Day 7 - It's all she wrote

Started off with my last yoga session, again with Christen. Enjoyable, but once again she was moving from pose to pose faster than I was comfortable with. We’d made a plan to meet Rhonda and Tracy for lunch at Bill’s, so I just got some hot water at Bella Espresso, added my own teabag, and sat in the sun until Bill’s opened at 11:30. Dave and Tim got there just as the doors were opening; R&T had gotten there a little earlier. They are headed to Hawaii for 10 days on Monday, and tonight is Rhonda’s last night at the Coaster for this play, so they are feeling very relaxed.

After lunch Tim went down for his nap and Dave and I hiked from the Neahkanie north trailhead to Short Sands beach – a really nice hike with lots of pretty views. It was on our old friend the elk flats trail that we’d walked on a couple days ago for a short stretch. It started with a walk out to the Devil’s Punchbowl overlook, which has a nice cabled off area at the end which gave me something to hang on to. Dave walked further out towards the tip, which gave me the willies. It had been warm and sunny in town, but as we’d headed south it got foggier. So it was sunny where we were standing, but misty out over the ocean and inland.

The thing that was funny about the hike was that we kept running into people who all wanted to know where the trail was going, how long it was, and other questions like that. Don’t they know you can just download the .pdf of the trails? There’s good signal almost everywhere. It’s understandable, though, because that area is riddled with crisscrossing trails. All the trails are really well marked, but the names – Sitka sruce trail, old growth trail, cedar crossing trail – are not that helpful. We eventually got to the suspension bridge on the elk flats trail that we’d crossed on Thursday, and took the old growth trail back to the walk-in parking lot where we’d left the car. We still need to take the sitka spruce trail and of course do the long connector between the falcon cove overlook trail and the arch cape trail, but that’s going to have to wait for another trip. Once again my knees started acting up on the downhill – I’m going to have to get that figured out before we do the long hike. The parking area for the walk-in had been pretty full when we dropped the car off there, but when we got back at 2:30 it was completely full, so we need to remember that you need to get there early-ish on a sunny Saturday.

It was completely warm and sunny at Short Sands beach, but when we got back to the house it was foggy. I ate some leftover melon and fruit salad and had a nice nap in the brown chair – my first nap for several days.  When I woke up the fog had burned off, so it was time for Tim and me to go down to the beach. Sadly Dave has caught my cold, but he’s very lucky that with the sun streaming in the skylights our bed is one of the best nap places ever, so he took care of himself by doing some serious napping. We were going to take a kite, but Tim’s kite didn’t get in the bag and we weren’t sure there’d be enough wind for the other kites, so he took the board and we headed down. My knees were pretty much fine on the stairs. My plan was to bounce around in the waves. At first the water seemed much colder than yesterday so I wasn’t sure I’d make it in, but once my feet and calves went numb it was pretty easy. Right in front of our house there’s kind of a flat spot between where the waves form, so I went out to the edge of that and had a great time. The water seems extra clear to me this year, and it’s fun to look at the light patterns through the water. It took Tim a little while to get the skim thing down – as he said, he has to relearn it every year. But he got it before very long and was skimming back and forth. Eventually I had to go up to shower and regain the feeling in my feet, but he stayed down a little longer and eventually got totally immersed himself. I was so chilled even after my shower that I had to sit in the brown chair in front of the window with the sun streaming in, where it is about 10,000 degrees.

One thing that’s very strange this year is that there are no pebbles on the beach. Usually one of the things I do while I’m here is take a long walk on the beach and think about my dad, and then take a little rock with me to put on his headstone when I go to Connecticut to visit Margaret. Except that this year there aren’t any – it’s all sand and crab bits and mussel shells. And of course I won’t be visiting Margaret either. And I really haven’t taken any long walks on the beach by myself.  So everything is different. I did pick up one rock – there were two that I saw. It’s just weird that there aren’t any rocks. Sometimes there are depressions in the sand during low tide that are just filled with exposed pebbles, and we wonder where they come from. This year we’re wondering where they’ve gone.

