Started off with quite some work. I woke up about 7:30 and decided it was time to stop procrastinating the peaches. At home we get an assembly line going, with Tim dipping the peaches in boiling water, dave removing the skins, and me cutting the peaches and putting them in the fruit dryer. There was no way that was going to happen here – there’s just not enough floor or counter space, and the setup would mean we’d be passing the sticky dripping peaches all over. So I set up a little peach station and did it all by myself. Fortunately there weren’t all that many peaches left, so it only took about an hour and was fun in that mind-shut-off way that things like that are. After peaches I had breakfast, and then it was time to geocache.
Yes, it was raining and no, that didn’t stop us. The tides aren’t very good this week – the very low tides are in the early hours of the morning (as in 1 am), and the low tides during the day aren’t very low. So today was our best chance at it, and we have plenty of rain gear. The first one we went to was north, towards hug point. One weird thing was that I was concerned about getting around the rock to the north of our cove but Dave wasn’t at all. Some time between when I walked to it Sunday night and he walked there Monday, the part to the west of the rock had filled with sand. I always thought the sand moved during storms, but there was no storm. So I don’t know what the deal is. We were both worried about whether we could get across the carriage road (turns out we couldn’t), but fortunately the cache was near the waterfall. I won’t say where, but there was some climbing involved. Dave took on path that wasn’t very steep but had a sheer dropoff to one side of the narrow path, while I took another that was steep but had no drop-offs. Dave found the cache! We’d forgotten to bring our swag. So we just made a note in the log and headed back down.
Much like the swim Ben and I did in Maine, when we turned around to walk to the next point we were walking head into the rain and wind. And it was a little like the swim in that you’d look up to get your bearings, then put your head down and walk a while, then look up an spot again. And again like the swim, it was a little over a mile from the first point to the second. We trudged along past our house. The cache was showing inland a bit, so I thought it might be by the stream that’s a kind of by the Arch Cape Deli (which is closed, by the way) and that’s where it turned out to be. There’s a nice path leading to a road and a little wooden bridge, and the cache is right around there. Once again dave found the cache – I’m saying it’s because he had the only GPS. We have several, but only one has a waterproof suit, and after sending my last phone for a swim I wasn’t about to take my new one out in the rain! Again like Maine, the final leg of the journey with the wind at our backs was very pleasant.
We got home and took showers and woke Tim and went into town for Pig’n. We also needed to stop at EVOO for bread (not ready yet, so we reserved a loaf to pick up later) and to Mr. Wine Know-it-All for a wine to go with tonight’s fruit salad, and to get some more buckyballs to cut down on the grabbing of buckyballs away from each other. They didn’t have any more silver ones so we got black ones, which are pretty cool looking.
We got home and had some buckyball time, and also played a little pepper. We played about 6 or 8 games. Dave won and Tim won and I did not win even one time. I hate pepper. OK, I don’t really, but it doesn’t seem right that I got completely skunked at farkle last night and then couldn’t win any pepper this afternoon. We may need to play some Trouble tonight. Also while we were home we found out from Debbie that they have started storing firewood in the garage, so we made a nice fire. At least it was nice once it stopped filling the room with smoke. The chimney has issues on windy days, and we’d judged today’s wind to be ok. We were wrong. So we had the door open most of the afternoon.
Once they’d finished beating me at pepper it was time to go back in to town to pick up the bread. On the way we stopped at the farmer’s market in the midtown parking lot – a rather soggy collection of a few stalls, but we got some nice strawberries and blackberries. Then it was on to EVOO to get the bread. But when we got there they were very apologetic because the bread wasn’t ready – in fact it was still sitting on the table doing its final rise. Bob the Baker said it would be ready at 5 – about an hour. So what to do in town for an hour? Dave had the very good idea of heading over to Bill’s, where he had a 2x4 stout and a cup of clam chowder and I had a half pint of foggy notion weissbier. It was a very nice interlude. One thing about the weather being so terrible today (cold, windy, actual rain, not drizzle) is that town is pretty much completely deserted – no problem parking, no crowds. As Dave said, “if the weather wasn’t so awful, I’d wish the weather was awful all the time”. (English majors – does that last sentence require the sunjunctive?) After Bill’s we visited some of our favorite shops, including a very successful stop at Maggie and Henry’s, where I got 2 sweaters, a vest, and a light jacket. Then we went back and got the bread, and headed home. When we got there, Tim was watching TV and flying his helicopter.
Last week Tim drove us to Carlton, where we picked up some manchego and triple cream cheese at the Horseradish. That, a piece of cheddar, and a very nice half bottle of Matello Riesling made a wonderful accompaniment to the fruit salad I made when we got home. However a note for next year is to not only bring a bread knife, but also to bring a sharp knife or two for cutting up the fruit, instead of bludgeoning it to death with the knife-shaped objects in the drawer.
