Soggy Saturday with a question at the end

Just soggy, not actually rainy. I almost didn’t wake up in time for yoga, given the part where before you can get going you have to make tea and eat cereal and play some words with friends, but I did get there in plenty of time. After yesterday’s practically SRO class I was concerned about getting there early to get a space further from the fireplace, but then it turned out there were only 2 other students, so no worries. We did some pretty intense hip stretches. Some of them were so intense that I actually had to stop and go in to child’s pose before we were done with them. It’s good to be challenged. Oh, and I wasn’t sore at all. I did make a very interesting discovery, which is that it’s way easier for me to sit with my legs crossed if I put a block under my right knee – in fact I can sit that way for a very long time. So I need to remember that for my next Nia intensive.

One of the other participants was the long-time proprietor of Laurel’s Wine Shop (and ex-mayor of Cannon Beach), Laurel Hood. We’d gone in to her shop yesterday looking for wines from the Priorat region of Spain, so after class when we got to chatting I reminded her of that and she said she had some friends in Seattle who were importers of Spanish wines and have a very informative website– Classical Wines of Spain. When I used to go to Curves all over the country I always found it was a good place to get breakfast restaurant recommendations; apparently yoga is a good place to find out about wine.

Meanwhile Dave had gone for a walk around the sewage treatment lagoons (a well-known scenic destination) and John Rose had called and left a message chiding me for not answering my phone. He was most impressed and contrite when I told him I was probably in the middle of a downward dog when he called. He’s been living in Dallas for a little over a year taking care of his parents; his dad has passed away and his mom is happily ensconced in a nursing resort and he’s on his way back to PDX. He wanted some recommendations for things to see in Joshua Tree National Park, but we were both stunned to discover that it’s been over 25 years since we were there. He’ll be spending the night in Santa Cruz on Sunday – I told him to look Tim up.

After yoga Dave read quietly in a corner while I did the first 5 songs of Canta with Carlos, and then Sufani and How to Get Ahead on my own. They’re pretty much in there. I am looking forward to getting going on Open Sesame.  My legs were about done for, so I stopped dancing and showered and we headed to Pizza a’fetta, where the pizza has never been as good as it was when we went with Ben and Joan and Tim but it’s still really good. I need to remember to order red bell peppers and garlic on the standard Italian sausage (which comes with onions and olives). Dave had the pepperoni supreme.

After lunch we went to look at the menu for Sweet Basil’s Café/Wine Bar. It looked interesting but maybe not very tasty, so we decided to stay with our original plan of Irish Table. Then there was big excitement, they were actually making taffy at Bruce’s! It was the vanilla with the peanut butter filling, and we watched from the time they mixed the filling until they had filled an entire container with finished product. We had samples of course – now that’s fresh. Dave isn’t all that fond of PB filling, but he managed to eat it. The great part is the 1949 wrapping machine. It only had to be bashed a little with a large screwdriver to get it started, and then it ran without a hitch. That’s impressive, because their older machine basically broke down every 20-30 pieces. It is amazingly fun to watch the machine for two reasons – first, it is clearly a mechanized version of how you would do it by hand, unlike many of today’s machines which are efficient but don’t have the cams and rollers and springs that this one does. And also, this was manufactured before anyone knew anything about safety, so all the parts which would now be covered to keep people from getting body parts stuck in them are out there where you can see them sliding and spinning and grabbing. It’s a crowd pleaser.

Eventually we tore ourselves away from it and went to the Cannon Beach Distillery to see if the whiskey is ready yet. It’s not going to be ready until next November, and we’ll be on the ocean! Apparently everybody has been coming in and asking about it. Since we were thwarted in our quest for alcohol there, we headed down to the Wine Shack to taste their 90 point wines for under $25.  They were tasting upstairs, which used to have a really odd and slightly unpleasant smell to it. The new owners (it sold a year or two ago) remodeled and the smell is gone, which is nice. What hasn’t changed is that the new owner has the same taste in wine as the old owner, and it’s not our taste. We tasted 5 wines, none of which would have gotten even 80 points from us. The 5^th, the house labelled Puffin Malbec, was downright unpleasant. I’m sure we’ll continue to stop in and taste there, but I’m not sure why.