Dave and I went to dinner at the Stephanie Inn, which is very good food that for some reason never quite seems to be completely satisfying. And I do mean very good food – while my first course, a grilled peach salad, was an almost complete failure, the remainder of the dishes were better than just about anything we’ve had. Two particularly mentionable things were my caprese salad which had a really nice balsamic reduction and big crunchy salt crystals that made it stand out. In a way caprese salad to me is like enchiladas in a Mexican restaurant – it’s always edible, but rarely memorable. This one was memorable. Dave’s salmon had orzo cooked in mushroom broth and some chanterelles that were worth the trip by themselves. Also the desserts are always good – made with fresh ingredients and never too sweet. I’m not sure what it is about the restaurant that keeps it from being a top choice – the bread is not very good, the service is very earnest and friendly but not quite there, and the décor is, again, missing something. In a way it reminds me of Wayfarer before it went bad – the food outshines the restaurant. Two things that were odd – they had a prix fixe menu that was basically all things that were on the regular menu, but if you ordered them as a prix fixe package they’d be at least $12 more than you’d pay if you ordered them separately – huh? Also this is one of those restaurants where they don’t write down your order, an affectation I find irritating. Our earnest server had to come back twice to double check what Dave had ordered. I don’t think it takes away from the experience when a server writes down my order, but maybe I’m unusual in that.

We got done with dinner and into the parking lot just as the sun was setting, and it was a very good one. There were too many clouds for there to be a green flash, but it was clear all the way down to the horizon. When we got back to the house Tim and my van were gone, but unlike most Cannon Beach stories where we get somewhere and Tim is missing he showed up shortly afterwards. He’d been on an unsuccessful Osborne’s run – how can they be closed at 8:00 on a Saturday? We spent some time researching hotels for our trip to Santa Cruz (CA, not Mexico) and made a reservation. Then Dave tried to make a reservation for dinner there using Open Table. It didn’t go well – eventually he was just poking the dot on his iPad where Santa Cruz was and saying “why doesn’t this work? Why doesn’t this work?” while Tim laughed very hard. At that point it was time for some trouble. I won. Twice. I rolled so many 6s all the spots wore off. When we got Dave to stop poking the iPad and play trouble, he kept poking the pop-o-matic and saying, “why doesn’t this work?” It was a rough night for Dave, and also for Tim who was laughing so hard it hurt. Then Tim took Dave’s wallet and started making it talk like walletzilla.

It has been a good week.

Day 6, fog and a comedy tonight

It’s been a busy day already, and we’re not even done! Usually I take a few minutes here and there to get caught up, but today I haven’t had a few minutes. I started out by heading in for yoga with Christen. It was very interesting because she had 2 new-to-yoga people in the class, so I figured we’d be spending time on form and alignment. I really like classes like that because I enjoy working on form and alignment and listening to my body, but also because it often means holding a pose or a stretch for a little longer than you might otherwise, which can be quite challenging. Instead it seemed to me that we whipped through a whole lot of poses, kind of like if you don’t hold any position very long it doesn’t matter how you do it. We did a series of what are now called mountain climbers that was unlike anything I’ve ever done in a yoga class, which doesn’t mean that much because I haven’t done all that much yoga. But it was weird.

I was home by a little after 9:30, and the skies had pretty much completely defogged – it was a beautiful day! So Dave and I decided that once I’d finished my cacklin’ we’d head off to the Neahkanie mountain trails. Which we did, but Nehalem was completely socked in – heavy, deep fog. We were disappointed but decided we’d go ahead and do the hike anyway. It’s two trails – the south trail, which goes mostly straight up (with switchbacks), and the north trail, which slopes down the whole way (also with switchbacks). Of course if you started from the north their up-and-downness would be reversed, but the north end is lower than the south end, so we figured we’d do less up and more down. It was an amazing hike, because the fog was breaking up the whole time. So we had the sun filtering through fog, we had clear patches, we had places where the fog ended just over head-level so it was illuminated by the sun as you walked through it and it blew past. That was really strange because you felt like you should be pushing it out of the way, like the thinnest cotton you can think of, except that even though you could see it, there was nothing to push.

We met some people on both trails, but mostly it was just the two of us. In addition to going in and out of the fog, we’d also go in and out of where you could hear the ocean – we’d suddenly notice that it was almost silent except for our footsteps and breathing, and then you’d go a little way and the ocean noise would be back. We know that we missed some good views because of the fog, but I’m glad we went when we did because watching it lift and change was better than views. After all, it’s just the ocean, right? There was one place which is sort of the summit , although it’s not the top of the mountain. Before it, the trail mostly went up; afterwards, the trail mostly went down. It’s the only place where the trail goes past a rock wall and I wished I’d had my security rope. It had an open view down to the ocean, but when we got there all we could see was fog. But as we stood there taking pictures of the fog, it started to go away and we could see patches of oceans through it. It was so cool.

