Our Motel room in Crescent City was spacious and very comfortable. We always research the offerings from ‘Booking Dot Com’. They present the feedback in the order of ‘Most relevant’ first; I haven’t a clue what that means. Of course, they do not reveal their system of determining relevance, but since there are never any real shite reviews at the top, I’m guessing ‘most relevant’ means the least hurtful. Maybe I’m being too cynical and they have a super-duper algorithm that really can determine ‘relevance’. With all the information they have about me, they’re possibly even able to sort it into the ‘most relevant’ to me.
I reserve my right to be cynical and always choose another sort order.
Which brings me to their ‘Sort’ functions. They look straightforward enough. Firstly, I usually tick ‘Price (lowest first)’. Not because we’re looking for the lowest priced Motels, as we know very well that you mostly get what you pay for, with some exceptions. However, when the prices range from $45 to $1245, we definitely are somewhere near the bottom of the Motel market. We hate wasting our time and our money. When you look at that sort you do find the cheap ones first and as it gets past your choice range you give up. Then you scroll on and here’s some cheaper ones again! Maybe just sloppy programming.
We don’t really have a ‘budget’, just a ‘what we’re prepared to pay’ and we’ve normally chosen between $80-140 and we get a ‘Genius’ discount. We gravitate there first and then pick through the feedback. We don’t just blindly choose the one with the highest feedback, although we do, generally, avoid those with the lowest. With the ones we’ve decided to look at we may start with the ‘most recent’ then perhaps the ‘most critical’. You just get into this morass of indecision, thinking that all this ‘research’ informs your choice. In the end all you do is ‘stick a pin in’.
Sorry for the diversion - Back to Oregon.
The rain was battering down this morning and it was forecast to rain all day, but now there was a slim chance that it would improve tomorrow. I only say ‘slim’ because it was a prediction in a weather forecast and after the forecast for today we ended up with sunshine and chased a sunset over the Pacific Ocean. You would have thought that someone born and raised in Scotland would know better that to plan around weather forecasts. Back home we never ever planned anything that required us to wait and see what the weather would be like. You planned the trip and went whatever the weather was. You might have to make changes, but cancelling wasn’t an option. In Scotland that would mean you might not actually ever do very much at all.
The first part of our morning was some of the most wonderful coastal scenery, but it was just rather grey, not in any kind of ‘moody’ way, just grey. It was lovely just hugging the coast and seeing the ocean and the redwoods clinging to the edges of the cliffs. This coast, littered with it’s sea-stacks and ‘natural arches’.
Our sunset was at the Cape Arago State Park, and we met a beautiful couple from Oregon (we assumed) and stood and talked and laughed with them. We never even really introduced ourselves. You mostly don’t have to, but if your reading this we’d love you to leave a comment.
Would we stay near here now that it was getting dark, or try to reach our original goal of Florence? Yes I know, even Apple Maps set about finding a route to Italy!
We decided on Florence, since we really are running out of time and we’d love to finish this Coastal Route. We stuck a pin in ‘Booking’ and found ourselves, an hour after dark, in a fine motel room in Florence.
We will have to travel back 10 Miles to see the Oregon Sand Dunes in the morning before we continue. Not the lengthiest diversion we’ve made on this trip.
