Friday - The Last Supper

It was a good day with lots of beach.  Dave and I woke up early (as always) and went to yoga. It was a good class as always. I do miss the longer 90 minute classes Christen used to do, especially all the hip-opening on the floor exercises. We did get a little more twisting in today than Monday and Wednesday, which was nice. After class we drove to Tolovana and walked home from there, including a visit to the Rock Wahii. Who knows when conditions will be this perfect again?

Meanwhile the girls had driven to Arcadia Beach and done their own trip to the Rock, so when we got home everyone was up and about. There was time for a quick shower for Dave and then it was off to Bill’s for lunch. The tyranny of the high season has made this vacation sometimes seem a little rushed as we try to get to places while there is still parking and no line.  Bill’s was its usual fine self, although our waiter was a stickler for politeness. After he took our beer order he was heading off and I called out “we need onion rings!” and he stopped and said, “We need onion rings what?” We were all very careful with our ordering from that point on.

After lunch Dave and I headed to Osborn’s (they were open!) for the annual haystack sundae. We replaced one of the two scoops of vanilla ice cream with a scoop of coconut almond pecan, which was really delicious. I might even go so far as replacing both scoops, but I suspect Dave would not. While we were ordering and eating the girls went to Bruce’s, then came back and got some ice cream. They are headed up to Astoria for shopping and dinner.

Dave and I walked back to the car via Spruce Street and got on the beach at midtown. The tide was almost all the way high, but that doesn’t really matter between midtown and Tolovana. We’d been thinking about maybe going for a hike, but by the time we got back to the car I was over 15,000 steps and we were both ready for a nap.

We both did good napping – Dave on the deck and me on the couch. It was odd and kind of pleasant having the house to ourselves. Sadly, when you nap in the afternoon it goes by all too quickly. I did get the first song to Aya barred at least. This vacation we’ve had early dinners pretty much every night – 5:30 or 6. There have been good reasons to do it, but we both feel like it makes the afternoon too short. So, a note for next year: we prefer a 6:30 or 7:00 dinner.

Dave got whiskey in honor of Josh

Dinner tonight was just the two of us at the Stephanie Inn, also known (to us) as “The Club” (as in, let’s have dinner at the club”) or “Your fussy great grandma’s house”. The décor is stodgy at best, and the service is just… off. We like to think about what we’d do to make it better – replace the giant heavy brown chairs; teach the hostess not to try to hand you your menu until you’ve come to a full and complete stop in your chair, that sort of thing. Also, it’s really expensive and they have this weird thing where they offer a prix fixe menu where you choose an appetizer, a main, and a desert, and it costs more than if you bought them separately. To be fair, you do get a small scoop of palette-cleansing sorbet and a caprese salad composed of one slice of mozzarella and a slice of tomato. You may be wondering why we go there at all, but here’s the thing: the food is really, really good. They have old standbys perfectly prepared (Dave’s lamb osso bucco) or interesting food perfectly prepared (my berry, goat cheese and micro-green salad, with onions). The serving sizes are perfect, so you are pleasantly full at the end but not stuffed. So every year while we wait for our food we wonder why we keep coming back, and every year we are glad we went.

The girls came back from Astoria with lots of goodies and smiles. And we played trouble and I won.

Things to remember:

It was very warm this year, so I brought a lot of sweaters and long sleeved shirts that I didn’t need. Dave enjoyed having his bathrobe. Most days I stayed in my yoga pants and tank tops until dinner. If we have bread for the fruit salad, we should bring butter. I should bring regular sneakers along with my zee alexis, and also light colored dressier sandals. Also, let’s be honest here: I won’t do work stuff, so I don’t need to bring it. And dinner at 6:30 or 7.

Second Thursday

I’d thought about driving up to Ecola early this morning to do the walk from Indian Beach, and both Dave and I woke up early and had a discussion about it that started off poorly (I’ll go if you want to) but ended with honesty (I don’t really want to go). Instead, I went back to sleep and woke up an hour later with a different plan, which Dave refined to perfection. So I ate my cacklin’ and headed off, getting to stand next to the starfish rock to the north and cross hug point on the low sands in front – along with many too many people.The beach is too crowded. Dave and Sam drove to Arcadia beach and met me there. Dave found a very young (4” across the shell) Dungeness crab in a tidepool, which he’d gently touch and it would rear up and wave its claws in a menacing yet adorable fashion.

