May 10, 2011

Weekend at Ocean Shores

This week we are celebrating three years of our engagement. Keeping up with our tradition of a weekend trip this time every year, we booked a room at Collin's Inn at Ocean Shores along the Pacific coast of Washington state. This city is about 150 miles from Seattle and almost 2 and a half hours long drive. We set off on Saturday morning after a lazy start to the day. With a long Friday movie night behind us, we were in no hurry to begin our drive early. So after a home-made brunch we left at noon and reached Ocean Shores close to 3 pm.

Before we checked in at Collin's Inn we decided to check out the beach :) The beach strip is unbelievably huge and its one of those where you can actually drive on the beach along the waves hitting the shore. I was fascinated to do this since I have never been to a "drivable" beach before. Collin's Inn is at about a 5 mile drive from this beach and it has another beach at walking distance which is more private and not drivable. We checked into our room and were thrilled with the jacuzzi tub and surround shower equipped room that set the mood for a perfectly relaxing weekend. Very strikingly the room also boasted of a thousand pillows in different sizes and softness. The restaurant at Collin's Inn has a very homely feel to it. It is also very well furnished with a piano and beautiful candles and very striking accents to go with its archaic style furniture. However it is quite pricey and we decided to eat dinner in the city where there were other highly reviewed (on Yelp) options.

In the evening we headed back to the sort of city area and drove along the entire long stretch of the beach. It was too windy and hence chilly to actually spend time outside of the car on the beach. We ate at "Viet Ho", a highly reviewed Chinese & Vietnamese hotel. We loved the food and were impressed by kindness of the lady who served us the food. The next morning began with a complementary brunch at Collin's Inn. They had amazing pastries and chocolate covered strawberry starters. However I was not too impressed with their main course. They had eggs benedict which I didnt try and quieche which I tried for the first time but wasnt impressed by it. I think I am too used to my standard oatmeal, hash brown and pancake based brunch options.

We then went for a long walk along the other beach close to Collin's Inn. I enjoyed collecting patterned shells that were still intact and I managed to collect almost a couple dozen. Later that afternoon we headed back to the main beach. It was another windy day so we choose to fly kites which seemed like a popular activity on that beach. We bought a single threaded kite and enjoyed watching it fly and fall in a cyclic manner :) The beach also had horse riding and tricycle and bike riding options. We then headed for a late lunch meal to a place called La Chica Taqueria. Its a tiny taco shack run by a Swedish woman who knows how to make those Mexican dishes to perfection alongwith engaging her customers in a pretty fancy conversation. We tried her puffy tacos and 1.5 lb burrito and the variety of salsas, horchata and churros and I cannot say enough about how each of these was the best of its kind we have ever had. This is definitely a highlight of our Ocean Shores experience.

So we have now found a great weekend getaway destination at a comfortable driving distance from Seattle that can make a beautiful and relaxing and quiet and serene weekend.