Double-Stacked Bookshelves

It's Thursday and the sunny weather that Oregon has been experiencing for the past few weeks is no more.  Hello, Rain.  How I've missed you.  Moving on...today we move on to the letter D and I'm bringing you the following: The Devil's Punchbowl Sounds ominous, right?  Worry not, dear readers.  The Devil's Punchbowl is nothing more than a rock formation on the Oregon Coast just north of Newport.  Some perspective:  Newport is two and a half hours south of Portland; one hour and fifty minutes north of Eugene; three hours and thirty-six minutes west of Bend; nine hours and forty-four minutes north of San Francisco; and five hours and five minutes south of Seattle.  Designated a National State Park, Devil's Punchbowl is a nature preserve open year round for hiking, bird and seal watching, and general exploration.  It also encompasses Seal Rock just north of the Bowl.  Devil's Punchbowl at high tide. The bowl is a natura...

Holy moly do I love Traveling I've always liked the idea of discovering new places, but have hated the actual means of getting there.  It could have been due to the fact that I had a tendency to get car sick if I wasn't sitting in the front seat.  This was true when I was a child because we ALWAYS drove whenever we went on vacation;  Disneyland...Vegas...Seattle...anyplace within pseudo driving distance.   Once I entered college I decided to branch out in my traveling repertoire.  I had been on a plane once when I was fourteen.  It was a two hour flight to Vegas.  Who goes to Vegas when they're fourteen?!?  For spring break of 2003, my friend Dani and I decided that we were going to go somewhere crazy.  Cue Japan.  That's right...Japan.  Going from a two hour flight to a seventeen hour flight...BIG DIFFERENCE!  It's a long, exhausting flight from Portland, Oregon to Okinawa, Japan, but it was one of the best vacations ever....