 

We continued on to the Rock Wahii, which was in a completely excellent state, as Dave discovered yesterday. High sands and low tide combined for the perfect walk-through on level sand, with only a small puddle to splash through on the west side. I had the idea of using my phone flashlight to look at the walls, and we found tiny purple crabs pretty much everywhere. We were also pleased to see many starfish – it’s a hopeful sign. It’s interesting though that there don’t seem to be any on the south starfish rock – all I can think of is that people are taking them home as souvenirs. Didn’t their mothers teach them beach etiquette?

We had a leisurely walk back to the car and drove home. Everyone was happy not to have to walk all the way back. Once home it was time to start some laundry and do other things, like knit. We didn’t have a lot of time at home since today was Astoria Lunch day. We were wavering between Fort George and Buoy, with a slight lean towards Ft George (better food), until Dave looked at the beer list and discovered all of their beers were high alcohol. So Buoy it was, where they had the sourest sour beer ever and absolutely fascinating pickled shrimp. As always the doors were wide open and it was FRIZZIN in there (BOS, you would have frozen solid), which I mentioned to our server. She replied with the standard “well, it gets really hot in the kitchen so we need to keep it cooler in here.” 1. If you can’t stand the heat… and 2. Do restaurant kitchen designers not realize that cooking things generates heat? Fortunately after some beer and tasty food we felt much warmer. (For those of you who've already seen this picture as part of my facebook story, I apolgize for the duplication. I was using the picture function of messenger to send it to Josh when it posted it as my story. Wrong Button.

On the way home we thought we’d stop in at Osborn’s for our shared haystack sundae. A big perk of Osborn’s is that they have a parking lot. We parked and started to head over there when Sam and Dave realized they should have used the restroom at Buoy. (I had, of course, since I follow the NY Times recommendation to pee early and often). So they headed to the restrooms and I crossed the street to go into White Bird Gallery. While I was there I got a text from Dave saying that Osborn’s was closed! I had been talking with the saleswoman and mentioned it to her, and she said they’ve been having some “family troubles” and were closed off and on. Oh dear! I went to meet Dave and Sam (after buying some earrings in the gallery where our pictures live, called The Oregon Gallery)) and we headed back to the car. We stopped at the Cannon Beach Soap Store where I noticed they’re selling Grandma Hazel-style potholders for $6 each. So now I know how much to charge if I decide to start selling them.

Then it was time to get back to relaxing. I finished the pattern section of the sweater and discovered I’d done something wrong several rows back, so I am putting the knitting on hold until I can get to Knotty Lamb and they’ll fix it. I also had a nice chat with the Bubster, catching her on her return from Maine. It turned cloudy and rather chilly over the afternoon, which was kind of nice. Jen and Lauren arrived around 4 and headed down to the beach.

We weren’t sure what the plan was going to be for today, so we’d left dinner open, and after reviewing our options decided to return to Mi Corazon. I wasn’t as blown away by the food this time, but it was still very good. Jen kept trying to force Lauren to try things, even though she’d said she wouldn’t. Lauren was a good sport. We sat towards the rear of the restaurant, which meant we got to see more of the décor, which is truly fantastic. No two things are exactly alike – for example, the lights are all more or less the same shape and materials but different designs, and on the walls are things I’d call fetishes with a driftwood stick base and found objects arranged on them. Also, the rice that came on the plates was in the shape of a heart. On the other hand, I could only have one kind of fish on my fish tacos.On the other hand they have an excellent sign over their baño.

