“Mo’s Restaurant” at Mo’s Restaurant, Newport, OR

     Yesterday’s first stop (on the way to California) was at my eye doctor’s to pick up my new glasses.  Well, not actually the glasses.  Just the lenses.   I’m using my same old frames.  This was the second attempt to get these much needed corrected lenses.  Two weeks ago they were “ready” but were too big for the frames.  And would you believe it…. yesterday after a ten day delay, they were too small.  Just a fraction of a millimeter.
      So I went ahead and took them in order that I might see well enough to spell Nyel with the driving.  Every once in awhile, though, one or the other falls out which is a bit disconcerting.  But I hasten to say, I am not required to pay for them until yet another, presumably correctly fitted, pair is installed two weeks from now.
     Oysterville’s drizzle stuck with us relentlessly as we headed down the coast, increasing in intensity until, by the time we reached Nehalem, our windshield wipers couldn’t keep up.  Just outside of Wheeler we came to  the first and only road washout of the day, the sodden crews hard at work repairing the damage.  The flagger waved us on over the still steaming asphalt and I wondered if our studded tires would pick up a layer or two to wear all the way to California.
     We did the obligatory lunch stop (about 2:00) at Mo’s in Newport, later reminding ourselsves (as we have in past years), not to do that again.  We’ve probably been spoiled by decades of fine seafood right on the peninsula;  it’s so disappointing to suffer through second rate fare.
     Though we knew it was probably fraught, we nipped into the Oregon Coast Aquarium.  We arrived just at feeding time for the otters but it was raining so hard that we couldn’t really see “the show,”  I consoled my self that I’ve spent many past hours watching otters feed in the wild at Point Lobos.  The rest of the aquarium, too, was a disappointment.  Just why were they featuring that anaconda and jungle wetlands, anyway?  I guess the Monterey Bay Aquarium (where we’ve also spent hours) has set the bar too high with their focus on plant and fish species indigenous to the Central California Coast.
     While we drove, we listened to The Patience of Maigret by Georges Simenon.  It didn’t make up for the fact that we couldn’t see much beyond our headlights and ,therefore, didn’t bother stopping at any of the vista pull-outs along the way, but it helped to keep inwardly focused.  And, as long as I wasn’t driving, it didn’t matter so much when one or the other of my lenses dropped out…