Clear Skies and Low Tides

Morning Moon

We woke up to clear skies and a low tide, but decided on a slow morning. The Mindbody App wouldn’t let me sign up for the yoga class, and besides, it was clear skies and a low tide. So we decided to go for a walk down to the Rock Wahii. By the time we got started the tide was coming in, but we had no problem getting there and back.   We saw an interesting rock formation with lots of bits of quartz embedded in it, which is odd in this volcanic/sedimentary landscape. We also saw a man come out of one of the houses along the beach in just a pair of shorts, who proceeded to run into the ocean and splash around, much to the delight of onlookers on the beach and his family who stayed snug and warm in the house. We hope they had a warm fire and a hot biddy for him when he got back.

Yesterday when we took our walk it was right at high tide, so we were walking on the softer sand and were glad to turn around at Tolovana and walk on the road. Today with the tide being further out it was much easier walking. The beachcombing is definitely different from in the summer – many fewer shells and animals. The beach is almost as crowded though.

We had a short break (knitting!) before lunch, then headed over to Bill’s again. They had a sour wheat beer with raspberries (berlinerweiser) that was so good that Dave had to get it for his second beer. We both had bacon cheeseburgers; I got mine without cheese. One of the things I like to do at Bill’s is make a face on my hamburger bun with ketchup.

 

After lunch we visited more of our favorite places, starting with

getting a “sipping chocolate” at the chocolate café. This is a misnomer; it’s more like a warm chocolate pudding. We got the mayan version this time, which has delicious spices in it. I think this will be a thing. We also visited several galleries and ended up at Bruce’s, where I got a nice supply of salty licorice and salt water taffy.

We got back to the hotel and it was time for reading and napping (Dave) and, you guessed it, knitting for me. I finished the hat to the point where it’s time to take the live stitches out of the provisional cast-on and graft the sides together. This is so terrifying that I spent some time making a test swatch to try it out and came to the conclusion that it can’t be done. I’m hoping I’m wrong.

For dinner we had reservations at Bridgewater in Astoria, and although we’d been having reservations all day about driving that far, we couldn’t think of a place locally we wanted to eat that took reservations. So we drove out and unfortunately the food was just as excellent as we remembered, so we’ll have to make the drive again. Standouts were the warm escarole salad with confit duck leg; Hungarian mushroom soup, and a spicy roasted cauliflower that was just on this side of too hot.

When we got back to the hotel it was a beautiful clear night with a nearly full moon and a very, very low tide, so we went for a short walk out to where the ocean was in the bright moonlight. Then back to the hotel to watch “3 days of glory”, a movie about the 2016 harvest in Burgundy. We know how to have a good time!