It was finally cool enough for a fire when we got home, so Dave made a nice one and we played many games. We started with sushi go, which I won the first game because Sam and Lauren hadn’t played before and I always win when there are people who haven’t played. Unfortunately as soon as they have played one time I don’t win anymore, which is what happened the second time. Jen won on puddings, stealing the game from Dave, which happens to him a lot. Then we thought it might be fun to play pepper since Josh isn’t here to win, but it turns out that he passed on his skills to Jen, who won all 3 games. Then it was time for some Happy Salmon, which – guess what – Jen won two rounds of, but Lauren managed to eel her way to victory in the third round. And then it was time for relaxing.

Tomorrow is our last day here – how did this week go by so fast?

Bikes, Byes, and Bravos

Josh's Annual Chair Photo

The plan was that we’d go beach biking this morning, but for some reason the beach bike place wasn’t open this morning (-8 at 7 am, so why not?). I went to bed early last night so didn’t find that out until this morning when I woke up, or I’d have gone for a walk before yoga. As it is I might not get to walk through the Rock Wahii this trip. We did our usual morning routine – Dave walked on the beach (all the way to the whale at the north end!), Josh went to Gearhart to work out, and I went to yoga – 2 classes! I stayed for the chair yoga class to get some ideas, and while I didn’t really learn anything new it was a good class. I put into practice some of the things we talked about at the private lesson yesterday and could feel how much stronger they made the poses.

Looking through the hole from the ocean side!

A small digression about the Rock Wahii. Wahii stands for With A Hole In It (for a long time we called it the rock WAHIT, until we realized that ‘It” starts with ‘I”, not ‘T”). It is a giant monolith with, as you might have guessed, a hole in it. The cool thing is it’s not just a hole, it’s a tunnel that goes all the way through it, and if both the sand (high) and tide (low) conditions are right, you can walk right through it. I’ve only done it once or twice, and Dave got to do it today. When I was there later on the beach bikes the tide was in too far to walk in it, but I did get a cool video.

Meanwhile, I’d originally planned to stay for only 1 yoga class and then walk home, so I had my walking purse with me. When my plans changed and I stayed in town I went to Bruce’s to get some salt water taffy, and it turns out they have a $5 minimum on credit card purchases, so now I have a nice pair of Bruce’s socks. I also stopped at B Boutique and got some dressy t-shirts with raglan sleeves.  We were meeting at Pelican for lunch, so I walked the back way on Spruce St, which is a very nice walk and includes part of the pedestrian tsunami escape route. I’d left just a little late, so by the time I got there everyone was seated and had ordered their beer tasters. Except Sam, who had no beer.

Pelican was yummy. It’s one of my favorite places these days, and even Dave has come around. After lunch we headed home for a variety of home pursuits (knitting for me – I’m just 2 rows away from being done with the patterned part and ready to start the part that’s just knitting. I will be glad to be done with the pattern part. I get distracted a lot and then there are the wrong number of stitches, and in this project it really matters. It was a warm day, but started to cloud up before lunch and was pretty much completely clouded over by 2:30, which is nice for beach biking.

It turns out that even though the weather was ok for beach biking, the sands were not. Once again we had the situation where the dry sand was a narrow strip cut off from the ocean by those things I call tide pools but aren’t really – they’re the streams of water that form between the sand bars and the beach. So we did our beach bikes for the trip, but it wasn’t a lot of fun. Dave stayed home, not being a fan of the beach bikes. Also, my fitbit didn’t notice that I was on the bike. So today I did 2 yoga classes and a 5 mile beach ride but got no credit for it. Apparently August sands are difficult. Who knew? I did make it all the way to the Rock Wahii, and here's the video I made - looking at it from the beach side.

Castaways has edible flower garnishes. Sam had a Zinnia.

We got back at 4:30 and needed to be back in town at 5:30, which led to the discovery that both showers can be used at once. We got cleaned up in plenty of time to leave for dinner at Castaway’s, an old standby. Like everywhere else they were shortstaffed, but they did a nice job of getting food and drinks out in a timely fashion, and the servers were very friendly. We need to remember that the seared tuna appetizer is amazing and also a very small portion. Josh had to get a second one for dessert. Also if the specials don’t sound exciting Dave should get the jambalaya, spiciness level 2. Dinner was fun and yummy but a little sad, because Josh and Jen headed out tonight. Jen will be back on Thursday with her friend Lauren, but Josh is headed back to work. We will miss him.

