Day 7 - Now we are two, but one of us is upside down

I misread the tide table & thought today’s super-low tide (-2.1) was at 7:30; it was actually at 8:30 but that worked out perfectly.  I was a little worried that we’d be cut off at Chapman point, but it turned out I had the geography mixed up in my head. We were even able to walk out to one of the bird rocks and see lots of puffins flying around. Puffins look a lot like penguins; they have very short stubby wings and have to flap very fast to keep from sinking. They’re fun to watch.

We took two cars, left one at Les Shirley park, and were on Indian beach by 7:30. The sands are super low everywhere, including on the walk from Indian Beach to Les Shirley park, which is what we were doing. This was one of my favorite walks for many years, but Dave had never done it and I hadn’t done it for a few years either. Some of the coolest rock formations are along this walk, and we saw endless gobs of starfish in all sizes and colors. It was a fantastic walk with only a little boulder scrambling where the low sand allowed the water to come all the way to the base of Ecola point.

We came off the beach at the end of 5^th street, near the statue of Lewis and Clark with Sacagawea. There’s a geocache nearby that we’ve been to twice, but both of us remember a boardwalk or wooden bridge in the area, and maybe a fence. Those things were not there. It is confusing and a mystery.

Here’s what: Cannon Beach on a sunny day when it’s hot in Portland is a mess.  We were off the beach by 9, and it was already more crowded than I have ever seen it. We drove up to get Dave’s car in the indian Beach parking lot, and on our way out at 9:01 there were already 5 cars lined up at the pay station and more on their way in the whole time we were driving out.  More about this later.

We headed home and since the tide was still waaay out I went to visit the local rocks, including a

walk around Hug Point. When I got back there was time for a shower and then off to lunch at Warren House, which is not Jen’s favorite because of the Manhattan clam chowder. Also today there was chili, but they put corn in it, another cardinal offence. We left my car downtown for later use, and barely found a spot even though it was only 11:20. Dave drove us all down and we had a lovely lunch, including a visit from Crackers the seagull, who turned his beak up at lettuce but was glad to eat a bit of tomato.

After lunch Dave drove us back into town and headed back to the house for some relaxing. Meanwhile Jen and I went to Cannon Beach Distillery to pick up our allocations of the new Sunset Whiskey, but had to forego tasting it because we needed to go stand on our heads.

If you haven’t noticed yet, I’m a big fan of Cannon Beach Yoga Arts, so when I got an e-mail from Christen advertising another handstand workshop I was all over it. Jen said she’d come too, which made it much more fun, especially since there was a lot of poking each other in the ribs and hips which would have been really weird with someone you don’t know. The class was led by two 20-something students from the circus school in Quebec who were so earnest and excited I found myself believing I could do it too. And while I did not end up balanced on my hands in the middle of the room I did come away with exercises that make it possible that it could happen. Also being upside down seems to release happy chemicals in the brain and so were all laughing and grinning like fools by the end of it.

Then, oh my, we had to drive home through Cannon Beach which was an absolute madhouse. The wait to turn left at Pelican (nee Doogers) had cars backed all the way up to Irish Table, and the incoming traffic was backed up all the way under the bridge. We were glad to get out of there and want everyone else to stop coming here. We were here first! Sadly when we got home it was time for Jen to head home to get ready for her next adventure, a road trip down to LA with Dave. It seems very big and empty to have only the two of us in the house. On the other hand now we each have our own bathroom.

After Jen left Dave went down to the beach, and I did my usual read, write, knit. I haven’t mentioned the weather much because it’s been uniformly good: foggy in the morning, burning off by lunch, and maybe returning at sunset. The water, though, is its usual bone-chilling self. In the meantime Josh had stopped by our house in Forest Grove, and Dave asked him to put up the umbrella for the bees. Josh took the opportunity to get dressed up.

Dinner tonight was the Stephanie Inn, which continues to be very good food in the house of a stuffy grandma. They just don’t get the whole service/ambience piece, but my smoked salmon nicoise salad with pickled fiddlehead ferns might be the best food I’ve had all week, and that includes last night’s crab cheesecake. The most fun thing about our dinner was our waiter Peter-of-the-blue-eyes, who reminded us of Lurch from the Addams Family and managed never to appear unless we were in the middle of a conversation. I kept expecting him to say, “you rang?” He was very kind and brought me a taste of the sorbet when I couldn’t decide between it and the cheesecake. I think they’ve gotten a new pastry chef, because the sorbet was merely good, when in the past it has been superb. I went with the cheesecake.

Now we’re back in the house for our next-to-last sunset.  It is good.

Special after-dinner addendum: As you might know, one of us is always keeping pretty close tabs on the moon phases, and last night just before sunset Dave found the most tiniest fingernail sliver crescent moon ever. It was perfect, but not photographable. We played a game of Carcasonne, which is fun with two people, and then watched the wee crescent moon slip down into the fog.