Day 7

Started the latest of any day so far – it was almost 9 when I woke up. Of course we’d stayed up late last night watching the crescent moon set into the ocean. It was very interesting. When we first saw it it was very high and made a great moon path both on the water and on the wet sand. As it sunk lower and lower, it made less of a path. There were the usual low clouds on the horizon, but instead of the moon sinking behind them and disappearing from the bottom up, it just got redder and redder and smaller and smaller. At one point there was just a thin vertical line of red on the horizon – kind of like a ufo.

One thing I haven’t mentioned that has been really wonderful about this week is that Dave has made the bed every day. This small thing has made a big difference – there’s just something so nice about coming in to a made bed and not having to do it yourself. Almost like being in a hotel.

Saturday night is a good night to have our smokked fish dinner, so we need to go in to downtown to get the fish and the steamers. Readers from last year will no doubt recall our disastrous attempt to go into town on Saturday, where we went to town about around 2 and couldn’t find a parking spot at all, and Dave had to circle like a shark while I went into the E. Coli Seafood Market to get the goods. Last year although the weather was not great here (foggy), it was over 100 degrees Portland and everybody was at the beach. This year the weather is great here, and thanks to the weather channel everybody knows it. But Dave had come up with the clever plan of going to town early (10:30) and then hanging out. So we did. The first thing we did was walk to midtown to see if anything was happening at Icefire. We timed it almost perfectly and got there just as they were finishing up a plate. We got to see the part where they take the small vaselike object and spin it out into a plate, it is just the coolest thing. Also where they cut it with scissors like it was soft plastic.

After Icefire we walked out to Haystack Rock, something we almost never do because it is too touristy and besides we have our own rocks. But we had some time to kill, so we walked out, and I am glad we did. We got there just at low tide – about a minus one – and there were many very interesting tidepools. There’s a place where the rocks almost form a barrier, so you get a little protected cove. Lots of seaweed, lots of starfish, lots of people, and lots of birds. Haystack rock is so big that the top of it actually has grass growing on it – and not just a little grass, either . The Haystack Rock Awareness Program volunteers were there too, with little telescopes, so we were able to see some birds up close – common murres, a puffin which was placed so perfectly in the view that we thought it might be an animatronic one they had for visitors, pelagic cormorants and of course seagulls. My favorites are the common murres, whose wings seem too short and small for their stubby penguin like bodies. Because of this there’s a sort of frantic haste to their wingbeats, like they’re not sure they’re going to be able to stay up. The gulls, on the other hand, do this wonderful thing where they catch an updraft and just hang in the sky without moving their wings at all.

When we’d had enough of the beach, we headed back to town to think about where to eat lunch. It was such a beautiful day we wanted to eat outside, and the natural thought was to go to the sunny beer garden at Warren House, especially since we had no children and could actually sit in the sunny beer garden. The problem is that the whole point of going to town early was to have a parking space in town, and Warren House is all the way down in Tolovana. Tolovana is a pretty good walk away from Midtown and you have to do it on the beach, because the S-curves are between the two places, and the S-curves are not a good place to walk. I considered calling Josh to have him come get us and we’d all eat at Warren House, but Dave said he didn’t think that was what Josh had in mind.

Why weren’t Josh and Tim with us, you may be wondering. First, because they’re teenagers and being with us is not at the top of their list. Second, because they had been at home awaiting the arrival of John Friend, who was driving out all by himself. We had been secretly hoping his parents would say that he couldn’t, not because we don’t like him (we do), but because now there is a precedent of taking the family car and driving to the coast. Oh well. At any rate, John arrived while we were in town and he and Josh and Tim went to Warren House all by themselves. Meanwhile Dave and I were still trying to figure out where to go. We wanted to go to Heather’s of sainted memory (it’s only been gone 7 or 8 years), and decided we’d check out the menu for Season’s café and Deli, which is in the new “Loblolly By the Sea” group of buildings. The menu looked interesting enough that we decided to stay, and they had nice tables outside to sit at. We both ordered soup (Beer Cheese for Dave, Tomato Basil for me) and sandwiches. The soups were fabulous. Dave says next year he’s just going to order a soup sampler. The sandwiches were good too, but not as spectacular as the soups. I had something called an Aussie Dip, which is like a French dip but made with lamb, and it was good if you like French dips, which I don’t particularly. I got a half sandwich which was a good amount. Dave had an enormous Rueben which looked and tasted very good, but we had to take half of it home.

