May 3rd to 5th - Brookings, Florence, Hillsboro

May 3rd – Tues – Brookings
We made a quick trip for a few groceries and I did some dinner prep before making breakfast. Craig came to the RV park about noon and we went with him to golf at Salmon Run GC where we were joined Bill, a friend of Craig. The course is very different and, if possible, too challenging. It is narrow with a lot of blind holes, creeks across fairways, gullies and steep side hills. You have to keep carts on the paths so in several places where you want to lay up for a shot across a creek, you have to walk quite a ways to your next shot and then walk back to the carts which really slows down the game. Luckily, there weren’t a lot of people on the course but with the guys constantly hunting for balls in the rough – OK, I lost some too – the round took us 5 ½ hours.
Cathy and her dogs Maya (an adorable Papillon) and Ryan (an exuberant Boxer) were waiting at the RV park when we returned. We had a lot of catching up to do so it was nonstop talking, eating & drinking until they left just after 10. Luckily, Cathy doesn’t drink alcohol so Craig left his truck and Cathy was the designated driver.

May 4th – Wed – to Florence OR
We got a fairly early phone call from Craig asking if we found Cathy’s cell phone as she couldn’t find it. Sure enough, it had dropped from her pocket when she was sitting at the table so we put it in his truck as they weren’t coming in until after we were planning to leave.
The drive along the coast was beautiful. We stopped at a casino in Coos Bay for breakfast and lost $20 in slot machines.
There were no other rigs in the Elks RV parking so we got a huge pull-through spot, registered and got set up. We found a car dealer where we bought DEF for the truck as the warning message told us we had 300 miles left before our speed would be restricted. It was quite cold & windy which, as everyone knows by now, meant a trip to another casino where we each got $10 free play. I went up & down on my free play and gave Terry more money when he lost his allowance. As often happens, he started winning and by the time I was starving and ready to go, he had more than covered our losses for the day. As we were walking out, I saw a favorite machine that I wanted to try (!!!) and he sat down at one that we had never seen before. I lost my $5 and he turned his into $25 so we headed back.
There was a Papa Murphy’s pizza right across from the Elks lodge so I talked Terry into pizza for dinner. This is one of the few types of pizza that he sort of likes.

May 5th – Thurs – to Hillsboro OR
Terry filled up the DEF and we headed north again for more lovely scenery along the coast. We turned inland at Lincoln City and stopped at Spirit Mountain Casino which is much larger than the last time – several years ago – that we were there. We were going to stay overnight but after gambling for quite a while and having lunch, we decided to continue on to Hillsboro which is a suburb of Portland. Again, we are at an Elks lodge, this time for $10 a night. By the time we set up & registered, it was time for happy hour, dinner & TV.