Day 6 - ooo, EVOO

I woke up around 7 and had a small bowl of leftover fruit salad (leftover fruit salad is the second best thing about the fruit salad dinner; the fruit salad dinner being the first thing) and headed in to town to check out Cannon Beach Yoga Arts, which is upstairs over White Bird gallery in a space where Lynn and I once tried on lots of sweaters. It’s a very nice space indeed, sunny and open, and I liked Christen the teacher right away – she made everybody feel very comfortable. It was pretty much the same yoga I’m used to in FG, which was comforting, except she did more of the leg stretching right up front. I wasn’t too flexible right then, but I enjoyed the class and doing the same things in slightly different ways. One thing she did was ujjayi breathing, where you were supposed to make a hissing noise in the back of your throat. I’d not heard of it before, but at least one of the people in the class was very good at it (there were 6 students) and it was a little like doing yoga with Darth Vader. At the end during savasana she came around and put aromatherapy oil on our hands, which I liked, and also moved my arms and shoulders and head around, which I really, really, really liked.

It was a beautiful morning in Cannon Beach, bright and sunny but very empty. The bakeries and coffee shops were open, but the shops themselves don’t open until 10 or later, so it’s kind of a strange vibe. Lots of families with sleepy looking parents and very young children on the sidewalks, but I don’t think I saw a single teenager. I considered getting a gooey sticky bun on my way home, but decided that would not be a good idea – tonight is dinner at EVOO and they have some sort of date cake for dessert.

When I got home Dave was up and about and reading his book, so I bit the bullet and went back to the torture chamber, I mean bedroom, and did day 4 of bootcamp to complete the series. Day 4 is just mean. I don’t think it’s as hard as day 3 but it has too many pushups. It also has frog jumps, which really do shake the house. Tim determinedly slept through them – he knows the whole thing will be over in a half hour or so. Once I was finished with the workout and the accompanying killer abs and a shower, we got Tim up and headed to town for lunch. We took two cars so Tim wouldn’t have to hang out in town with us. This ends up saving us quite a bit of money, because then Dave doesn’t take Tim to the place-that-used-to-be-the-explorastore and talk him into wanting really fun but expensive toys.  We parked in the secret back lot which had plenty of space even though town was very crowded. We got to Bill’s and went in, figuring Tim would be right in – we’d seen him  coming from the regular lot. He hadn’t seen us, though, so he was standing outside waiting for us. Eventually I went out and got him. We all had our usual bacon cheeseburgers (mine with no cheese), but no onion rings. Tim skipped out as soon as he was done. Dave and I spend some time wandering around town seeing if we could get things fixed (kite parts, yes; sunglasses, no) and looking for hats (no luck). We tried out the new olive oil & balsamic tasting place, which turned out to be so-so base oil & vinegar infused with a variety of flavors. Not what we were hoping for. But right by there is a shoe place that had the wallet I’ve been looking for, which was very exciting. If only Dave had had similar luck with his hat search.

After we’d gone everywhere in town we needed to and I’d decided not to get any licorice at Bruce’s (what self control!), we drove to midtown and walked out towards Haystack Rock for a geocache. It was pretty much high tide at that point, but the beach was full of people doing beachy things. It’s a beautiful sunny day, but quite windy and chilly – maybe 58 degrees. So people were out there dressed I everything from bathing suits (mostly little kids) to sweatshirts and long pants. This is what I think of as normal beach attire. Dave found the cache, a pretty new one, and we had a nice walk back to the car.

We went back to the house briefly and I changed our reservation for tomorrow night from Stephanie Inn (good food, but nothing we can’t get at home) to Fishes. That made us all feel good. Then Dave and I headed off to Oswald West State Park to hike out to the Cape Falcon overlook. It’s a 5 mile hike (that’s less that 1/5^th of a marathon, for those of you who are Ironmen) that’s another part of the Oregon Coast Trail that we hiked on Wednesday. We parked at the well-marked trailhead and headed off. It’s so interesting to listen to the road noise and the ocean noise and the stream noises come and go. Like I said earlier, it was a sunny but cool day, really perfect for hiking. After a mile or so you get to where you can see Short Sands Beach (the trail can go there, but we went the other way), and it’s very scenic and lovely so you stop and take all these pictures of it. Then you continue on through more forest, which varies between trees with very little undergrowth, trees with lots of undergrowth, and just undergrowth, and then all of a sudden you come around a corner and there’s what looks like a meadow on the top of a hill like a knob. That’s the turnoff to the Cape Falcon overlook, and it turns out the meadow is actually bushes, and there’s a trail through that’s maybe two feet wide, and the bushes are 7 or 8 feet tall. It’s kind of the Pacific NW version of the ice crevasse that Dave walked through on the glacier. We followed that (not much chance of getting lost) for some time and then suddenly it pops you our and you are waaaay up high looking what feels like straight down 4 or 500 feet into the ocean. My fear of heights popped right back out – I couldn’t even look at Dave standing close to the edge, much less stand there myself. Eventually I got myself under control and went to look down. It’s a scary amazing view, made even more spectacular because it was such a clear day and the ocean was so very blue.