After dinner Tim and Dave had several cube-building races with the buckyballs. Dave won in the head to head challenge, but Tim timed it, and then beat Dave’s time. After that it was time for some Trouble, and it was an excellent game. Dave won, and I finally did not come in last. It was a hard fought battle with no clear winner until the very end, and several thrilling reversals of fortune. After that it was once again time for reading and watching TV.
I haven’t had a nap yet. It’s supposed to rain again tomorrow, so I have big plans for one.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
Day 2
Day 2
Today was just amazing. It started slow and kept on going the same way, which is just what I needed. Dave and I got up around 8 and dawdled around and had some breakfast. I also got more peaches out of the dryer, leaving just one tray to finish up. We got Tim up around 9 and had him get ready. The forecast for today was for clouds early, followed by showers in the afternoon. When I first got up it was clear but had been getting cloudier, so we thought we’d head into town and noodle around a bit, have lunch, and be home when the rains came. Much of our plan worked out. First stop was in midtown, to check out the new Irish restaurant. It looks delightful. Also next door to it is a new hardware store and public house, which is a real hardware store with beer on tap. An interesting combination and one we hope will succeed.
Then we headed downtown, where our first job was to get Tim something to eat, so we thought we’d head to the Cannon Beach cookie company. Dave and I had breakfasted there during his sabbatical, and they had good breakfast pastries. But when we got there, CBCC was no longer – it was somebody’s café, or something, and it wasn’t even open. So we kept moving north and came to Season’s café where Tim had a fresh out of the oven cinnamon coffeecake muffin (very, very yummy) and chocolate milk. Then we wandered around town for a bit, going in and out of stores looking for swag for geocaching and enjoying the sun, which was supposed to be gone by afternoon. In the place that used to be the explora-store there is a new toy store that had some excellent toys. We got a remote control helicopter that really flies, some buckyball magnets that are way cool to play with, and the chicken flicken game that is more fun to talk aout than to play, although it is fun to play. We spent the afternoon playing with our new toys and Dave took some time to read and nap on the deck, because it turned out to be a completely gorgeous sunny day, with no clouds all the way down to the horizon.
Dave and I were going to do a little geocaching but the tides (which are not very good this trip) did not cooperate. We will try again tomorrow. Ok, more about the bucky balls. They are little metal balls, about the size of a standard bb, made of “rare eart metal”. They’re magnetic. They’re fantastic. They come in a 6x6x6 cube, and getting them back in that shape takes lots of concentration. You can make some shapes out of them, like hexagons, that are very stable and want to stick together – if you stick two hexagons together they’s come apart as two hexagons. Well,, it’s more fun to play with than to read about.
For dinner we headed out to the Bistro, “memorable meals of honorable mention”, The food there is always good, and they have delicious desserts, And even though the lights are kind of dim, the service was pretty quick. They have a quirky wine list, and the wines tend to be somewhat unusual, and usually not the best. Tonight we had an Alsatian pinot gris which was not an exception.
After dinner we came home and made a fire, played a game of farkle, and now it’s time to do some heavy relaxing
Today was just amazing. It started slow and kept on going the same way, which is just what I needed. Dave and I got up around 8 and dawdled around and had some breakfast. I also got more peaches out of the dryer, leaving just one tray to finish up. We got Tim up around 9 and had him get ready. The forecast for today was for clouds early, followed by showers in the afternoon. When I first got up it was clear but had been getting cloudier, so we thought we’d head into town and noodle around a bit, have lunch, and be home when the rains came. Much of our plan worked out. First stop was in midtown, to check out the new Irish restaurant. It looks delightful. Also next door to it is a new hardware store and public house, which is a real hardware store with beer on tap. An interesting combination and one we hope will succeed.
Then we headed downtown, where our first job was to get Tim something to eat, so we thought we’d head to the Cannon Beach cookie company. Dave and I had breakfasted there during his sabbatical, and they had good breakfast pastries. But when we got there, CBCC was no longer – it was somebody’s café, or something, and it wasn’t even open. So we kept moving north and came to Season’s café where Tim had a fresh out of the oven cinnamon coffeecake muffin (very, very yummy) and chocolate milk. Then we wandered around town for a bit, going in and out of stores looking for swag for geocaching and enjoying the sun, which was supposed to be gone by afternoon. In the place that used to be the explora-store there is a new toy store that had some excellent toys. We got a remote control helicopter that really flies, some buckyball magnets that are way cool to play with, and the chicken flicken game that is more fun to talk aout than to play, although it is fun to play. We spent the afternoon playing with our new toys and Dave took some time to read and nap on the deck, because it turned out to be a completely gorgeous sunny day, with no clouds all the way down to the horizon.
