Day 1

Ahhhhh.

It’s been quite the week leading up to getting here, and now that we are here and unpacked and full of Mo’s it’s almost too good to be true. In the leadup, I ended up working Tuesday and Wednesday instead of Monday and Wednesday, and on Thursday afternoon we left for the Mt Hood Howard Jones Memorial Open swim meet. This is always a great meet in the beautiful 50 meter outdoor pool at Mt Hood Community college in Gresham, but there’s a saying about it – it’s always too hot or too cold or too wet. And this year it was too cold and too wet. Friday afternoon it started raining during the 50 free and never stopped. And not your usual Oregon drizzle, either – real soaking rain. It rained on and off on Saturday, too, so when we packed up the trailer and headed home on Saturday night, I wasn’t too sorry to miss Sunday.

We got home at about 9:30, and immediately unloaded the trailer and started the laundry. When we’d originally made these plans I’d figured the meet would be over about 6:30 – well, I missed by two hours. We got to bed around midnight. This morning we got up around 8 and started in on laundry and packing. Dave was out of the house by 8:30 to take the trailer back to where it lives. Meanwhile I did house stuff and packing, and grocery shopping. I’m not sure what took so long to do, but we kept busy until 2, and at 2:30 were on the road. Josh drove the van with me as passenger, and Tim rode with Dave in his car. Next year maybe Tim will drive me in the van, and Josh can drive Dave. An exciting sight on the drive out was new construction at the site of the former Oney’s restaurant, which burned down a year or so again. Are they rebuilding? If we they do, and we go there again, will there be another fire? Stay tuned.

Josh and I got to the place where we pick up the keys at 4, but there were no keys. I tried calling the property managers, but got the answering machine. Eventually Josh noticed that there was a light in the house, so I went and rang the doorbell. The woman who answered the door was not who I expected to see – turns out she was housesitting. She called the cleaning person, who apparently is the only one not on vacation. Misty came to the house and let Dave in (we were still on the way). The house really looks much the same- the two big changes are the couch in the front room which has been recovered with a very odd patterned cover, and they put a new head thing on the old naugahide chair to cover the rip. The head thing is like a headrest on an airplane, and like most of those things it hits me in just the wrong spot, forcing my chin down into my chest. I thought it would be a nice addition for Dave of the tallness, but it makes sitting in that chair not real comfy for him either. Fortunately I don’t sit in that chair much anyway.

We unpacked in our now very quick fashion, and before we knew it it was time to head to Mo’s for the traditional first night dinner. 3 clam strip dinners, 1 deep fried oyster dinner. Dave needs to remember that at Mo’s the French fries beat the garlic mashed potatoes. After dinner we stopped at Surfcrest for milk and then drove up through town to look for changes, of which there weren’t many, except that while an unusual number of shops were open, Osborn’s ice cream was closed at 6:35. We’re hoping they’re just not open on Sunday.

When we got home around 7 the boys and Dave turned on the LAD-LAA game, and I went down to the beach for a preliminary sand report. The local sand is very high. The passage to the north is pretty much entirely filled in with sand, which means that we’ll be cut off for less time than usual. What’s exciting is that this week the tides are going to be unusually low (see Saturday’s Oregonian) and unusually late (ie, not at 5:30 am). So I am really looking forward to going on some serious walks. I walked up to where I could see the waterfall (fairly watery) and over to the other side of the cove as well. The path down from the house is the most overgrown I’ve ever seen it. In some places it is completely invisible. Fortunately it is overgrown with soft things, not blackberries, or it would be impassable. The bridge is getting more springy when you walk on it, which I think is not a good thing. And at the bottom, two huge pieces of driftwood were shoved up against the end of the walkway, so you kind of have to make a detour around them. The spring that empties out next to the path is very high, and visible among the rocks. It’s really pretty. While I was down there it was clearing up nicely, and so I climbed upon the black rock wall at the south end and just sat for a while, watching the clouds and the waves and the seagulls. It was good to stop.

Meanwhile, along with not having keys to the house, we don’t have the keys to the wireless network, so who knows when this will go out. Jeannie called a few minutes ago and said she would e-mail the code to Dave’s phone from work tomorrow, so maybe this will go out then. Meanwhile Dave is chopping wood for a fire, and I continue to unwind.

Josh came out wanting to play a game, so we played several games of pepper. Dave won most of them, including one very exciting round where he and Josh were both down to one card each. Josh played his last card to Dave, figuring Dave wouldn’t be able to respond, but it happened that he could. Josh took it fairly well. Then Tim and I played “I’m going to Bubby’s”, and I won when he said Quill instead of Quicksand. (Arab, balloon, clown, doom, egg salad sandwich, frog, gefilte fish, hat, ice cream, Josh, kookaburra, llama, mighty mouse, neanderthal, oreos, pineapple, quicksand). The boys watched a TV show about Somali pirates, Dave and I read for a while, and then it was bedtime.