our room at The Little River Inn before we went off to breakfast. There we were joined from outside the dining room window by another guest enjoying his own morning repast. We then spent the rest of the day driving up the North Coast into Oregon, stopping a couple of times to snap some images, most notably at Patrick’s Point where the goal was to crawl the tidepools. While Sharon waited on the main trail I walked down to the bottom of Wedding Rock. That did not get me into the tidepools, but I did get a nice walk and some dramatic images of rocks and ocean.

  This time just for a scant ten days. Each year around this time we head up to Oregon for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. Over time we have also developed a somewhat ritualized journey up the coast from San Francisco to Little River, California to Brookings, Oregon to Pacific City and then across the state and down to Ashland. Usually I don’t blog this trip and I’m   not sure how much I’ll put up this year, but as we drove up the Sonoma and Mendocino Coasts I found myself struck anew by the beauty that is in my own backyard. And it did not hurt that I was driving California’s Route 1, my favorite road in the world and along my favorite stretch. Traffic was summer-heavy, but I did get some clear spots and went through some turns with the traction control indicator flickering. Comparisons are invidious, so I will not even try to compare this coast to the other, nor to Cape Breton, but it is the same takes-your-breath-away scenery. Much of the day ...

We’re baaack! And as opposed to Jack Nicholson in The Shining, we have lots of good stuff for you and we will be working over the next few weeks to properly showcase our wide range of new offerings including a consignment of about 150 affordable American and German pens. --> For now, here’s just a taste of some of the things in stock and that will be coming up.   We have a bunch of Montblancs vintage and a few modern, check to see what's in stock I'm surprised that this Wingflow has not sold, check for a new low price We have a broad range of lesser known German pens available Apologies for the image, but this lovely piece is still available We still have the Patricians, come steal them! We still have a few of these Just a peek at the new and upcoming TH consignment.

And, no, this is not a joke. We spent Friday night in Winnemucca, see the previous entry. Apart from being a convenient stopping place, we had been here twice before and knew it to be a Basque town, which means good food. The Martin Hotel did not disappoint us. The food was good and hearty and kept on coming, and the family seating meant that we got to meet some new, congenial folks. They seem to take some care in seating people at the long tables and so we met some people our age who were also long distance travelers, though in an RV. Our hotel room did not come with breakfast, so the next morning Yelp told us that *the* place was The Griddle. Indeed! It instanty shot to the top of our of list for the best breakfasst in the journey. That good! We must each have left town five pounds heavier than when we arrived. There are two Basque restaurants (that we know of) in town. I think we prefer this one, if only for the experience. The sign says it all...