The last day

Day 4

First and most exciting thing is that Dave did indeed figure out the alarm system, so no more beeping in the night. Second thing is that I made it about halfway through Tomatoland and will probably finish it today. It has way too many numbers and long descriptions of people’s qualifications, but it is worth reading. Or I could just summarize it for you, so far: don’t eat tomatoes in the winter unless you know how and where they’re grown, and don’t eat tomatoes from Florida ever.

Dave and I both woke up about 8:30 and came out to look at the ocean. High tide is moving later in the day, so there was actually some beach visible when we woke up. It was a little windy, but still overcast, and warmer than it’s been. I spent some time looking online for the correct way to do one of the boot camp exercises – form is everything, and procrastination is good – before disappearing into the bedroom to complete week 5. The best thing I can say about it is that it was good to be done. I had saved a glass of chocolate milk for after but forgot about it & had cacklin’ instead, which made Tim very happy because now he gets the chocolate milk.

Here’s what’s weird. Slowly but surely, all of our favorite lunch places have closed, so when I’d finished my workout & showered and we were thinking about where to eat lunch, there wasn’t really anyplace we wanted to go. Midtown, Heather’s, JPs… all gone. Warren House is tasty food but I don’t like eating inside there all that much, and it’s too cold for the deck. So we decided to go to Bill’s again – Dave always wants to go there and Tim wanted to try their giant burrito. So we got Tim up and headed in. I had a giant chef salad which is clearly meant for two people. Dave had the red beer, having temporarily given up on the 2x4 (oh, and a burger). Tim had the burrito which was really enormous. He didn’t quite make it all the way through, though he made a valiant effort.

After lunch we walked up to Bruce’s for some licorice and a milk chocolate coconut haystack for Tim. We were going to stop at El Mundo, but it has completed its going out of business and is now George Vetter photography – an entire store dedicated to photographs of Cannon Beach. We didn’t go in. We did swing through the North By Northwest gallery, home of our favorite Christopher Burkett photos (at $5,000 to $7,000, we just visit them) before heading to the chocolate café. The plan was that I’d get a hot chocolate (which I did) and Tim would get a chocolate milkshake, but Tim had been so defeated by the burrito and haystack that he didn’t even want to get one to take back to the house. I drank some of my hot chocolate but am mostly looking forward to reheating it for breakfast tomorrow.

It looked like it was trying to clear up while we were in town, but when we got home it had given up. Dave, not to be deterred, grabbed the warm blanket and went out for some reading and a nap on the deck. He still has some sudokus from the ship and we should have brought them – it would be funny to have a picture of him in a deck chair doing a Sudoku, just like on the ship, but wrapped in a blanket and with gray skies and seas instead of blue. After napping a little he came in and napped on the couch some more. Meanwhile I finished Tomatoland, which was ultimately unsatisfying – it just sort of petered out. But the message remains: don’t buy or eat tomato-shaped objects – if it looks like a tomato, but doesn’t smell or taste like one, you’re using your money to support bad things.

Once Dave woke up from all that napping he was feeling the need to get out and do some walking, and the tide had gone out enough to make that possible. We booted up and headed down. The problem is that even though there was a very low tide (-1.5) scheduled for tonight, it wasn’t until 6:30-ish, when it is too dark to see the path to the beach and also you run the risk of raccoons. Speaking of raccoons, Dave and I haven’t seen any, but Tim saw one last night while we were out. Anyway, we made our way down the path to the beach and over to the waterfall, which was considerably diminished after only one day without rain. It was still way bigger than it is in the summer, and also still heading off to the north rather than straight into the ocean. This, combined with the boulder garden, makes it almost impossible to get to the carriage road with dry feet unless you do boulder hopping, which I didn’t want to do.

I finally gave in and just waded through the water, filling my boots. It wouldn’t be a trip to the coast if I didn’t have at least one instance testing how water-resistant my boots are once the water is inside them. I was somewhat pleased to discover that they’re just as good at keeping the water in as they are at keeping it out. Dave chose the dry boulder-scramble route. The sand seems low to me at the entrance to the carriage road – it’s something of a scramble to get on it, and there’s a pool of water in front of it. We walked to the end and took a picture. By this time the sun had set, and Dave was getting a little worried about being able to see the boulder garden well enough to chart a course back. So we headed back, and this time both of us did the boulder scramble. I would have gotten back without getting wet, except I was already wet to the knees so it was not really a big deal.

Once we got back I played on my kindle and Dave and Tim took turns blowing my hair around with their helicopters. Speaking of helicopters, we saw a coast guard one today – it came from the north, then turned around out over the ocean in front of the house and went back. We don’t know what that was about. At 6:15 I called the Irish Table, which doesn’t take reservations for groups less than 4. If you call them before 6, they tell you to call after 6. So I called and my buddy Sean said there were no spaces until 8:15. I was crushed, told him that was too late, and hung up. We called Tim in to conference about what to do. Tim’s take on it was there was no point in eating anywhere else, and we should wait until 8:15. So I called Sean back, and he took my cell number in case something opened up. Tim decided he’d better have a bowl of cacklin’ to fortify himself for the long wait. Tim hasn’t figured out that since he is not getting any exercise at all, his food capacity has dropped in a big way. We started a game of bananagrams that ultimately fizzled out – I got the last tile, which was a Q, but had no U’s at all, and Dave and Tim were both stuck and not inclined to redo their letters. Fortunately it didn’t matter because Sean called and said we could come at 7:15, which was totally excellent.

We got there a little before 7:15 and they walked us right in to our table. The restaurant was basically empty – what seems to happen is that they end up doing several seatings throughout the night. It was nice that we got there before most of the folks, because our food came unusually quickly. I had the mussels, of course. I started with a salad and a piece of bread, both of which I should have skipped (although they’re both very good) because 1) even though it’s called an appetizer, it’s a considerable mound of mussels and 2) you want to eat at least 2 slices of bread that you’ve soaked in the mussel cooking liquid and 3) they had pumpkin bread pudding for dessert. So I ate way too much. Dave and Tim both ate too much too, because everything there is really, really good. It’s not fancy food, but it is so well prepared and imaginatively cooked that it’s really a special treat. Also something that was funny is that they had lamb chops served over champ. Not knowing what champ is (it’s mashed potatoes cooked with leeks or scallions) was one of the things that lost us our food trivia crowns on the ship. We didn’t have any – it was too painful. Dave and I also each had a hot biddy, while Tim watched enviously.

We got home and had a quiet evening of watching the fire and reading. I also put in some serious buckyball time, which I hadn’t done yet this trip. I figured out how to split the cube, and twice I even split that, but that was the end of my success. Now Dave is fighting with the fire which keeps filling the room with smoke, and it’s about to be bedtime. No towel animal again tonight.