The last bit of trail going down is just a long slope with switchbacks. The path is only about a foot wide and very overgrown with vegetation on both sides. There are also roots to trip over and on the downhill side the trail often isn’t as wide as the opening between the vegetation, so we really needed to watch our footing. I did step off the path and slid down to my knees once, but was unhurt. Unfortunately my knee doesn’t like going downhill for a long time, so the last bit was kind of painful. Does anybody know why it would hurt going down stairs or down a slope, but not going up stairs or up a slope? Well, it’s annoying. By the time we got back to the car the sun was completely out and we were starving. We texted Tim to get ready, and stopped at the house to put on dry clothes – between the fog and the dripping from the trees and the sweating and the slipping (in my case) we were pretty soaked.

There’s a new lunch place and cupcake bar called the Cannon Beach Café  where the original JPs used to be in the Cannon Beach Hotel, and we decided we’d try it for lunch. I was a little nervous when we came in and there was a vacant 4-top that needed to be cleared, and the waitress suggested we might like to come back in 5 minutes. There was a nice couch next to the table so we sat there, and she cleared and wiped down the table (but not the placemats, which was kind of questionable). Service wasn’t as slow as I’d feared, and Tim said his French dip was very good. Dave’s and my sandwiches were just ok, and the cupcakes were dry with not very interesting frosting. So we’ve been there and done that and don’t need to do it again.

Tim had thought he might go beach biking after lunch while Dave and I hung out in town, but yesterday’s run (and this morning’s) caught up with him and he decided not to. There’s not really a reason for Dave or I to go with him since he’d be halfway down the beach before we even got past the creek. So we drove into town which was very crowded, but for the third day in a row we got our same space in the secret back lot. We went to the coaster theater to pick up our tickets for tonight’s show, but even though it is tonight the box office lady couldn’t get them to print out, so she just hand wrote our information on blank tickets. Then we went to EVOO to get bread, and while we were there we wondered if they were doing thanksgiving dinner, and they were, so we made reservations. Because our favorite place, the Nehalem River Inn, changed hands before last Thanksgiving and isn’t worth going back to.

Then it was back to the house, where Tim and Dave went down for naps. My knee was still unhappy, but it was gorgeous and sunny and low tide and I really, really wanted to go down to the beach, so I hopped and stumbled my way down there. I’d worn my workout capris since I forgot a bathing suit and also they are great for going in the water (although not as good as the ones that fit tightly all the way down), and I figured my knee would like to walk in the water. It’s not that cold at all, so I ended up wading in jut to the tops of my thighs (on average – this is the ocean and it’s very wave-y), and walked all the way to the tip of hug point and back. It was a great walk and it was fun to see all the little kids running back and forth with the waves chasing them. By the time I got back to the house I was pretty much soaked all the way up my arms and chest. Also by the time I got back to the house the fog had come back and we were completely socked in.

I did a little ab workout and had a shower, and then I had about half an hour before it was time to make the fruit salad. Since we’re going to the theater tonight we figured it would be easier to just eat in the house. The fruit salad was very good except that there were two bitter peaches that got in – I should have just tossed them. The mango, plums, nectarines and melon were all good though, and the bananas were about perfect even though they looked overripe because they’d been in the fridge.

After dinner I had time for some more blogging while Dave put away the leftovers (not very many) and Tim did the dishes. Then we headed in to town to see ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum’ at the Coaster Theater, because our friend Rhonda-the-piano-teacher was making the music (it’s all live at the Coaster). We couldn’t get Tim to come with us since last time we went it was a very strange musical version of A Christmas Carol (which Rhonda also played for) and the moaning spirits in the aisles at the beginning left him quite disturbed. We were lucky; it was their next to last performance and even though the audience was small they (we) were very into it and the performers did not disappoint. We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.

Back to the house through one of the clearest nights we’ve ever seen. It’s finally cooled off and the humidity is gone, so we’ll enjoy a little time with the crackling fire and sleep well tonight.

