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!
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