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.