Fortunately it had worked out that tonight was the night for our summer trip to the coaster theater. The play was “Nunsense” and our favorite actress Cameron Lira from the bookstore was in it. Coaster Theater is amateur theater at its best and tonight was especially good – the quality of the acting and singing was very good and the play was very funny. And, Sam got a Coaster Cookie during intermission, something we’ve always wanted to do but have been too full to even attempt. So this story do have a happy ending after all. 

Speaking of happy endings, if you enjoy the blogs please leave a comment either on blogger or on the facebook page - a person needs a little encouragement.

That Nappens

Rainbow Yoga Soldiers

Dave and I started the day with a private yoga lesson with Christen, which is how Dave started his yoga journey a year ago. It was special to do it together and we both learned a lot. It was also quite a lot of work, since she’d settle us in a pose and then spend time with each of us exploring. Afterwards he went back to the house to change while I hung out in town.

Josh met us in town after a long workout and we had a very tasty lunch at Mi Corazon, the Mexican place in the building next to EVOO. The décor is bright and fun (Jen especially liked the yellow seats on the chairs) and the food is also bright and fun. We were the only ones there the whole time and I’m worried that they’re not going to make it. That would be sad since their food is really yummy, especially the green salsa.

After lunch the girls and Dave stayed in town while Josh and I headed home. I took a long nap – my first this vacation! It’s a cooler day today, which is nice – both Sunday and yesterday were uncomfortably warm in the afternoon. So it was a good day for a nap on the bed. Josh did some laundry while I napped. Meanwhile Josh, Sam and Dave went out and did some archery. The sand is high this year and the high tides aren’t very high, so the beach isn’t cut off at high tide the way it sometimes is, so they did the archery up here.

Once I got up there was time for some knitting and a little Aya practice before it was time to shower and head to EVOO. Tonight’s EVOO was different than usual – it was a pop-up with Rob Baki, the chef and owner of Ned Ludd in Portland. The food was delicious, but Dave and I missed Chef Bob’s patter. On the other hand, dinner was over an hour earlier. Sam got to try lots of new foods.

On the way home we dropped Jen and Sam at Hug Point and they spent some time playing in the water. It was the best sunset we’ve had so far.

A Busy Day

Dave, Josh and I were up early for Yoga with Christen – a good class. I especially liked being the person who is there with her son AND husband – I never would have thought it would happen. Then we headed back to the house to pick up Jen and Sam, and then the plan was to have brunch at Pig’n. I love Pig’n for lunch, but Dave really doesn’t. It turns out, though, that he doesn’t mind Pig’n for brunch. On the way inform Midtown things were looking good – not a lot of traffic, not many people on the sidewalks – but then we got to the Pig’n lot and it was full of people waiting to get in. It’s the millennials – they sleep until 10 and then want breakfast. Fortunately I immediately had a plan b, which was to go to the Lazy Susan Café, a small restaurant near the Coaster Theater that we’ve never been to, They were able to seat us immediately at a nice table upstairs by a window and we had a nice breakfast. We probably won’t go back, because 1) the food was merely good and 2) it’s cash only – what’s with that?

The reason we did brunch was so that we could do the Neahkahnie mountain hike, which we di, and it was fun. I like to go faster uphill and slower downhill than everybody else (except Josh, who likes to go fast in both directions) so the descent was a little uncomfortable for me. My knee did fin until the last quarter mile or so and then it was pretty uncomfortable. The temps were nice – not too hot. Josh has hiked the trail several times with other people and showed us the place where you can scramble up to the summit, which was both wonderful and terrifying.

Since we do the trail as a one-way with two cars, Josh and Jen left to go into town straight from the hike and then headed home. Sam, Dave and I went back to the house and showered, and then Sam and I headed into town to shop. We spent a long time shopping! It was very fun. At Archimedes, my current favorite gallery, they have a stuffed hugging Yeti that if I had an extra $950 I would so have in my office.