Here is a bonus picture of Tim playing with Buckyballs

Day 5, Playing lost & found with Tim

I’ve been sleeping in the old master bedroom (AKA Josh’s room) so I wouldn’t keep Dave up with my cold, but since I’m better I slept in our bedroom last night, which is why I was wide awake at 7:30 with the light streaming in the skylights. Also coming from the skylights was the sound of heavy rain, which is nice as long as it doesn’t stick around too long. I headed to town for yoga, realizing a shoe mistake as I prepared to go – my sneakers are mesh and would be soaked through pretty much right away; I need to bring casual walking around town shoes that are water resistant but aren’t my boots. Yoga was with Claire, who is a kind of bossy yoga teacher. She spends time at the beginning of class talking about the body’s way, but then during class she’s verbally fixing everyone from the front of the room – “Gail, put your hands further apart,” “Ed, put your feet closer together,” “Heidi, move your legs further back,” “Beautiful, Rachel”. I’ve never gotten so many perfects in my life, so of course I loved class. We did one pose where you were in a deep lunge and you put your elbows on the floor and I was the only one I could see who could get all the way down, which just goes to show that 1. The competitive part of me NEVER shuts off and 2. I’m made for that pose.

It was raining quite hard and blowing on the way there, and nothing had changed when we were done. We’d made a plan to meet at Pig’n, but I didn’t want to walk all that way in the rain and  I wasn’t sure if there’s a 2 hour limit where I parked. Town was all parked up and there was no space in the Pig’n lot, so I parked in the secret church lot and walked down. It was very crowded in there, but I was about 15 minutes early so I put our names in. They have many things to look at and buy, but the 4 foot long stuffed squid that had a long snake body between its head and tentacles was just wrong. Anyway, by the time Dave and Tim got there it was almost our turn. I was able to trade Dave one of my pigs in blanket for 1.5 of his bacons, which worked well, but we still need Tim for the extra toast and hash browns.

After lunch it had stopped raining, so Tim drove Dave’s car home while Dave and I went to the North by Northwest gallery to look at our art, giant beautiful photos by Christopher Burkett and bronze sculptures (especially the bunnies) by Georgia Gerber. The owner was started talking about the paper that C Burkett prints on – basically he and the French Army (?) bought the entire last run of it, and he has about a 10 year supply left before he can’t make prints anymore. That seems like a long time but it’s about half as long as we’ve been visiting this gallery and looking at his pictures.

It had started raining again so we headed back to my car and went home. Dave wanted to go for a walk, but I was feeling the need to sit down for a while, so I got some laundry started and had some relaxing time. He went in and accidentally took a nap on the bed – long enough and deep enough that I did an extra rinse cycle, moved the clothes into the dryer, and started the second load without him fully waking up (the washer/dryer is in our bedroom). Eventually he did wake up, so we put on shorts (workout capris for me) and raincoats (and a fleece vest for Dave, which I wished I’d done) and headed out for a walk on the beach. It had stopped raining, and we decided to drive to Arcadia and walk from there, since we’ve both done the home-to-Arcadia walk at least once already this trip. When we got to Arcadia it still wasn’t raining but the wind was fierce. Fortunately it was blowing from the south and we were walking north, so it was helping us along.

I’d chosen to wear my Tevas (we call them Kuvasz) for the walk onto the beach & barefoot for the actual walk; Dave had his hiking boots on. After a very short way my feet were really hurting. I thought it was kind of weird, because I spend a lot of time walking and dancing barefoot, but then I realized that the sand was a very strange shape. The wind was picking up the dry sand and it was forming these hard tiny clumps that were really uncomfortable hurt to walk on (like those sandals Ben had once with the rubber protrusions). We didn’t want to walk on the dry sand because the wind was blowing it like little needles into the backs of your legs, but it turned out that the sand down by the water was fine.