At this point it was either misting heavily or drizzling very lightly, so we went back to the room for a break. Low tide was either at 4:30 or 5:30, and we wanted to go back to Cave Rock and see if we could walk all the way around it at low tide. We couldn’t – just wanted to get that out of the way. No point in building up the suspense. But we had a fantastic time. Dave brought a flashlight, and we crawled into 2 of the caves. The both go back very far, but the one further west goes back really far – I got down and belly crawled until it got too narrow to go any further, and I still couldn’t see the end of it. Given the way the sands shift, we will definitely be coming back during summer low tides to check on it. Maybe bring some string to measure how far back it goes. We continued walking along the beach and found another waterfall, and this one was even bigger than yesterday’s, and fun to climb up alongside. So we did, and it was sweet.

Once we climbed and slid back down, we decided to continue North as far as we could. As I said, I’ve walked from Indian Beach to Ecola Creek, and I knew that at a -.2 (or-.1, depending on your website) it wouldn’t be possible to go all the way there – not to mention sunset at 4:30ish. But there are many cool things to look at at the north end of the cove, so we enjoyed the walk. Eventually we got to a place where there was a need for major scrambling, and as the sun was about to set (not that you could tell through the thick clouds) we decided to turn around. Then things got a little ugly, because the miszle (mist/drizzle) was now being blown into our faces by a rather stiff headwind that made forward progress a little more challenging. Not like the gale we walked into this summer, but noticeable. Once again, we had not turned around when we should have, and the walk back to the car was something of an endurance event. Especially since a major point of the expedition was to get around the west side of Cave Rock, which you already know we didn’t.

Also let me pause a moment to talk about relative sizes. I am shorter than Dave, and have to take about 3 steps to every two of his. So I contend that I walk 1/3^rd farther if you count in steps. He says he is heavier so he is doing more work. But I say his lever arm is longer so that cancels it out. Anyway, we were both pretty beat and damp when we trudged up the dune that was between us and our car. Somehow it seemed to have gotten much taller. We were both glad to get back to the room, turn on the fireplace, put on dry comfy pants, and bury our faces in our electronic devices.

For dinner we went to Irish Table. We were worried that it might be too sad to be there without Tim, as it’s one of his favorite places, but it turned out to be fine. I had the wild mushrooms and butternut squash in puff pastry instead of my usual mussels, but other than that not much to report. It remains one of my favorite places, although the service is often slow and was made even slower when the table in the center had not one but three wine glasses break in the space of about 5 minutes.

Way back on Wednesday we bought a cribbage set in case we got bored, and tonight after dinner even though we were not bored I decided we should play it. The “condensed rules” that came with it could not be more confusing, so we spent the first half hour reading them and then having Dave read them aloud while we tried to figure out what they meant. Then we played one game and that made us very bored. All of my KenKen skills make me very good at making 15s and 31s, but I think we missed the point of the game. Or something. It was enjoyable doing an activity together that wasn’t eating, so we tried to think of games we like playing that would work for 2 people. We came up with Trouble and Farkle, including a variation on Trouble where each person plays two colors but you can’t honk yourself.

So tonight’s blog ends with a question: what two player games are out there that are fast paced and relatively quick?

Gray Friday

Woke to gray skies, even though the forecast called for them to hold off until Saturday. No matter, I headed off to yoga with Christen while Dave headed out for mimosa madness and shop small in downtown Cannon Beach. He had great success – 3 shirts at Maggie and Henry’s. I also did well, even though Christen said the class was the largest class in the 3 year history of the studio. It was a tad cramped, but we staggered the mats and did ok. She had a couple of interesting moves. Two in particular that I want to remember – the classic clasp the hands behind the back and raise the arms, but with the added twist of bringing the palms together. And raising one leg to hip height in plank pose, which I found much more difficult than I thought I would.

