Yachats For My Birthday

For my birthday this year Daniel decided to take me dancing. It was a fantastic idea since I love to dance. The big problem is, there isn't really anywhere for mature adults to dance anymore, especially if you don't want to be the only sober people in the room. Then, Daniel read an article in our local paper about a no-alcohol, family-friendly Big Band Dance in Yachats. (Yah-hots) The best part was, it was only 3 days before my birthday. Bingo!Yachats is 50 miles south of Lincoln City. We'd never been there, in fact, we'd never been south of Newport, which is only 25 miles from here. Daniel wanted to take time to explore the sights between Newport and Yachats, and we don't like driving in the dark, so Daniel booked a hotel room for the night. We stayed at a place called "The Shamrock Lodgettes". It was very cute. It had a log bed and a wood burning stove. They provided wood and everything. We had a view of the bay and the ocean. We sat in the hot tub and then got ready for dinner and the dance. We had dinner that night at a place called "Drift Inn". We had steak and risotto and Italian sodas. There was an older gentleman who was VERY talented playing acoustic guitar. Daniel went up to him, gave him a tip, and requested he play a song for me. The next song was Jim Croce's Time in a Bottle. It was GORGEOUS! (I was so happy!)After dinner we went to the dance. Daniel and I were two of the youngest people in the room. We danced all of the slow dances and most of the fast ones. The Yachats Big Band plays a dance the first week of each month. We were so lucky to be able to go this month. See what I mean about being the youngest people there? On the way home the next day we stopped at "Elephant Rock" just north of Waldport. It's named "Elephant Rock" because when you view it from a certain angle it looks like a rock. When we got back to Newport we stopped at the bay to take pictures of the boats. It was a misty cool day. There were seals on the rocks making a lot of noise. They were barking at each other over fish, or the best rock, who knows. (I got some video of that, I'll post it as soon as I can get it converted to the right format.) We also got a visit from a blue heron. He walked right past us on his way to lunch. Actually, he was having lunch on the way. The next thing I noticed was that the sand was spitting at me. No kidding. Little streams of water kept squirting up seemingly out of nowhere. I was about to ask Daniel if I was seeing things, when I realized what was going on. The tide was going out, and the clams had sunk into the mud. They squirt out water to get an air hole so they can breathe.

Ahhh, dinner, a dance, a romantic night at an ocean front hotel room, boats, noisy seals, blue heron and clams. It was the best birthday ever!