Dinner was Irish Table at 5:30, so the rest of the troop met us there. Irish Table opened in 2010, and have had more or less the same menu since then. It’s the restaurant I recommend to anyone who asks me for a restaurant recommendation in Cannon Beach, because the food is really, really good. And it doesn’t get boring since they always have a yummy fish special and extraordinary soups. It did not disappoint tonight – everybody had great food and Sam decided she actually likes seafood (with Halibut as good as that, everyone would love seafood). The only downside was when we got the dessert menu and Dave’s dessert, the scones he’d been talking about all day, had fallen off the menu. He had the Guinness ice cream sandwich instead, and it was good but he was still sad.

When we got home it was time for Christmas (and Hanukah) in August. This is a hard thing, even though it was also fun. Josh is being deployed to Somalia in October for 10 months, so he won’t be here for the holidays (or a lot of other things, which we try not to think about). So he’d requested a time of gift giving on the coast and we’ve had fun shopping for gifts and stocking stuffers. I cut a small branch off an evergreen and we had a fun time of opening presents.

To put a cap on this busy day we played a new escape room game from a company called Kosmos – the series is called Exit the Game, and the one we played was called “Abandoned Cabin”. It was 2.5 out of 5 stars for difficulty, and had moments of extreme frustration. By the end we were getting in the swing of it and managed to get out in under the allotted time. It left me feeling very invigorated. The company really did a clever job of having there be more and more surprises even when you thought you had all the game pieces already. We’ll be passing it on to some other lucky family.

Then it was bed time and blog time. I’m hoping for some down time tomorrow.

It's HOT and the blog is short

A quick mention of snake(s): yesterday I met snakes on the path, once going down and once going up. It may have been the same snake, about a foot long, and both times it couldn’t figure out how to get off the path and out of my way. I tried to speak softly to it but it was really scared.

I don’t remember much about this morning – all of us had trouble sleeping last night after the excitement of Trouble, and also the kids had a lot of coffee before bed. So it was a slow start to the morning. I got a lot of knitting done, Josh worked out, and Dave moved my car to Hug Point and went for a walk. 

At 11:30 we headed up to Warren House to meet our friends Joe and Hannah and Rene and had a lovely lunch. After lunch the friends and I headed back to the house for some beach time while Dave and the kids went to Ecola for some smokked fish, and when we all got back to the house Amber and Thomas and Alder had arrived. We spent the afternoon chatting and drinking wine and playing with Alder who is 1.5 years old and totally adorable, but none of us took any pictures, which is why the snake section above has a picture. Alder loved going in the waves and also in the shallow pools on the beach and playing in the brown chair.

After everyone left, we made the fruit salad for home dinner. Dave and Sam both helped chop, and Josh helped set up the table, so the preparation felt like much less of an undertaking than usual. Also the have a new giant metal bowl that made making large quantities much easier. I’d picked up some Grand Central bread on Thursday that we froze, and that together with cheese and pate and smokked fish and mussels and a very nice laughing pig rose

made for an excellent dinner. We all pretended not to miss the butter that we forgot to bring. Also it was incredibly hot in the house. After dinner Jen did the dishes while Dave and Josh put the house back together (yes, there was sweeping and vaccuming) and I dried the dishes and put them away. Then everyone went to their downtime locations. Dave and I sat on the porch where it started out a little warm and then cooled down nicely.

Our evening ended with game playing (flux, pepper, exploding kittens) in which I did not win. It’s still very warm here!

Alder in the brown chair - a tradition continues

Never on Saturday

A High Sand Shot, just south of the carriage road

Many of us get up early. Dave and I headed in to Cannon Beach Yoga Arts for class with Tish Lilly, a teacher neither he nor I nor our forefathers have known. It was a fine class – I would take another class with her. Highlights were doing sun salutations to the beat of a drum and her cue to use the core to move from plank to down dog. With one exception, I think everyone in the class was a visitor to the area, which makes for an interesting business model and also makes me wonder if her regulars dread the summers and can’t wait for fall?