Once class got done I headed back to the room to change – I love staying in town! – and then we headed out for more shopping. Dave found several kitchen gadgets at Fruffels, and they also had an amazing bird lamp. We also enjoyed walking through Dragonfire, especially the brass kimono wall art. And we stopped in at EVOO and got some evoo. Bob was making the pumpkin cheesecake deserts, and greeted us with his usual delighted “Hi kids!” It is a terrific friendly greeting and allows him not to have to remember our names. He let us taste the olive oils and we ended up with two, an Italian one that Dave liked and the house blend from Newburg that I liked.

At that point it was time to meet Rhonda for lunch at Bill’s. Because we have no boys we could sit in the grownup side, so we didn’t really have to worry about the crowds. Rhonda is the pianist for the show at the Coaster, so we got some inside scoop. The show is sold out and we’re really looking forward to it – an adaptation of Irving Berlin’s White Christmas. We tried two new beers – the chocolate stout, which was kind of meh, and the Yule Mule, which was very good.

After lunch we did a little more shopping – time for taffy and licorice at Bruce’s – and then went back to the room. We did some web surfing and catching up on facebook, and were both starting to fall asleep when I noticed that the tide was out and it was clearing up. So we went for a walk. We drove to Les Shirley Park because I didn’t feel like walking all the way around Ecola Creek, and then walked up 5^th street and headed toward the John Yeon State Natural Site, which we still don’t know what or exactly where it is. It’s somewhere near the big monoliths just north of Ecola Creek. We had a fantastic walk. It’s a part of the area that we usually rush through, trying to walk the Ecola Creen-Indian Beach route on the beach and not get caught by the tide, but since today we were just walking in that area we could really do some exploring. Here’s what we found – a trail from crescent beach to the road to Ecola State Park that goes by a beautiful waterfall. A rock with not just a hole in it, but several fantastic caves that go waaay back into the rock (hooray for the flashlight app!). HUGE starfishes, and one a deep purple color we’d never seen before. Mussels the size of your hand, covered with giant barnacles. On the trail we also found a very weird sign  - “Natural Area – do not enter”. What is a natural area? And was the area all around it, which looked identical, unnatural? Also by the sign was a huge fallen tree, and on top of the tree was a long smooth stick shaped like an ‘L’, and on the part that was hanging down there was a barnacle that looked just like an eye, and while I was standing next to it it suddenly looked just like a snake and I had to squeak and jump in the air, and then it went back to being a stick, leaving me looking more than a little foolish.

As we went back to the car there were lots of sirens; we still don’t know what that was but there were sure a lot of them. When we got back to the room it was time for me to practice Canta some more. Dave said he would practice with me but then he didn’t. It went pretty well except I was having a huge amount of trouble getting the first move – where you put your hands over your head and move your ribs – to be on the beat. And the only way I could get it right was to completely stop and wait for the next bar. So that’s going to have to be fixed. Other than that all three songs are working pretty well, so it may be time to move on to the next one. Except I forgot my big paper pad.

Then it was time for a quick shower and change and an early dinner at the Bistro, risen from the ashes. The food there continues to be very good, the service is good, and the chocolate ganache pie with the caramel pecan crust and coffee ice cream may be the best dessert in Cannon Beach. We had to have an early dinner so we could be sure to get to the theater without being rushed, which we weren’t – in fact we had time to go back to the room and work on the blog in between. Once again we loved walking to and from the restaurant and theater, although it was raining on the restaurant to hotel leg.

So, White Christmas. Dave’s not seen the movie for a long time, and I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen it, so we can’t compare it with anything else. It was mostly the same people who put on A Funny Thing Happened… this summer, and they seemed to be having just as much fun. Rhonda even had a cameo as the cigarette girl, which was very funny both because she got to trot out her New York accent and because she had to stop playing the scene change music to come out, leaving the scene changers scrambling a little. We’re pretty sure the Coaster is a new tradition when we’re at the beach.

We didn’t get back to the room until after 10, and then we had to light the menorah and go outside and take a picture of it. We don’t have any front facing windows in the main part of our house to put it in, so it’s fun to actually have it in a window. But we do have to light it kind of late so we can be here while it’s burning.  We don’t have any plans for tomorrow night, so maybe we’ll be on time for lighting.