We saw so many cool things! I mentioned the sand being blown along, and even though it was painful it looked like mist blowing over the beach, only more solid looking. Dave called it a ghost wind, or a sand ghost – mesmerizing to watch. The wind also made patterns on the water that looked a lot like the uncomfortable sand, and it was interesting to watch the waves fighting the wind as they spread out onto the sand. It was also fun to play with body position – turning a little to the side made the sleeves flap less, for example. But the best thing was the gulls. They had to be very careful to stay facing the wind, or it would blow all their feathers backwards, which I imagine would be uncomfortable if not downright painful. So we saw several of them walking sideways – actually crossing their legs one in front of the other. There was a large group of them on the sand by the rock Wahii, all facing in the same direction. They all had their heads up and many were making the usual gull screech. But there was one poor juvenile that had its head down with its neck stretched out, and it was making the most pitiful peeping noises. Some of the birds that nest on the rock Wahii had flown off and were just stationkeeping in the breeze. We also saw one gull that was flying into the wind and then made a broad turn to fly with the wind; as it went by it seemed to be screeching in a combination of absolute terror and complete delight – look how fast I’m going! AAAAAAHHHH!!! There were also squadrons of smaller birds, schooling kind of like fish. One came up from behind us, so they were going with the wind. They went by so fast they scared me!

After a half mile or so we both realized we weren’t going to want to walk back facing the wind, so Dave and Tim made a plan that Tim would drive the van up to Tolovana and run down the beach to meet us, and we’d swap keys and he could have a good run. I’m not sure Tim knew quite how strongly the wind was blowing when he agreed, but in a half hour or so he came running down the beach. It’s always strange to me when I meet him somewhere - how big and strong and adult he looks, and how facial hair he has. But his running style is unmistakable, with almost as much up and down as it has forward movement, and he recognized us as well. So we swapped keys and he kept going south. He’s a young person so it’s easier for him to go into the wind. We kept going and as we got closer to Tolovana it was interesting to see how many people had decided to go for walks on the beach. We were having so much fun that we didn’t want to stop, so we walked a ways past Tolovana before we turned around.

When we turned around it was quite a surprise just how hard it was to make forward progress. It was like walking up a very steep hill, or swimming against the current in an endless pool (at least I imagine it was like the latter. I’ve never swum in one). No wonder Tim hadn’t been sure he wanted to run all the way to Arcadia! But it was also exhilarating. We got to the parking lot and rinsed off our shoes/feet and found the van with no problem. Dave could see from his friend finder app that Tim was almost to the car, so we hopped in the van and headed towards home.

Now since this is a story of Tim alone at the beach but not in the house, you know it has to have some anxiety filled moments, and here’s where they come in. When we drove past Arcadia, we slowed down to see if the Volvo was still there. It was. It shouldn’t have been. There was, of course, no sign of Tim, and now Dave’s app was saying that Tim’s phone couldn’t be located. From the parking lot it looked like the big rocks that stick out towards the ocean might have cut off access from the north, so we figured we’d go back to Tolovana to see if Tim had gone back there. No Tim, no Tim’s phone. Dave did call Josh accidentally at this point. So we drove back to Arcadia (It’s a mile or two from Arcadia to Tolovana, and about the same distance from Arcadia to home). Still no Tim or Tim’s phone. Dave decided he’d go down to the beach to see if it was really cut off, and I headed to the house to see if Tim had missed Arcadia and gone all the way home. Which he had. But now Dave was at Arcadia with the car and no key, since Tim had it at the house. So I drove back to Arcadia to give Dave the key. We realize that if we’d not been such nervous nellies and hadn’t looked for the car at Arcadia we would have gone straight home and Tim would have been there. Also shortly after we got to our car it started to pour down rain (and some hail, too, where Tim was) so we found out that Tim’s water resistant jacket is not waterproof. But he got a good workout and we all eventually made it back to the house safely.

I meant to do some ab workout but then I didn’t and it was time to get showered and ready to go off to the dinner show at EVOO. EVOO opened in 2004 and we’ve been going there on and off since then, but the past three summers have all included dinner at EVOO. It’s called the dinner show and it really is a show. This year Bob & Lenore really seemed to be having fun with it, playing off each other and telling lots of stories. They do the same menu for an entire month, so this was the first day of the last 3-day week of this menu. It may be that they were more relaxed because all the bugs in the menu have been worked out. They also have two amazing kitchen helpers/servers, who seemed to always be there with a piece of equipment when Bob needed it, or to take away an extra pan. I enjoyed watching them almost as much as I enjoyed watching the chefs! The food was better than we remembered. We started with a perfectly cooked halibut paired with a sparkling faro and veggie salad, moved on to a summer veggie ragu over polenta with fresh corn, and the last savory course was a filet of beef with smoked beans (yes, smoked) and a slice of watermelon with feta cheese and a Serrano-cilantro dressing that was my very favorite thing of the whole night. Dessert was a red plum upside down spice cake with vanilla custard ice cream and a popcorn-pecan brittle. We ended up at a table with some folks who had two girls about the age of our boys and it was lots of fun. On the website it says 6-8:30, but it really never gets over until after 9, and then you have to buy some sherry vinegar since the stuff you bought last year is almost gone. Dave also remembered that last year we bought some fennel pollen and super-aged balsamic vinegar, and we need to be sure to use them.