Meanwhile, Josh headed for Gearhart for his workout and Sam headed for a beach walk.  He got back just at the right time to pick Sam up at Tolovana. After class, Dave headed back to the house and I stopped at the Chocolate Café for a spoon chocolate (OMG, it is like a warm dark chocolate pudding and so delicious, but better when shared between two people even though it is tiny) and then did some shopping, including some stocking stuffers. Just about the time I was ready to be done shopping I got a text from Dave that it was time to head to the hardware store for lunch. I got there just before they did, and when they arrived there was exactly one parking spot left.

 

Wait, what? Lunch at the hardware store? Yes indeed, and a fine lunch it was. Good smoked food and excellent pickles. Also if you need any screws or springs or other hardware including the Bug-A-Salt rifle, which I have since looked up and discovered it is a fly killing weapon which shoots a pinch of ordinary table salt and is accurate up to 3 feet. And you can get a precision laser sight for it. We might need one.

After lunch it was Dave’s turn to walk back to the house. The kids and I decided we’d go back to town to do some shopping but oh dear, not at 1:00 on a summer Saturday. Not only was there no parking, it was unclear if there was room on the sidewalk for any more people. So we headed out, stopping at the Fresh store in Tolovana for some coffee and fizzy water.

Back at the house I decided to walk towards town, and met Dave just south of Arcadia beach. We had a nice walk back to the house – perfect temps for me barefoot in my sun shirt and capri leggings, a tad warm for him in his jeans and hiking boots. (A digression here – I am using my green eagle creek bag with a credit card and lip goobies to carry my phone for beach walks. For this walk I took my dot sandals which can be clipped onto the strap of the eagle creek bag – it is a perfect solution). When we got back to our cove I stayed down and walked around the starfish rock to the south for a while, but didn’t find any starfish – I haven’t seen many at all this trip. I did find a several really big barnacle shells.

When I got back up Jen and Sam were doing art and Dave was sitting on the deck. I sat on the deck for a bit while Josh practiced juggling behind us. He’s learning and here’s what it sounds like: nothing-nothing-nothing-thump. Nothing-nothing-thump. Eventually I went in and showered and spent some time knitting – with much more success. Eventually it was time to shower and get ready to go to Bistro, where we had a nice dinner with Amber and Thomas and their cute little boy Alder. The food was good, but the service was slow, which seems to be a thing this year. There are help wanted signs everywhere, and I think the restaurants are all short staffed.

When we got home it was time for more knitting, then game time. We introduced Sam to Farkle, a game at which she sparkled by beating Dave during the bonus round once he’d gotten to 10,000. Then it was time for Trouble. Jen offered to sit out, which made us all very excited because it meant somebody else might win. It especially made ME excited, because I got all my men home except one when everybody else barely even had one man out. Then there was so much bad and evil behavior by everyone else that I had to battle back from being honked 4 times and then Dave won and then Josh won and then I didn’t win. Not Fair!!!

Lots of walking

This has nothing to do with our vacation - Josh and Jen took it at the star party last weekend. It's too good not to post.

I’d thought about going to yoga this morning, but I actually slept in. Instead, I had a long slow morning of knitting and unknitting. I don’t know what it is about this pattern (Leaf Top sweater) – it’s not complicated, but I keep messing it up. Meanwhile, Dave, Sam, and Jen walked to the carriage road and then down to the stream at Arch Cape. While they were on the carriage road there were some big waves and one came and got them. And while all this was going on Josh went up to Gearhart to work out in the gym there. So for a long time I was alone in the house knitting and listening to music (Silver Ship by Susan Cipriani) I love my family but I sure didn’t mind the alone time.

By the time everyone got back and showered, it was time to head to Bill’s for lunch (Dave might say it was past it, rather). We needed to sit on the minors side, so it was a little more time critical than it has been in past years. Bill’s was its usual excellent self, and an order of onion rings split between 5 people is just perfect.

