Busted!

Beloved readers and mussels,

We made it all the way to Tillamook, Oregon. Is this a landmark? No. Is there a Starbucks here? Obviously, yes. The North-American policy regarding coffeeshops requires there to be a Starbucks within a 5 mile radius of any geographical location that has been visited by at least one person in the last 42 years. Thank goodness.

Driving down Highway 101 is fantastic. Every ten minutes the view seems to change completely and today even the weather is holding up. Yesterday, we were completely swept away by a storm which tried to blow us over the Rockies. Because we had no intentions of crossing the Rockies just yet, we decided to call it a day and parked next to a large (as if they have small ones) grocery store in Seaside (a lovely little town). Sheltered by the huge building, we were sleeping blissfully until at 2AM a police officer decided to bash the side of our van with his flashlight and told us to open our van. After inquiring about the amount of fire arms we were carrying, he decided that his back-up officers he brought might have been a bit too much, but he kept them around anyway. He looked at our passports and asked if my last name was Amsterdam. After explaining to him that Amsterdam is a city, and giving him some clues, he figured out the layout of Dutch passports, which did not stop him from guess both Jaspers and Frans' last name wrong. He seemed to be appreciating our help a lot, or he had just realized he could correctly pronounce the word, because he tried to use it in every sentence. This is probably why he appreciated the fact that I was born on the 18th of May and that Frans' last name was Aben. After appreciating the hell out of us, he told us to leave the parking lot or he would have to give us a 700 dollar fine. We decided that was quite expensive for a night of camping and drove for almost an hour to find a new spot.

This morning the storm had passed and we were greeted by blue skies and a beautiful village next to the Pacific where we enjoyed coffee and breakfast. Life is smiling down on us again. Even The Hoff seems to having a good time in Oregon. That's it folks (and mussels)!

~Ciao~

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