 

It turns out that Dave has an app on his iPhone that has all these trails marked on it, which was very helpful because the turnoff to the overlook was not marked.  Other factoids from the hike: apparently Nia has kept me in pretty good shape, because for the first time on this hike and the previous one Dave was having to push to keep up with me. Although my right knee started hurting on the way back – it really didn’t like bending with weight on it. I favored it a little and it seemed to get a little better, and after some advil when we got home it is feeling fine. We’re thinking it would be fun to do the long hike from the place where we left the van for the two bridges hike to Short Sands, but we’d need to bring food and water and snacks.

When we got home we had a little time to shower and relax, and then it was off to the dinner show at EVOO. Bob the Chef (I’ll be your chef tonight, he always says, and tonight wondered out loud why he says that, since he’s the chef every night) and his wife Lenore do a 4 course meal, with much of the cooking done right in front of you. Lots of talking and hints and tips, and also yummy food. One thing we learned tonight that was interesting to me is that when they designed the kitchen, they limited themselves to non-professional equipment, that is, the kind of stuff that is available to the home cook. So unlike the Mythbusters, they do want you to try it a home. Highlights: homemade pulled pork ravioli; a tomato-basil sorbet with a hint of cayenne that can’t even be described, perfectly cooked salmon, and a sticky date cake covered with caramel and pecan-coconut brittle that they made right there in front of you.  The food exceeded expectations, but it’s really the show and the cooking hints that make the night. We’ve learned a lot from Bob over the years, and want to try making ravioli sometime soon. We do not want to learn to make the date cakes with caramel and brittle, because I would not be able to stop eating them.

The dinner show is supposed to be two hours, but as usual we rolled out of there after over 3.5 hours stuffed, happy, and with some fennel pollen and 40 year old balsamic vinegar, and also a small bottle of olive oil from Oregon Olive Mill that Lenore gave Dave when she saw that he had a bone in his salmon. When we got home Tim was watching TV in the bedroom. He’d been in to town to Osborn’s and also stopped at Mariner to get Oreos, but he had chickened out of going back to Castaways and just had leftover spaghetti that we’d brought from home. He forgot to get milk, though, so we can’t have Oreos and milk tonight. We also can’t have Oreos and milk tonight because Dave and I are completely stuffed.

Tim made a fire and we’re sitting here happily digesting. Today we didn’t think of anything we forgot, although I didn’t have the right shoes to go with my new pants for dinner tonight.

Day 5 - A good day for a nap

We stayed up pretty late last night, so my plan of waking up at 6 and walking to the Rock With A Hole in it (Rock Wahii, for our new readers) was pretty much shot. I did wake up at 7 and decided to cheat – you can park at Arcadia Beach and walk from there, cutting a mile or two out of the trip. I’m pleased to say that I got the whole clothing/hat/sunglasses decision thing right. A T shirt, long sleeved shirt, sweatshirt and shorts, baseball cap, no sunglasses was the perfect choice even though it was pretty chilly out – 54 degrees. There were lots of people out on the beach when I got there, including a group of three women about my age with their dogs. I was thinking how fun it would be to go to the beach with a bunch of friends (and I still think that) but I realized as far as walking on the beach goes, I really do prefer being by myself. I’d be happy to see them back at the house or whatever, but I like to be able to walk as fast or as slowly as I want, and stop and examine things, or not. Since the tide was coming in I was moving with determination, although not very quickly. The low tide at 6:20 was only a -.8, which wouldn’t be enough to get behind the Rock Wahii at its lowest, and I was well over an hour behind that. I just wanted to make sure I could get inside, and indeed I did. The starfish report for this year is that they are plentiful. I did notice that my boulder scrambling has gotten much slower and more careful this year. I think the fact that I was wearing shorts and got pretty scratched up last year took a toll on me. Or maybe I’m just getting old. Anyway, I got inside the rock and took the usual pictures, none of which will really give the sense of what it’s like to be inside the monolith, listening to the waves sucking around the rocks and wondering how quickly the tide is coming in.