Yes, there was a lot of exercise today, especially when you combine it with yesterdays 5+ mile walk. And especially when you realize that I don't walk - I'm the person who will circle the Safeway  parking lot for 5 minutes waiting for a close spot to open up. So stay tuned to see if I can move at all tomorrow.

We're stuffed - does that make us turkeys?

Given that we were sound asleep by 10, waking at 7:30 meant a very good night’s sleep. The sky was blue and the moon was visible in the skylight – a good way to wake up. I had a cup of tea and read the Cannon Beach Gazette in bed. Not much is new in Cannon Beach, although I did enjoy the police log entry about the business that complained to the police about a car which was repeatedly parked in their lot all day. The police investigated and discovered it belonged to one of their employees.

Eventually the call of the blue sky and sand was too strong, so we went left the nest for a walk on the beach. By then the sun had cleared the buildings and was pouring in through the clerestories, and from the beach our room looked like a brilliant, airy box of light. We’ve never stayed in this building before, but it is really, really special. Back to our beach walk.  The plan was to talk a short walk, then come back to the room and get ready for brunch at the Pig’n (a Thanksgiving tradition since 2010). But just as Bilbo Baggins warned about what could happen when you step out onto the road, we got swept away. We stopped briefly at Tolovana to use the facilities and were going to turn around at that point, but you can see the Rock Wahii from there. Somehow it seemed like a failure of purpose to stop when we were “so close”. So we kept going. Fortunately the tide was in, so we were cut off at the Rock Wahii. The tide was out enough so that you could just see the hole when the waves receded, and it was a glorious sight. But about halfway between Tolovana and the Rock (which we thought we might rename The Rock Wahinit, but I see that’s not going to stick) I realized we were going to walk further than I meant to, what with the part where you have to go back and walk all that way that you already walked. We’ve gotten lazy, because lately when we’ve been here we’ve had Tim and an extra car, and we just call him to come get us. But Tim is in California (by now, he should be at Ben & Joan’s), so there was nothing for it but to walk all the way back, which we did.

Several things about the walk, first, although it was below 50, the down jacket was way too warm. Also it was fun to watch all the dogs and their tennis balls, including my favorite team, a lab-type who chased the ball with single minded intensity, and his partner, a standard poodle type dog who chased the lab with the same intensity, but didn’t seem to understand why the lab took off and returned when and where it did. Also the dog who got the run-after-the-ball part, but didn’t see why you’d then actually pick the ball up, leading to the ball going in the water and floating off to sea. Another thing I like to do on the beach is look at the footprints people leave in the sand, and one person was leaving footprints that looked like the bottom of the shoes was a bunch of ping pong balls. I really wanted a pair of shoes like that, but when I happened to look up and see the print maker coming with those very shoes, they turned out to be pretty ordinary looking. A small disappointment.

We walked what seemed to be at least 3 times as far as we’d walked on the way out, even though the sun was no longer in our eyes and there was no breeze so the walk should have seemed shorter, and also we were not going to go all the way back to the hotel. We were very pleased when we finally got back to Haystack Rock (we WERE there yet) and came off the beach at midtown for the short walk from there to the Pig’n, which only seemed like it was a mile. There was also a certain dramatic tension because we didn’t know for sure that the Pig’n would be open, so we were quite delighted and relieved to come around the corner and see the cars in the parking lot and the friendly OPEN sign. We ordered our new normal – Pigs in a Blanket for me, eggs, bacon, and toast for Dave. I added an egg. The new normal works well because I can trade a pig in blanket for one of Dave’s bacons. Nobody had any hogwash – in fact now that I think about it I don’t even remember seeing the little sign for it. End of an era.

After brunch we went back to the room. Since we thought we were only going to be out for a short while we’d left the privacy sign out so they hadn’t come in to make the bed, so we made it ourselves. Dave opened the door to the deck and the windows, and sat at the table looking out on the beach. I turned on the fireplace and sat on the bed to catch up on my facebook. Eventually Dave closed the door and windows and joined me in napping on the bed – at least that’s what I’m guessing, since when the screaming gull woke us up they were closed and he was asleep beside me.