Before we left for lunch I did some considering of the tides, which are not great this trip for early morning walks with super-low tides. However, they are minus tides in the afternoons, which is fun in its own way. All this to say that I decided to walk home from Bill’s, and had dressed appropriately. Sam decided she’d go with me. The rest of the group stayed in town and walked to midtown to the Distillery to pick up Peter’s

Family gin (Dave) and Lost Buoy gin (Jen). The owner, Mike, was there so they had a nice chat. Mike is moving to Colorado because of oppressive taxes on small distilleries here in Oregon, so this is his last summer here. The good news is that we now have two reasons to go to Boulder – to visit Tabetha and to visit Cannon-Beach-Distillery-in-exile.

Sam and I had a very nice walk from town, although it felt very backwards to me to be walking south. Sam mostly walked in the water, but I was in destination hiking mode and stayed further up the beach. Since the sands are high, there are a lot of places where you can walk along for a while and suddenly there’s a river you have to cross. Many years of experience has made

me pretty savvy about these. Sam on the other hand had several instances where she suddenly found herself in knee deep water. She was pretty ready to be done with the walk once we got to Hug Point – not surprising, since she walked about 10 miles today!

When we got home Dave was napping on the porch and Jen was napping in her room. Sam decided to follow their example. Josh had been on the computer, but decided to go for a run. I did more knitting and made more mistakes. What is it with this pattern?

We had dinner rezzies at Bridgewater in Astoria tonight, once again hoping the food would disappoint since it’s a long drive. Once again it didn’t. Dave, Jen and I shared lots of appetizers, while Josh and Sam shared our appetizers and had a main dish as well. Josh’s pork ribeye was a real standout. On the drive home we listened to some of our favorite music and had family sing-alongs to such old standbys as “From the Indies to the Andes in his Undies” and “John Henry”.

Once home, Dave made a fire and we played a few rounds of Chronology, which I suggested but have since decided I hate since I didn’t win. Now it’s time to listen to Charlie Daniels singing children’s songs and sit around the fire.

We have arrived!

Here we are! It’s odd to come out in the middle of the week, but last year we decided that weekends aren’t our favorite times to be here. So this morning I went to work and taught in the health center and balance 3, then stopped at Grand Central for lunch. Where I called in an order for my favorite sandwich, the green goat, and they said OK, but when I got there even though I got a perfect parking space right out front and they called my name right when I walked in, and I was thinking it was the best day ever, it turned out they were calling my name because they had stopped serving the green goat the day before and I had to choose something else. They gave me a free loaf of bread and a shortbread cookie, so I forgave them.

I’d done most of my packing on Tuesday (after doing all the laundry from OSP on Sunday and Monday) so I finished up and we got the cars loaded. We’ll have 5 of us here, so we brought Otto, the Navigator, instead of Dave’s car. I had a short nap and we headed out – me in my car listening to Murray Perahia playing “Songs Without Words” and Sam (the niece formerly known as Sami) and Dave in his car.

We’d been planning to try Harding’s Trading Company for dinner – it opened two years ago and we’ve not been there. Faithful readers might recall that they DON’T take reservations and they DON’T answer the phone during dinner service and they DON’T seat groups larger than 6, and now it turns out they DON’T exist anymore, so we went to Pelican instead, where I had a hibiscus lager and the most delicious walnut tacos I’ve ever had. Actually, I’ve never had walnut tacos before. These had sautéed walnuts and corn with quinoa and a jicama slaw and a delicious tangy sauce. Completely memorable and excellent.

Before that, however, I got to the house and was about to turn into the main driveway when the car right in front of me turned in, and then started to do the thing where you back halfway out and then go down our side driveway, which was really weird. It turned out to be the owner, Gordon Church, who was fixing the screen door. Which he did from the time we got here – 4:15 – until almost 8:00, including several trips to the hardware store, where he was coming back from when we arrived. It doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in the quality of his repairs to the bouncy bridge on the path down to the beach.

We took a short trip down to the beach where we discovered that the water is very cold and the sand is very high, with a very steep slope down to the water. Josh and Jen arrived while we were down on the beach and we took a nice sunset selfie. What’s particularly strange is that there are no changes to report – everything looks pretty much like it did when we left. It’s good to be back.