On the way there Jockey Cap was still accessible, but by the time I headed back it was surrounded by water. Not that it’s all that exciting anyway, but I do like to give it a pat. I decided it wasn’t worth timing the waves and headed back toward the car. On the way back I noticed that it looked like someone had put chairs in the falling down house, so I walked over there and sure enough there was a table and some chairs and even a pillow. It’s a story I’ll never know. I also found the beach path from the house next to the falling down house. It is further from the house than you’d expect, and you enter it through an archway carved out of some bushes, then up some very steep stairs. I didn’t go very far because it’s a private entrance, but I sure would like to stay in that house some time.

By now the sun had made it over the hills, so I was glad to have my hat. I had one more thing to check out, which was the big rock that sort of makes a gate at the north end of Arcadia beach. The side near the ocean had seemed to be doing that overhang thing on the way out, and I wanted to take a closer look. Sure enough, that giant piece of rock is undercut just like the mushroom rocks near the little house. In the tide pool by the rock I also saw a live Dungeness crab scuttling around. I’m always excited to see crabs move because of how they go sideways – how cool is that? Also you don’t usually see the Dungeness alive, so that was also fun.

I thought about walking over to see the new house with the giant walls’o’glass, but I was getting pretty hungry, so I headed up to the van instead. Just about the time I got there I got a text from Kay Nell, telling me that she’s been inspired by my blog to do some bike riding. It made me feel good because 1. It’s always exciting to hear someone is reading it and B) exercise is good and iii) I like to feel I’m inspiring. When I got back to the house Dave was on the porch in his PJs. He’d been looking at Venus, which you can see during the day. I ate my cacklin’ and got caught up on things. Dave made the bed and did my breakfast dishes, which he does almost every day (he makes the bed every day), which made me feel very pampered.

After a short time for recovery Dave and I headed in to town to check out some of our favorite stores. I found a wonderful sweater at Dena’s but didn’t notice the over $200 pricetag until after I’d tried it on.  Some of the stores in CB are a little pricey! I did find a great pair of pants at La Luna Loca, although they are the most complicated pants I’ve ever owned – first you put the front part on and tie it, and then you pull the back part between your legs and tie them. It’s hard to describe and harder to visualize, but once you get them on they are very good. Dave got a new Wek shirt, and I got some earrings, and we visited our Christopher Burkett photos at NW by NW gallery. We also picked up some wine to have with our fruit salad, which is dumb because we should have brought some from home. Then we went to Warren House for lunch. Warren House is a sister restaurant with Bill’s, but it’s down in Tolovana and also is weather dependent. When it’s a nice day you can eat out on the deck which we love – when it’s not a nice day you have to sit inside which is dark and not very interesting. Since today is a beautiful day, it was a good day for Warren House.

Our original plan for the afternoon was to go for a hike out to Falcon Cove, but Dave’s knee was hurting and it was such a gorgeous sunny day it seemed a shame to spend it in the forest. So instead we came home and took naps in our favorite places – Dave in the sun on the deck wrapped in a blanket with a hat over his face, me on the bed with the sun pouring in the skylights. A nap in the sun has got to be one of the best uses for a sunny day. The blanket Dave napped in was bought in Cape Cod when we were Rosenthals, many years ago. Tim apparently didn’t nap. Dave and I woke up at about the same time, and then we all headed down to the beach. It was a little chilly and there was a nice breeze blowing, so Tim and Dave flew some kites. They started with the stinger, which is our usual kite for flying here – it does well in a light breeze and it’s nice and agile. But the breeze was strong enough that Dave got out the big gun – the Hawaiian with its 5 foot wingspan that we bought in Michigan many, many years ago. Now that’s a kite – if you jump in the air while you’re flying it, it will pull you forward. Tim enjoyed wrestling with it for quite some time, leaning into it and periodically almost losing his balance. It’s something of a dinosaur in the air, though. Its turns are rounder and less precise than the stinger. So for fun Dave got the flexi out – aka the flying sleeping bag. It really does look like a sleeping bag, but it’s by far the most responsive of the three kites, especially in the nice steady breeze. Tim had a blast dive bombing the sand and pulling out at the last minute.

