Author: Annabelle Quinn

So to continue the adventures of the weekend…

After sand dunes we checked into our hotel and took a little rest for a couple hours. We met back up with Tayler and Eric to head down to Bandon for dinner at a restaurant we picked solely based on its reviews on Yelp… Well at least Yelp didn’t lead us astray. The dinner was delicious and the view was amazi- I mean, the view would have been beautiful and scenic except for SO MUCH FOG. I thought we left the Bay Area? We even made reservations for 7:30pm to catch the sunset out over the ocean. The restaurant had perfect views right on the water, but sadly it just wasn’t a good day. We forgot to document dinner, but know that we had good fish (except Brad who hates fish) and good laughs as we watched the fog get thicker and thicker.

The next day we headed back to Bandon to check out the beach. Now I’m a beach girl. Give me the sand and ocean and I will be more than content. However I knew the beach we were going to visit wasn’t going to be what I was used to but it sure was breathtaking.

The huge rocks with all their cool caves and arches and the tide pools. It was really beautiful. And we all had so much fun exploring. Brad skipped rocks (because that’s a thing he likes to do?), Tayler and I snapped away on our cameras (aka my iPhone and she’s the one with a legit camera) and we even took a stroll through an artist’s maze that he created in the sand. Well it wasn’t really a maze because you couldn’t get lost in it, it was pretty much a swirly pathway… I don’t know how to explain it, just check out the pics.

 

 

 

So this past weekend we successfully surprised my best friend (and maid of honor) Tayler for her birthday! Her boyfriend, Eric, messaged me about a month ago asking if we wanted to join them for a weekend on the Oregon coast and we were able to work it out! He had the pretty amazing idea for us to go ATVing on the sand dunes in Coos Bay. Brad and I both thought that sounded WAY fun.

So Friday morning we picked up our rental car, a Dodge Charger (an unattractive muscle car, but extremely smooth ride), and then left that evening after Brad got off work. Although we actually ended up leaving our place more around 8pm (way later than I thought we would) because of reasons I’ll have to explain in another post. Just know that it was all Brad’s fault though 😉

We (meaning mostly Brad) drove until 3am and stopped at a Holiday Inn to stay the night. But as Brad would probably like me to point out, we stayed a total of 6 hours which really didn’t justify the price we paid… At least we got a free breakfast?

The next morning we drove out to the airport where Tayler and Eric would be landing in their cool private rental plane (he’s a Navy pilot, so no worries, he’s got a license for that). They were making their way down from the Seattle area and Tayler had no idea where they were going or that Brad and I would be joining them. So she was super confused when we pulled up and I jumped out of the car, but thankfully she was ecstatic to see us.

We went and got some lunch at a cute little sandwich shop in North Bend where everyone seemed to know one another and then the next surprise came when we drove to the sand dunes. I think Tayler was pretty happy with what we were about to do.

We sat through a really bizarre safety video about the dos and don’ts of riding the sand dunes, then went and grabbed our helmets and got assigned to our vehicles.

I had no idea how nervous I would be. So I yelled at Brad’s driving a lot and got made fun of by all for it. However, I’m glad that Brad is adventurous and doesn’t seem to have any fear because it made it a lot more entertaining to ride with him. And by the end of our two hours I had gotten over my initial worries. Those sand dunes were steep!

None of my pictures do any justice to how amazing the scenery was…

I’d like to start off by saying that this was all Brad’s idea. And after months of kindly asking that I update this blog with stuff about our life, I figured it was time to oblige. He’s been patient long enough. I will say that his title, subtitle, and about us blurb had me about rolling on the floor. It also made me question who should really be writing this thing. I mean, after all, Brad is clearly very good with words. But I’ll let him stick to composing the nerd stuff to share with the computer world and I’ll journal the events of our lives for our friends and family…

Things are going good here in Fremont, California. Brad is working hard at Facebook and I’m hardly working… The job hunt has temporarily been put on hold while I entertain all our friends and family who come to visit! Not a bad gig. Plus, I just got back from a three week excursion to the east coast. But fingers crossed I get something worked out, I’m feeling a little useless without a job and stay-at-home-housewife isn’t really my thing 😉

We’ve had some pretty good adventures out here so far. I’ll try to do a little catch up on everything that we’ve done and hopefully from here on out, I’ll keep this mostly updated…