Dave and I were going to do a little geocaching but the tides (which are not very good this trip) did not cooperate. We will try again tomorrow. Ok, more about the bucky balls. They are little metal balls, about the size of a standard bb, made of “rare eart metal”. They’re magnetic. They’re fantastic. They come in a 6x6x6 cube, and getting them back in that shape takes lots of concentration. You can make some shapes out of them, like hexagons, that are very stable and want to stick together – if you stick two hexagons together they’s come apart as two hexagons. Well,, it’s more fun to play with than to read about.
For dinner we headed out to the Bistro, “memorable meals of honorable mention”, The food there is always good, and they have delicious desserts, And even though the lights are kind of dim, the service was pretty quick. They have a quirky wine list, and the wines tend to be somewhat unusual, and usually not the best. Tonight we had an Alsatian pinot gris which was not an exception.
After dinner we came home and made a fire, played a game of farkle, and now it’s time to do some heavy relaxing
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Day 1
In the runup to this vacation, I haven’t been home for both a Friday and a Saturday night since July 24th, and before that, only 2 weekends since early June. I basically gave up on unpacking the toiletry bag. Also, we’ve been coming here every summer since Josh was 6 months old… and this year there is no Josh. So while it is always wonderful to be here, and I know we will have a good time, there’s part of me that just wanted to stay home. But the deposit is non-refundable, so here we are, and it is good.
Changes to the house: not many. New carpet, which looks exactly like the old carpet except that it is clean and not all bumpy around the edges. New solar shades on the front windows, not as good looking as the old ones, but in good working order and also they are supposed to keep things cooler in the afternoon when the sun comes in. Unfortunately that isn’t supposed to be a problem for several days. Also unfortunately, the house continues to get more and more run down – the fireplace is missing some bricks, the faucet on the sink still doesn’t work quite right, there’s just a feeling that things aren’t as well taken care of. But it is still beautiful and wonderful.
We packed all morning, but forgot several important items, mostly my bathrobe. We also didn’t bring the brio train stuff, which would have been fun to play with during the rainy days. On the other hand, this is the first time in several years that we have only brought one car, and space was a little tight, especially since we had to leave room for Tim in the back seat. And because we had to bring the fruit dryer.
Yes, the fruit dryer. Every year in August we get peaches to can and dry. Usually they come earlier in the summer, but because this year was so cold and rainy, they came on Monday. They are picked slighty underripe, so we couldn’t start canning until Thursday, and even then only 3/5 of them were ripe. Did I mention we got 100 pounds? So that left about 35 pounds (some were eaten) to dry, and they didn’t get ripe until Saturday afternoon. The fruit dryer, it turns out, only holds about 20 pounds, and it takes more than 24 hours to dry them. So we taped the trays together and brought the fruit dryer and 15 or so pounds of peaches along, and the first batch is happily finishing drying in the front bedroom. The front bedroom used to be Josh’s room and we have the door closed so the house doesn’t smell of drying peaches (which gets old after a very short time), so sometimes I think he’s in there sleeping. We’ll get the next batch drying tomorrow.
We got here, got unpacked, and headed out to Mo’s after Tim chopped the wood for tonight’s fire. You have to get to Mo’s pretty early to avoid the wait, and besides, we were all hungry. It wasn’t crowded at all and after a very short wait we got a window table. It’s quite chilly here and drizzling a little, but people were out on the beach anyway, all bundled up, huddled around their campfires. Only in Oregon. The food & service were both good. I had ribs, which is kind of unusual for Mo’s, but they were quite satisfactory. Dave had fish tacos, which were also fine, and Tim had clam strips. The French fries were unusually good, but the green beans that came with my ribs were really mediocre. This was especially noticeable because we’ve been getting fresh green beans in our CSA bag, and the difference was profound.
After dinner we went to Surfcrest market as we always do, but not for milk, which we brought from home. Last night Dave made apple pie, and it turns out Tim can’t eat pie without ice cream, unless it is pumpkin pie, in which case he needs frozen cool whip. Also he was having a huge chocolate milk craving, almost too much to bear. So we sent him into Surfcrest to get chocolate milk and vanilla ice cream. He came out with chocolate milk and chocolate ice cream, because they didn’t have vanilla ice cream and he didn’t like the other two flavors. We reminded him that the ice cream was for pie, and sent him back in to return it. He did get a quart of chocolate milk, which he drank right from the carton as soon as we got home. But before we went home, he drove us in to downtown (his first time on the S-curves) and got vanilla ice cream at the Mariner Market.