Faithful readers might have guessed that it was time for me to dig a hole. I found a place in the dry sand (after spending some time shuffling around and listening to the sound the sand makes with your bare feet). I was much further up the beach than I usually am, but it turned out to be a very good spot. I didn’t hit the rock layer until after I hit water, which is unusual. I never got deep enough to have to lie completely on the sand, which was kind of nice. In fact it was such a good hole that I couldn’t stand to just fill it in, so I went up on the rocky part and got lots of sticks and built a fence around it.  Then I moved toward the water a little to make some dripstone.

Meanwhile, Dave and Tim had gotten done with flying kites and moved on to throwing the baseball at each other and then on to Dave throwing the ball to Tim and Tim trying to hit it with the bat. When my dripstone collapsed it was time for me to head up and get started on the fruit salad. So I missed the part where the ball fell in my hole and Dave got poked in the armpit trying to get it out. I’m hoping that’s the only thing that falls in. They came up and hung out while I finished the fruit salad. We moved the table into the living room so we could look out at the ocean while we ate – true oceanfront dining, even though the ocean is pretty far down. We had a nice Walnut City rose, Pearl bakery bread, and three kinds of cheese – manchego, muenster, and triple crème goat brie. It was a very satisfying meal. Dave had tapped the barometer when he came up and it is falling, and there’s a big streak of ominous looking cloud overhead, but as of now the sun is sinking into the ocean through what seemed to be perfectly clear skies. Unfortunately just before the sun hit the water there was a tiny band of clouds. Dave says there was a green flash , I say there wasn’t. Photographic evidence indicates some green tinge to the sun as it was setting when you blow the picture way up. I say it wasn’t visible to the naked eye. 

After sunset it was time for a shower for met and then more laundry. The rinse/spin cycle on this washing machine is very long – 15 minutes or more – and the lid locks during the spin cycle and for a minute or so after it finishes – very annoying. So while we were playing yahtzee I had to keep getting up to check on it, and I’m blaming that for my not getting the bonus on the top half and losing even though I got a yahtzee. Of course Dave also got a yahtzee and also did not get his bonus and he wasn’t even trying to do laundry. Tim won. So then we moved on to pepper, and I won the first game. I had to stand up and do the dance of joy, but that was the only dance of joy for me out of the next 5 games. Dave had won two and Tim had won two, so Dave pointed out that if I won the last game we’d all have won two. Alas, it was not to be.

We finished out the game playing section of the evening playing blackjack, which we made up rules for. After Dave ran out of the pepper cards we were using as chips, he went online and looked up the real rules, which don’t sound like as much fun. But we’re going to practice playing that way so we can play at the next David Hill blackjack party, or on the way to Alaska next August, whichever comes first. Or maybe both.

Today we didn’t come up with anything we forgot, because we remembered to bring a sharp knife for cutting up the fruit and another for cutting the bread. Oh wait, we forgot the wine for the fruit salad.

Day 4, Hike & Tiki

Woke up this morning and after my cacklin’ saw three unusual things: first I saw flocks of pelicans flying in long lines just over the surface of the ocean. They are all flying from north to south. I got out the binoculars to see them better, and while I was looking at them I noticed something dark in the ocean just below them – a seal or sea lion (I couldn’t see if it had ears or not). Then I went to clean up my dishes, and also the teapot from last night. I’ve been making iced tea in the tea pot, and while I was cleaning it out I noticed it has burn marks on the inside – yes, someone was boiling water and they burnt it. Although I wasn’t counting that in my original count of three unusual things, I’d have to say it’s pretty unusual. The third unusual thing was a quarter rainbow out over the ocean. It was cloudy when I woke up, but it’s slowly clearing up and so we got a nice rainbow too.