After lunch we headed toward the wine shop, but it was too early to go there, so we stopped at the bookstore. Dave found a very nice picture book about Oregon Wines that is just lots of stories from winemakers and beautiful pictures, which he bought. I found a book called Heirloom about an heirloom tomato grower which I didn’t buy. Then we went to the wine store, home of Mr. Wine Know-It-All. He wasn’t there, but Kevin Howard from Zenas and Sejourne was there pouring some of their wines. We came, we tasted, we bought the Pinot Gris and the Meritage. Then it was off to E. Coli, where we had the first and possibly only snag with coming in June – there’s no smoked tuna until July. Rats! So we got both peppered and plain smokked salmon, smokked mussels (1/4 lb) and 2 lbs of steamers.

By the time we got back to the parking lot the place was a total zoo – people circling the parking lot looking for spaces, crowded sidewalks, all the things that make you ready to leave. Dave had wondered how many of the people were day trippers vs folks out for a week. Given how much more crowded it is on the weekend, I think there’s a large percentage of day trippers. Day trippers, yeah.

On the way home we stopped at Waves of Grain in Tolovana to get bread, but they were pretty much out – we got 4 french rolls and an extremely skinny baguette. Note for next year: stop there on the way in to town in the morning. When we got home Tim was asleep and Josh and John were down at the beach. Tim woke up and headed down to the beach with his boogie board and somehow managed to get all the way in the water and get Josh and John to come in too.

Afternoon was quiet. The boys came up and dried off and got cleaned up, then watched TV and facebooked until it was time for John to go home. Then I remembered that Josh had said to get milk, so he and Tim went down to the Arch Cape Deli to get some, but they were closed, so they went to the Surfcrest in Tolovana, where we always stop on the first night for milk. So that was a nice roundness. When they got back Dave put the steamers in to steam, and we had the smokked fish dinner. And for the first time ever, the smokked fish dinner failed to delight. We’re not sure what it was exactly, but the clam broth was watery, the smoked fish didn’t hit our spots, and overall it was just a disappointing dinner. It was so disappointing that only Tim had the heart to do talking Mr. Clammy. It was so disappointing that I sent Dave and the boys to Osborns to recover, while I put on an old Yes album (actually, I hooked my phone to the stereo) and did dishes and folded laundry. Because today is laundry day, so I don’t have too much laundry to do when we get home. Because Dave is leaving for New York City early Monday morning, so there won’t be much time for him to pack. Anyway, we’re thinking that next year maybe we’ll change it to a fish dinner – get some smokked fish (tuna) to take home & make pasta with, and maybe grill some fish to go along with the steamers. That with salad and bread would be a nice dinner.

Once the boys all got home (Dave had a haystack sundae) we did some relaxing, then Tim chopped the kindling for tonight. He didn’t need to chop any firewood, because he went a little nuts with it last night. I made oven s’mores for Tim & me, microwaving 4 marshmallows at a time for 7 seconds to get perfect doneness under the broiler. Tim is seeing how much sugar he can get before the sugar train leaves the station. I played a game of farkle with Tim, and two with Dave. I won one of the three games, but rolled 5 of a kind twice , which was good.

Wildlife note: In previous years there has almost always been a seagull perched on the corner of the roof, waiting for bread or cherries or whatever. This year there has almost never been one, which is too bad, because we like feeding the seagulls. The raccoon either didn’t come around tonight or we didn’t see it. What we have more of than we’ve ever had before is ants, Big, black carpenter ants. It makes us happy that they are not our problem.

Meanwhile, during the farkle games with Dave, clouds completely moved in from out of nowhere, and within half an hour we went from a beautiful night looking forward to a great sunset to completely socked in and wondering if it would rain. Also I discovered that the game is spelled farkel, but that doesn’t rhyme with sparkle, so I’m going to retain the old spelling.

We finished our week with a rousing game of Dread Pirate. Josh was the dread pirate first, and even put on the eyepatch. Tim and I were never the dread pirate, and Dave only got to be it for a short time. As usual, Josh was the Dread when the game ended. I had the least amount of treasure, and Dave had the most and is the Pirate Winner until we come again.

Goodnight and thanks for riding along.