Serendipity...one more time

Hello Boys and Girls and Everyone in between,
I hate to make this a quick entry, but it's been quite a long day, but there have been so many exciting moments that I felt it necessary to share while they were fresh on my mind.

SOOO...we woke up this morning in the beach house near Pacific City and got to a late start because Lani wanted to stretch out and run over to the post office to send some stuff home that wasn't really necessary.  Anyways, I went to Cafe Stimulus again to use the web and drink a bit of coffee, while I waited for Lani to finish up her errands (one of those errands being map procurement...very key).  We shoved off at about 1pm just in time for the clouds to part and the sun to come out, fortunate since the storm the night before really cooled things off.  Our tentative goal for the day was about a 20 miles ride to Lincoln City, but we weren't gonna go crazy with the goal setting because despite sleeping indoors we didn't really catch a good night sleep for some reason and we hadn't really had a hardy meal, mostly just snacks.

Bikin' on the 101

Check the view

We arrived in Neskowin, OR at about 3pm and it was here that we had a decision to make: Do we try to camp around here for the night and attempt to brave the HUGE incline (800 ft elevation) towards Lincoln City, do we try to hitch a ride from someone, or do we take the round about way and go a distance out of our way? TICK TOCK TICK TOCK.  We literally were sitting at the fork reviewing our maps when from across the highway we see a woman flagging us down and waving in the direction of the side road.

After a brief ping pong of exchanges she drove over to us and told us not to even TRY and bike 2 miles up the pass and to just go around it on the side road.  We got to chatting with this woman, Karen was her name, about where we were heading and where we wanted to end up at the end of the day and she GRACIOUOSLY offered to host us in her home just under 2 miles down that very side road.  She wrote the directions down for us to follow to get to her home, instructions that involved passing not one, but 2 meadows and taking various wooden bridges over creeks.

Less than 10 minutes later we were standing outside the amazing home of Karen, meeting her husband Joe and their dogs, Lava and Augusta ( Augusta is actually their neighbors dog, their neighbors being Karen's brother and his wife).  From under the wisteria tree that is wrapped around the support beam of their porch Joe welcomed us into his home, offering us both of the guest beds, hot showers and free reign of the LAUNDRY ROOM!

There was a stretch of about 10 minutes where Lani and I just stared at each other in disbelief, breaking our gaze and slack jawwed amazement only to nuzzle with the kitties, Ash and Scatter, and talk baby to the dogs.  We were quickly showered and settled in and decided to go through the meadow and have a look at Karen's HUGE organic garden, complete with green house, and feast on various varieties of tomatoes, peppers and greens.

Dirt road to paradise

Puppaayz and kittayz

Just a lil' somethin' Joe threw together

Lani and Ash

Me and Lava

HOME

My own bed

Best tomato...ever...seriously

A stroll to the garden

Oh Ash you HAM

Joe and Karen in their kitchen with us.

UNTIL LATER...

Maggie and Lani