We're HEERRREEE

Leading up to day 1 – Nia blue belt with Casey Bernstein and Debbie Rosas (founder and co-creator of Nia, or do I have that backwards?). So I got home from dancing Casey’s routine Slumdog Millionaire at 7:30 or so on Friday, then spent Saturday morning doing laundry, grocery shopping and getting ready to go. It’s just the two of us this year – Tim will fly up for next weekend, and we’re hoping Josh and Jen will be able to come out during the week. We’re open for other visitors as well. We were worried that we’d be sad, but we brought so much junk that the house feels full.

We got here a little after 4, and there are pretty much no changes in the house at all, which is kind of weird. We decided to bring two cars for flexibility, but without the van there was some concern about everything fitting. Especially since we both feel the need to bring everything we might possibly want. For example, in order to wear all of the sweaters I brought, I will have to wear a different one every day, and two on some days. Fortunately the stealthmobile, my little Subaru Impreza, fits an astonishing amount in the back with the seats folded down.  

We unpacked and then started figuring out our dinners. This is the second year we’ve come during the really crowded part of the summer, and if we do it again we need to remember to make dinner rezzies earlier. We made reservations using Open Table at Blackbird in Manzanita and the Stephanie Inn, but neither of them were the times we wanted. Then I called both places and got reservations when we wanted them. I don’t know why you have to call, but I’m glad I was brave enough to do it.

We went for a short walk on the beach before dinner and whoa, was it weird. For one thing [sand report alert] the sand is incredibly high this year – high like I don’t think we’ve ever seen it before. There are no exposed rocks in front of the cave to the south, and the little inlet behind the triangle shaped rock to the north is almost completely filled in. The sand comes really far up on the carriage road at Hug Point as well. And when you walk on the sand there are a lot of places where you sink in when you’re walking. There’s a very low tide at the end of the week and it’s going to be interesting.

Also, when we were here last month with Josh & Jen there were a lot of jellyfish with a kind of spiky design on their undersides – like rays coming out from a central point. Now on the beach there are lots of dried up papery things that we thought might be dried up remains of those jellyfish, but they have concentric circle designs. And then there are logs covered with things that look kind of like goose neck barnacles, but we don’t think that’s what they are. So it was kind of like being on a different beach.

We got back and got changed and headed off to the Bistro, where they were able to seat us in the main dining room, even though when we’d made the reservation they’d told us we’d have to sit in the lounge. The food was excellent as usual, and the chocolate ganache pie on a pecan crust with homemade caramel sauce remains one of the finest desserts in Cannon Beach. They also have a short but fun wine list. Dave had something called a picpoul de pinet, which was very good. I had a gimlet, which may be the drink I’ve been looking for.

We came back to the house and that’s when the fun started. The door wouldn’t unlock. Faithful readers may recall that last year they installed a very cool electronic lock – you put your palm on the keypad to activate it, and then punch in the code, and it goes whirrrr and then it unlocks. Except tonight it went whirrrrr and then didn’t unlock. We both tried it quite a few times (we’re engineers, after all), with the same result. Eventually Dave took the screen off the window in Josh’s room and climbed in. We’re not sure what we’re going to do about that. Then Dave made a fire, and now we’re relaxing in front of it, listening to the fire, and the waves, and some nice music. Will there be trouble? Only time will tell.

Confidential to BOS: there are more stairs than we remember.

Confidential to SFO: hang in there – they all sleep eventually. Or move out of the house.