Tim had been asleep when we left, and had slept until 8, but by the time we got home he’d made a fine meal of leftover pizza. Dave made a fire, and he and Tim played canoe, a dice game Uncle Ben gave Tim for his birthday many years ago and which Dave and Tim like to play at the coast. It’s a fun game but it made Tim say poop a lot. They played two games and Dave won both times.

Day 4, when the rains came

Surprisingly, I woke up at 7 feeling fine – cold gone, ears clear, no ill effects from the overindulgence at Newmans. So I got myself together and headed in for Yoga. I had been trying to remember the space, specifically if it would work for Nia, and it would, although tall people would need to be aware of where they were in the room and maybe not stretch their arms above their heads. I’m thinking Vickie would work; Al not so much. I talked to Christen after class and she’d be very open to doing a workshop some Saturday. Now I just need to find an interested teacher. Anyway, class was very enjoyable – not so full that you feel like you can’t stretch your arms out. I like the flow of her classes and find her easy to follow, although there were a couple of times I wished there were mirrors so I could have checked my alignment. I did notice, though, that for the most part I could feel where my body was without looking, and that was a new to me sensation that was good. The 75 minutes went by super fast – I was stunned when she said to prepare for shavasana, I figured we were only about halfway in. I had worked up a good amount of body heat, although it’s unusually warm and still humid, so some of it may have come from that.

I blissed myself down to the car and back to the house, listening to the aria from La Wally that’s in the movie Diva, which if you haven’t seen it you should. It is perfect driving back along the coast from yoga music. Dave had been up when I left, and he was still up when I got back. Tim came out briefly but insisted that he was not awake, and in fact went back to sleep. I spent a little time finishing yesterday’s blog and getting it posted.

The tides aren’t great this week in terms of getting very low, but they are low later in the day. This means you can go to yoga and still have time for a nice walk on the beach. So Dave and I did that. Because of having a cold this was my first time down, so I will do the Path and Sand Report. The path down to the beach (55 steps, not counting the ones down from the deck, and not counting the steps that are just a board or tree root with dirt behind it) has been very well taken care of. All the weeds have been removed, and the first and steepest flight of stairs has been rebuilt so it’s not so rickety, although it is still very steep – and the bridge is still very bouncy. The vegetation around the waterfall is spare so you can actually see the water cascading down. The first thing you notice when you get to the beach is that the pebble area isn’t as wide as it sometimes is, but it is very high – you’re much further up the rocks on the left than usual. We headed toward hug point, and the sand is very high coming out of our cove, although Dave says that when he was there Monday the rocks in the narrow neck were very exposed and there were pools between them. Not so anymore – it’s completely flat. The waterfall is very low, as you might expect given the dry summer, but the sand at the carriage road is very high – so much so that we think one of my favorite dog photographing places where the sandstone is being worn away is completely covered. Also all of the rocks in front of the actual carriage road at hug point are buried, and the sand comes up very high going onto the road. There’s a deep pool in front of the north end of the point, so you can’t walk all the way around it on dry sand. We went up and over, and walked most of the way to Arcadia beach. Then we decided to head back. The water isn’t the warmest it’s ever been, but it is also not bone-numbingly cold. We enjoyed splashing through it and were able to walk around the point on the sandbar that’s about 8 feet out.

When we got back Tim was awake and his first words were “Where are we going for lunch?” Good question. It was mostly cloudy, but the sun would peek through every now and then, and it’s quite warm – high of 72 today. So we decided it would be a good day to check out the sunny beer garden at Warren House Pub, and it was. I got some spruce ale (a glass would be better than a pint) and the smoked salmon salad. I need to remember that the smoked salmon salad is super yummy just as it is on the menu. No need to order anything else or change the type of dressing – it is really, really good. Tim had the Rueben and Dave had the white trash tacos, which were basically tacos made with Lawry’s taco mix – very nostalgic tasting.

