Daily Didactic The morning started in the relatively luxurious confines of our little motel room in Reedsport. Try as we might, our planned "very early morning departure" began around 8:00. It was a beautiful sunny morning as we continued on up the comfortable and scenic Oregon coast highway. Today's stretch of the highway wanders through the seaside towns of Florence, Yachats, Newport, and Lincoln City before heading inland toward Portland. What the Oregon coast lacks in rugged scenery, it more than makes up for in ease of use and is easily one of our favorite places in the "Lower 48". We stopped at one of our favorite campgrounds, Beverly Beach, for a quick beach walk and then proceeded on through the very petite Depoe Bay (the self proclaimed World's Smallest Boat Harbor). North of Depoe Bay the road grinds through the congestion of Lincoln City, before offering a path inland to Portland or, more specifically, to Newberg, the home town of some of our most resilient hosts.Michelle is a childhood buddy of Theresa's. It was at Michelle and Alan's four years ago that the bus broke free from it's emergency brake, knocked down a neighbor's tree, ran into a light pole, and was carted off by the police, all while we were at Michelle and Theresa's high school reunion. Putting up with this kind of company is really above and beyond the call of duty for even a "childhood buddy", but Michelle and Alan have had us back twice since then. It difficult to understand, but very nice. We rolled into Newberg around 1:30 and enjoyed a relaxing afternoon of visiting, a wonderful dinner from the backyard grill, and a great movie on DVD. It should go without saying that Theresa was ridiculously happy to see Michelle. Brian is always happy to see Alan, a computer dude for Nike, for both a bit of geek speak and the sort of home networking that we miss on the road. After a perfectly pleasant suburban afternoon and evening, we called it a very comfortable night.