It turned out it wasn’t slowly clearing up, it was getting cloudier, and about the time we’d planned on leaving for our hike it was raining. Not hard, but hard enough that you wouldn’t want to go hiking in it. So we decided to just hang out in the house instead, and go hiking after lunch. I connected my laptop to the jambox and put on some Nia music while I did some yoga, which was very nice. When you’re doing it on your own, you can spend more time on the poses you like, and less on the ones you don’t like. Or you can leave them out altogether. I’m still pretty sore from the two boot camp workouts, so the stretching felt good.

We read for a while, then Tim got up and we headed to town for Pig’n. There was plenty of parking and we got seated right away, which is good except it makes me nervous – is the Pig’n going to go the way of Doogers? That would make me very sad. I had to laugh when they seated us, because in the next booth was the family that was one table over from us last night at the Irish Table (the dad had the lamb chops and boy did they look good). Tim and I had the pigs in blanket, which I eat rolled up. He unrolls the pancakes and makes them into a stack, and eats the sausage separately. I pointed out that you could order a stack of pancakes with sausage, but he said that he orders them as pigs in a blanket because he knows how to order that already. Dave had a half order of eggs benedict, which he said was fine, and half of my third pig in blanket, because three is too many. In the pig’n gift shop area they had the pig popper, which I thought was pretty cool. You put a ping pong ball in its mouth and squeeze it around the middle and it shoots the ball. No-one else was impressed.

After lunch it had mostly cleared up. We stopped briefly at the house to change shoes and then headed off to Arch Cape for the long awaited hike. The temperature was perfect, and aside from forgetting my camera so was the hike. It’s interesting because you climb up one side of the hill, and the sound of the ocean is behind you. Then you’re behind the hill and you can’t hear the ocean at all, and then all of a sudden you come around the shoulder of the hill and the sound of the ocean is in front of you. The part just after you come around to the ocean side has a fairly steep drop to one side, which made me more nervous than I thought it would. We were expecting a fairly steep climb down with switchbacks, but instead it’s a long, gentle slope through some fairly dense vegetation. Our pant legs were pretty damp and also a little muddy by the end. The most exciting part of the hike was when we got to the end and my car was indeed right there – we were pretty sure we had the endpoint correct, but not 100% certain. The hike was only about two miles and Tim was considering doing it again backwards, but decided not to. We got in the van and drove a little further south to see where the trail goes back into the woods on its way to Short Sands beach – we’re thinking that might be a fun hike later in the week. Then we picked up the other car and headed back to the house.

After all that walking it was time for some relaxing. Dave spent some time researching more of the trails around here, and we’re tentatively planning a hike again tomorrow. Unfortunately the fog rolled in, making it chilly and bleak looking – not a great day for going down to the beach to dig holes. I read for a while, then took a nap. Dave read for a while, then went for a run on the beach. Tim played on his phone, then took a nap. It would have been a nice afternoon to build a brio layout. After I woke up from my nap I did day 3 of bootcamp, which was just as unpleasant as I thought it would be. I did it indoors because it wasn’t nice enough outside, but Tim said it didn’t wake him up, nor did he dream of earthquakes. After showers we read some more and then headed out for experimental food.

Last summer we saw that several restaurants had changed down at the Lumberyard end of town. One was called Castaways Restaurant and Tiki Bar. Not our kind of place, we thought, imagining pu-pu platters (not that there’s anything wrong with pu-pu platters) and drunk 20-somethings. We could not have been more wrong. The name and sign are completely misleading, but on the other hand Restaurant with Good Drinks and Very Interesting Tasty Food is not such a great name either. The décor is northwest kitschy Caribbean, with tiki masks, fishnets with shells tied to them, and lizard sculptures on the walls. It’s very small – maybe 8-10 four person tables? – and the word eclectic doesn’t begin to describe the menu. Beef stew? Sure, it’s one of the specials. Jambalaya? Seared Tuna? Pork marsala? Curried Shrimp? Jerk Chicken? The chef came out several times to chat with folks, and his idea is you should be able to eat there every night of your vacation and not get bored. You’ll have to go elsewhere for your clam chowder, although they do have a seafood soup on the menu that I wish I could have tried.

