Today we decided we'd head north and see how far we got before we felt like stopping for the night. We got as far as Nehalem Bay State Park and we're going to stay two nights here. (We're meeting my mom at Skamokawa Vista Park in WA on Saturday and staying the weekend for some mother's day cooking and camping).
This means during this little coastal trip we'll have done the whole Oregon Coast from the furthest point North all the way to Bandon, OR. Cool!
Here's our new spot:
It's wooded and pretty and there are actually very few people here right now. We thought we'd unhook and head to the store (there's a surprisingly good grocery store in Manzanita) and get some stuff for dinner, but then as we were heading into town we read about a cool little foodie restaurant in Wheeler (just a few miles from here) that sounded really good. We figured we could cook tomorrow and go out tonight instead.
We unhooked and headed into Wheeler to the Rising Star Cafe. (They take cash or checks only, if you go. But you can get cash at the ATM just a block or so away at the Tsunami Bar & Grill down on the waterfont.)
This place is tiny (maybe 6 tables inside, and few more outside), and has fabulous reviews on Yelp.
We got a cute little table by the window and got our menus and it was…um…pasta night. We don't normally eat pasta (carbs, Paleo) but we decided to just stay and be forced to eat pasta. We ordered the penne with bolognese sauce and the fettuccine with lamb stroganoff sauce (both came with salad, and were ten bucks each) and a Paso Robles cabernet sauvignon. Everything was delicious! We took a look at the regular menu and decided to make a reservation (recommended, since it's Friday) for tomorrow night.
Here are a few snaps I took this evening while we were walking around Wheeler to get cash. (Had we known it was ten dollar pasta night, we wouldn't have needed to go get cash, actually. But then had we known it was pasta night, we probably would also have just headed to the market in Manzanita. Glad we didn't.)
Our second son was born in Astoria and we had a place on the beach in Manzanita for 9 months while that was happening. Check out Wanda’s in Nehalem and Left Coast Burrito in Manzanita. And Ft. George Brewery in Astoria has my absolute favorite IPA in all the world (Vortex)!