After lunch we went up into town – plenty of spaces available in the secret back lot. Tim headed off to get taffy while Dave and I tasted rum and what-would-be-called-tequila-if-it-were-made-in-Mexico at the Cannon Beach distillery, and bought some of each. I remembered that you take much smaller sips when you taste distilled spirits than when you taste wine, so it went well. Then we stopped at Maggie and Henry’s where we got a Cannon Beach T-shirt for Tim to take to Santa Cruz and a shirt made of hemp from Santa Cruz and a fantastic long sleeved shirt, both for Dave. Tim and I had discussed taffy and he’d said he was going to get the premixed bag, but he ended up choosing his own and mostly chose flavors I don’t like, which made me mad. Not mad enough not to eat it, just a little mad.

When we got home I did some relaxing in the brown chair while Tim and Dave headed to the beach. It remains overcast, humid, and very mild.  After a while I went down and dug a hole, but found it unsatisfying – it was too deep before I struck water, and I was worried about my nails, which need to hold up for the full two weeks. Eventually it started sprinkling so we came up and took naps. Of course it stopped sprinkling moments after we got up here, so Dave napped outside until it started sprinkling again, and then he completed his nap on the couch.

I’d been thinking about going to the intermediate yoga class at 5:30 but found myself not excited about it, so instead I went and did BodyFit day 2 in the back room. I didn’t start with 18s, the way Alex did on the ship, but it was a good workout anyway. As I was putting away my mat I realized that I left something out of yesterday’s blog, which is that we watched the cruise video after we got back from the restaurant. That’s when I drank my tea, I figured out. So the whole reason we got the video was so that we could see Dave’s triumphant dance and win in the Dancing with the Stars at Sea competition. The video started out with an interminable sequence of people having their boarding pictures taken (some with the moose, which made Dave sad because he missed the moose every time). It did show all three of the preliminary dance competitions. It showed parts of the shows, with the worst videography and sound you can imagine, and I know you can imagine a lot. But it didn’t have the final show! It’s one of the worst things we’ve ever paid for on the ship, and I include the hour-and-a-half wine tasting where we only tasted 4 wines and the leader went on about turbidity until our eyeballs went numb. We are not happy.

Once I’d finished my workout & we’d all showered we headed for Castaways Tiny Tiki Hut, a restaurant we never, ever would have gone to if not for Yelp. As it is, it’s one of our favorites – the only drawback is that they don’t take reservations for parties of fewer than 6, so you take your chances. This time we had to wait a bit, so we went out to the car and played on our personal devices until they called. The rains finally came in to stay, so walking around was not really an option. Once we got in and seated the service was a little slow, but Dave had his hurricance and I had a pomegranate-blueberry-ginger cosmo, so we didn’t really care. We tried the Texas Egg roll, which is basically peppery cream cheese in an eggroll wrapper, which was quite yummy. And of course the seared tuna appetizer, which was cooked perfectly and had interesting flavors. Our entrees were very good – Dave had the scallop special, I had the Jamaican pork chop, and Tim had his usual, the Jambalaya, 2 star spicy level. And of course dessert – chocolate brownie with ice cream for Tim, and Dave and I tried the mango flambé, which was yummy but a little too sweet. That didn’t stop me from totally chowing on it though. This is the first time that we’ve been there that the chef didn’t come out to say hello.

Once we got home and had more device quiet time, it was time for pepper. We had several games and I won two of them. The last game went on for a very long time. They are fun to play, but not very interesting to write or read about, except for the part where I laugh hysterically every time I try to bluff. Needless to say, we won’t be playing poker any time soon.

I want to take a minute here to talk about the Lone Tree, which has been standing by itself at the top of a hill for a couple years now. You can see it from everywhere - it's quite the landmark. During Sr Champs in March a bunch of us swim parents & swimmers went to Outback for dinner, and I found that Referee Tim Shiel, who works for Stimson Lumber and whose kids have been swimming with Tim forever, is responsible for the tree. Apparently it was too rotted to be worth cutting, so when he marked the trees for the clear cut he left that one unmarked. So it stands in solitary splendor - the Shiel Tree. Apparently his name is not spoken with great fondness in this area.

It’s still raining, and supposed to rain again tomorrow, so we’re hunkering down. We have a nice fire going and you can hear the waves, so things are quite good.