We started with the seared tuna appetizer – perfectly seared, beautifully seasoned, with a peach ginger sauce and wasabi dots. Dave had the pork chop special – it had a white wine, peach and habanero sauce and mango-peach chutney. I had the east meets west – two chicken satay skewers, two jerk chicken skewers, 4 fantastic sauces, and I also had a tiki salad which was a nice green salad with candied walnuts. Tim had the jambalaya, spice level 2 (out of 4), which was sprinkled with blueberries. All three dishes were just delicious, and the service was cheerful and attentive. We could say Dayenu here, but then we would have missed out on the dessert –warm triple chocolate coconut brownie with toffee sprinkles and coconut ice cream. The brownie was just barely cooked – crunchy on the outside, gooey on the inside, completely perfect. Dave had a rum punch and I had a strawberry-kiwi mojito, both really good but missing umbrellas. The wine list is very interesting – good wine with almost no markup at all. Can you tell we all loved this place? The only downside to the evening is that we may have missed the only good sunset of the week, as the fog had completely burnt off by about 5:30.

We rolled ourselves out to the car and drove home through the clear evening with a big almost-full moon shining down. When we got back to the house Tim made a fire and we talked about playing some games, but decided it would be more fun to just sit in the dark and look at the stars or read on our various electronic devices. We didn’t even put on any music, just the crackling of the fire and the shushing of the waves. A peaceful end to a very nice day.

More things we forgot: the brios, although bulky, are nice to have. And Dave would like the camera adapter that lets him connect his cameras to his iPad.

Day 3, Cache as cache can

 I stayed up late finishing a book that turned out to be not that good – we all like happy endings, but not when they come in that neat a package. So this morning I slept in until 8, and then had a slow morning surfing the internet while watching the waves. It was partly slow because that’s the kind of morning we like, and partly slow because both Dave and I were sore from our various exercises the day before. We left the house around 10 to go geocaching around Manzanita. We found 4 caches, although technically we only found three of them. For the second one we were looking around for it when a grandpa and two kids came up and said, “Are you geocaching?” They were trying to do it using an iPad without 3G or GPS – triangulating using wireless signal. That’s why when we first saw them they were far from the cache and heading in the completely wrong direction. We’d been looking for quite some time, but we were all thrilled when the granddaughter found the cache – it was actually up in a tree. The next one we found was on a beautiful pond that was mostly dried up and filled with wildflowers. Two things we love about geocaching are that it gets us out and moving – we ended up walking several miles – and it takes us places that we wouldn’t have found otherwise, the pond being one of them.

The other place it took us was Bread and Ocean in Manzanita – after we found the fourth geocache we were pretty hungry. We walked the mile back into town and as we walked I got on yelp and this place looked pretty good. It was good, too. It’s located in the former home of the Blue Sky Café, which probably only BOS will recall. Dave learned from the internet that it’s also owned by the same person. It’s a go to the counter and order then pick up your food when they yell your name kind of place. They have yummy sandwiches and salads. We each had a half sandwich (more than enough food), tuna salad with artichoke hearts and roasted red peppers for me, turkey with a pesto and chutney for Dave and a cup of red curry lentil soup for each of us. The meals came with cookies (ginger for me, chocolate chip for Dave) which were the weak points – they weren’t bad, but our standards for chocolate chip cookies are pretty high.  We’d called Tim and told him our plans and offered to meet him in Manzanita, but he decided he’d rather stay at the house and eat leftover spaghetti brought from home for occasions like this. He also rather piteously asked Dave if hi calves were sore too.

Last year we’d gone looking for a cache called Two Bridges that we’d looked for and hadn’t been able to find the year before that. We were able to find it, and then continued hiking along the trail for a while just for fun. We knew the trail was part of the Oregon Coast Trail, but we didn’t know where it led to, or at least where that segment led to, so we’d turned around and gone back. On our way home from Manzanita we thought we’d look for the other end of it, and we managed to find it – something of a miracle, given that it’s just a pullout with a very small sign on a post in the ground. We had to stop at ACPS to finish paying (which took about 20 minutes – Debbie’s assistant quit unexpectedly and it’s a little frazzled there right now) and the trailhead for the other end is near there so we walked over to make sure it really is part of the Oregon Coast Trail, and it really is. So we’re going to do it tomorrow or whenever it’s not raining.