I’d planned to do some practicing of my Nia routine, but by the time we woke up it was pretty much time to shower and head over to EVOO, the Cannon Beach Cooking School. We’ve attended their “dinner show” many times, and thought that this might be a nice way to spend Thanksgiving – and 4 hours later of watching Bob and Lenore cook and happily downing 5 courses, I can report that we were right. It was our first Thanksgiving with just the two of us, and this was a great way to ease into empty nest Thanksgiving. Besides, after the two desserts, the two of us are taking up almost as much room as three of us used to.

We walked to the restaurant – it’s only a couple blocks from here – and it was nice to have a chance to stretch our legs on the way back to our hotel, although it was quite chilly – 39 degrees. But we put on our stretchy pants, turned on the fireplace, lit the menorah, and are going to spend some time planning our time in Europe during Dave’s sabbatical. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Erev Thanksgiving, or, First Night of Hanukah

It’s a new thing for us this year to have no boys at all, so we decided that rather than rent a house we’d get a hotel room in Cannon Beach. So we’re staying at the Flagship portion of the Waves Motel, which is just past Fultano’s pizza and is right on the beach. But I get ahead of myself.

We had a nice slow morning getting ready, including taking the Expedition to Doherty Ford to find out why it’s vibrating all the time (bad spark plug coil). I also spent about an hour dancing the Nia routine Canta, practicing the three songs I know so far – How to Get Ahead, Nourah, and Sufani. (http://www.nianow.com/product/music/canta-cd). Talking and moving and remembering what’s next is hard, and I keep getting off the beat in Sufani, but what a great way to spend the morning.

We headed out to Cannon Beach about 2 and were able to get checked in right away. Our room is really beautiful, with lots of comfy chairs and two rows of clerestory windows letting in lots of light. The bathroom is kind of funny – it’s between the bedroom and one of the rows of windows, so it’s roofed over and has a skylight so it won’t block the light coming in.

On the drive over I realized I’d forgotten my boots (and my camera, although I didn’t realize that until later), so after we checked in we went out to do some shopping. I found a great pair of shoes that will work perfectly for beach walking, and they were on sale too. I also got some cool socks and a purse that’s just like the one I already have for when it wears out. Friday is shop small day with free mimosas in all the shops, so we didn’t do much buying, but I did find some excellent wrap pants. We also stopped at the Mariner to get cereal and milk so we don’t have to out for breakfast. We’ll be eating plenty.

Then back to our room, which is so convenient! The sun had just set and was doing the whole lighting up the clouds things. We brought our menorah and also the jambox, so we turned on the fireplace and put on some Hanukah radio and had a very nice rest time before dinner at Castaway’s Tiny Tikki Hut.

Castaways is one of our favorite places, where very good is disappointing. They continue to please with interesting flavor and texture combinations and wonderful tropical drinks. Because there were only two of us, both adults, we were able to sit at one of the tables in the bar area – and can I digress a moment and wonder why it is the bar area, given that it’s further from the bar than the tables we usually sit at with our minor child? Anyway, the real highlight was Dave’s pulled pork enchiladas (a well known tradition for the first night of Hanukah), followed closely by the crab fritter appetizer. Also my drink, the Heaven in a Glass, is not misnamed, although Dave claims his Hurricane was better.

The great thing – one of the great things – about staying in town is that we could just walk back to the hotel. The problem is that there are fences keeping you from going the most direct route – you have to walk all the way past the hotel, then backtrack. Dave found this completely unacceptable, which is why you would have seen us climbing over a wall and ignoring the “keep out” sign but successfully finding a direct route. Once safely back in the room, Dave turned the fire on and we lit the menorah (yes, it should have been lit earlier, but we wanted to be in the room while the candles were burning). We listened to Hanukah radio on Pandora for a while, but after the 30^th version of Hanukah, o Hanukah we had to switch to something else.