Once we got home and he’d finished his chocolate milk, it was time to light a fire. Since we discovered the sissy firestarters last year, this should have been a breeze. And it would have been, if either of the two lighters had worked. Or if there had been matches in the house. But there weren’t. Then Tim had a brilliant idea – use the toaster! Dave resisted as long as he could, but eventually gave in, which is how I got a picture of him kneeling on the hearth with a wad of newspaper stuck in the toaster. Yes, it worked, although Tim’s idea of using tongs to hold the paper would have been a good thing to do. The newspaper caught, Dave threw it in the fireplace, it lit the firestarter and now we are sitting facing a wonderful fire. Yes, facing it – it occurred to me that we could turn the chairs to face, not the blank window, but the fire. Quite an innovation.
And that’s all for tonight. We’ve all entered the 20 digit WEP key into our wireless devices, and can surf to our heart’s content.
Changes to the house: not many. New carpet, which looks exactly like the old carpet except that it is clean and not all bumpy around the edges. New solar shades on the front windows, not as good looking as the old ones, but in good working order and also they are supposed to keep things cooler in the afternoon when the sun comes in. Unfortunately that isn’t supposed to be a problem for several days. Also unfortunately, the house continues to get more and more run down – the fireplace is missing some bricks, the faucet on the sink still doesn’t work quite right, there’s just a feeling that things aren’t as well taken care of. But it is still beautiful and wonderful.
We packed all morning, but forgot several important items, mostly my bathrobe. We also didn’t bring the brio train stuff, which would have been fun to play with during the rainy days. On the other hand, this is the first time in several years that we have only brought one car, and space was a little tight, especially since we had to leave room for Tim in the back seat. And because we had to bring the fruit dryer.
Yes, the fruit dryer. Every year in August we get peaches to can and dry. Usually they come earlier in the summer, but because this year was so cold and rainy, they came on Monday. They are picked slighty underripe, so we couldn’t start canning until Thursday, and even then only 3/5 of them were ripe. Did I mention we got 100 pounds? So that left about 35 pounds (some were eaten) to dry, and they didn’t get ripe until Saturday afternoon. The fruit dryer, it turns out, only holds about 20 pounds, and it takes more than 24 hours to dry them. So we taped the trays together and brought the fruit dryer and 15 or so pounds of peaches along, and the first batch is happily finishing drying in the front bedroom. The front bedroom used to be Josh’s room and we have the door closed so the house doesn’t smell of drying peaches (which gets old after a very short time), so sometimes I think he’s in there sleeping. We’ll get the next batch drying tomorrow.
We got here, got unpacked, and headed out to Mo’s after Tim chopped the wood for tonight’s fire. You have to get to Mo’s pretty early to avoid the wait, and besides, we were all hungry. It wasn’t crowded at all and after a very short wait we got a window table. It’s quite chilly here and drizzling a little, but people were out on the beach anyway, all bundled up, huddled around their campfires. Only in Oregon. The food & service were both good. I had ribs, which is kind of unusual for Mo’s, but they were quite satisfactory. Dave had fish tacos, which were also fine, and Tim had clam strips. The French fries were unusually good, but the green beans that came with my ribs were really mediocre. This was especially noticeable because we’ve been getting fresh green beans in our CSA bag, and the difference was profound.
After dinner we went to Surfcrest market as we always do, but not for milk, which we brought from home. Last night Dave made apple pie, and it turns out Tim can’t eat pie without ice cream, unless it is pumpkin pie, in which case he needs frozen cool whip. Also he was having a huge chocolate milk craving, almost too much to bear. So we sent him into Surfcrest to get chocolate milk and vanilla ice cream. He came out with chocolate milk and chocolate ice cream, because they didn’t have vanilla ice cream and he didn’t like the other two flavors. We reminded him that the ice cream was for pie, and sent him back in to return it. He did get a quart of chocolate milk, which he drank right from the carton as soon as we got home. But before we went home, he drove us in to downtown (his first time on the S-curves) and got vanilla ice cream at the Mariner Market.
Once we got home and he’d finished his chocolate milk, it was time to light a fire. Since we discovered the sissy firestarters last year, this should have been a breeze. And it would have been, if either of the two lighters had worked. Or if there had been matches in the house. But there weren’t. Then Tim had a brilliant idea – use the toaster! Dave resisted as long as he could, but eventually gave in, which is how I got a picture of him kneeling on the hearth with a wad of newspaper stuck in the toaster. Yes, it worked, although Tim’s idea of using tongs to hold the paper would have been a good thing to do. The newspaper caught, Dave threw it in the fireplace, it lit the firestarter and now we are sitting facing a wonderful fire. Yes, facing it – it occurred to me that we could turn the chairs to face, not the blank window, but the fire. Quite an innovation.
And that’s all for tonight. We’ve all entered the 20 digit WEP key into our wireless devices, and can surf to our heart’s content.
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