  

Then we came home and it’s a beautiful sunny day. I wrote, Dave hung out on the deck, and I’m not sure what Tim did. Eventually I worked up the energy to do day 2 of bootcamp. I did it in the side yard which made it much nicer, and then stretched on the deck after with the sun shining on me, a nice breeze, and the ever present sound of the waves. It was almost worth working out just to do the stretching after. Those of you who are thinking that I could have skipped the workout and just enjoyed the stretching may have a point, although the endorphins from all that work are a nice thing too. Meanwhile Tim had gone down to the beach for a walk to get things stretched out, and Dave took a nice shower. All of that felt very good.

Usually I spend as much time on the beach as possible, but this year I am really, really enjoying taking the laptop or the kindle out to the deck and sitting in the sunshine listening to the waves. Right now I’m also listening to Dave not doing well in a game of canoe – sounds like Tim is killing him. Usually canoe is more sedate, but this sounds almost as loud as a game of trouble. In general the afternoon was pretty quiet – lots of reading. I also got out my helicopter and tried to fly it. I immediately broke it, but fortunately Dave had spare parts for it. It’s harder than it looks, but also fun.

Tonight was our night to go to the Irish Table, possibly the best restaurant in Cannon Beach. The only drawback to the Irish Table is that they don’t take reservations for parties of fewer than 6. Instead you call after 5:30 and they put your name on a list and tell you when to show up. In our case, they told us 7:30, which was a little later than we would have liked (ok, about an hour later) but for Irish Table even Tim will wait. He also fortified himself with peanuts. We got there a little early and were immediately brought back to our table. There’s always a nervous moment when you get the menu and order, because the thing I like to have (and everyone else likes me to have) is the curried mussels, and sometimes they run out. They did not run out tonight, but I’m ahead of myself. They make fantastic soups, so Tim and I started with the soups – tomato bisque for him, carrot-ginger for me. Tim said his tasted like liquid lasagna, and he was right – and it was so good. Mine was equally good, if not better, sweet and spicy and just right. Dave had the lox and green salad, which I ate about half of – I figured the soup could come home (which it did, in a to-go coffee cup. Irish Table is Sleepy Monk coffee during the day, and they were out of soup containers). The salmon was perfect, just salty enough and moist and silky smooth, and it came with a salad with pickled fennel and onions and hard-boiled egg and greens. Then it was the entrees, my curried mussels in a broth so fantastic that everybody has to dunk their whole wheat soda bread in it (or just use a spoon). Dave had the fish special, perfectly prepared salmon. The flavors were very good, but not as mind-blowing as last year’s fish special. Tim, as always, had the piemontese steak with the vertical carrots and mashed potatoes over cabbage. He devoured the steak, but as always found the cabbage offensive. He doesn’t eat the carrots either, claiming that they’re just decorative.

I feel like I need to start a new paragraph here because dessert was so good. Tim’s favorite dessert there has been the “chocolate pot”, basically a chocolate pot-de-crème served with pistachio shortbread cookies. This year it was replaced by a mocha pot – same thing, but with espresso. His eyes lit up after the first bite like fireworks, and he even compared it to the Wayfarer chocolate espresso ganache cake that has been his standard of excellence for years. I had blackberry sorbet which was pretty much just ok until Dave decided he didn’t like the lemon curd in his dessert. Once topped with the rest of the lemon curd, it was yummy. It also came with shortbread cookies – one plain, two chocolate – that were basically a lesson on what shortbread should be. Dave’s scones with clotted cream and strawberry preserves completely floated his boat, and mine too. Also Dave and I had hot biddys – hot irish whiskey with lemon and cinnamon. Irish table amazes us every time we go there – the menu doesn’t change, but it doesn’t need to. The flavors are all interesting and yummy, and the food is always perfectly cooked. Service is friendly and reasonably quick. As you might have guessed, I recommend a trip there.

When we got home Tim made us a fire and we played some farkle. I lost our original farkle set, and in general this replacement set is just sad – almost 3 pair, almost a straight, almost whatever. For Dave and Tim that was true tonight, but I sparkled at farkle. I won, I won! Did I mention I won? I was so excited by my decisive victory that I went suggested we play some trouble. Dave put on Pirate music, which set the atmosphere very well. But I should have rested on my laurels. Tim won the first game without anybody even close, but I was totally dominating the second game, until Tim came up at the end and won again. I think it isn’t right. Tim reminded me that in the first game he took pity on my and didn’t honk the man I’d finally gotten out, but I still think it is wrong that I didn’t win the second game.

More things we forgot: small backpack to take hiking, and my yoga mat would be nice to have.