Day 2 - Astoria and back again

Notice how the ocean is so calm it looks like a giant lake

Day 2

We all got good sleep last night, and I was up and out early. I’d threatened everyone that if they were up early they could come to yoga with me, so they all stayed very quiet in their beds until they’d heard me leave. It was a small class of experienced people so we did some cool and difficult poses.

When I got back to the house everyone was up, so after showers we headed to Astoria for lunch at Bouy brewing (yum!) and a trip to the DMV for Josh, who had misplaced his driver’s license. One of the great things about having Josh and Jen here is that their car actually fits 4 adults, so group trips are comfortable. On the other hand, if they weren’t here we would only have 2 people and our own cars would be fine. So maybe that’s not such a good thing after all. At any rate, while they waited at the DMV (Jen had to be there to say that Josh lived with her since her name is on the water bill) Dave and I went to walk around downtown Astoria, where we discovered that it is closed on Monday.  A small sad part was that we parked in the old Gundersen’s parking lot to go to Buoy. It (confidential to BOS: I know this antecedent is unclear) burned down several years ago and we were reminiscing about the wonderful food there to Jen, who responded to almost everything with “not my favorite”. So maybe it’s just as well that it’s gone.

After Josh completed his work we headed back to the house – Josh drove. Jen and Dave went for walks on the beach (separately) while Josh and I went to town. Josh worked out at Cannon Beach Fitness while I went shopping. I got windex, blue suede shoes and a shirt. Josh got sweaty. Meanwhile Dave had walked to Tolovana, so we picked him up on the way home. Jen accidentally fell asleep. Josh says, “That nappens”.

Then it was time for ME to walk on the beach. I walked out to hug point. The sand is so low! I climbed up into the dog photo spots where there were very cool tidepools.  Meanwhile Dave cleaned the windows and tracked down the reason why there was no hot water (tripped breaker), and Josh took a shower. When I got back it was time to go to Irish Table already. Rush rush rush!

We spent a long time deciding what to eat with much negotiating, and ended up ordering almost exactly the right amount of food, except we all ate too much soda bread while sopping up the sauce from the curried mussels. Jen and I formed a perfect partnership at dessert, where she ate the sorbet and I ate the cookies. I have to mention Josh’s sweet colleen, Jen’s Dr Loosen Riesling,  my red pepper soup and the curried mussels as absolute standouts.  Jen and Dave preferred Dave’s bean and bacon soup, but they are wrong.

We've been loading a fair amount of beer this trip

For quite a few years now we’ve been coming out just after Labor Day, which has the huge advantage of town being much less crowded during the week. An advantage of coming in early July, though, is that it stays light very la

te, so when we got home from dinner there was still plenty of time to sit out on the deck. It was cool and cloudy all day – it even drizzled on me in town – so it’s nice to be able to get some sun time after dinner. Later on in the week we’ll be able to go for walks on the beach in the evening, which I love, but right now the tide is high and our cove is cut off.

Last night we were all feeling a little guilty that we weren’t in the mood to play games. I sense some game playing coming on…. time to sign off.

Post game update: Expoding Kittens, Fluxx (twice), Trouble. I won everything, except the first game of Fluxx where Jen changed the rules and won right before I was going to change the rules and win. We still love her.