Day 7 - Winding Down

Today was supposed to be even hotter than yesterday, so I made a plan that would have us mostly out of the house in the late afternoon. Then the fog came…

I had a quiet morning of knitting and tai chi; Dave went for a walk on the beach and did some recorder practice. He found soft sands again, even though there was no storm, so it’s possible that my soft sand theory has been debunked. Pig’n doesn’t do outside service, so we went to Local Scoop to try their breakfast. Oddly, neither Dave’s toast nor his has browns were crispy, but my pancakes were. It was ordinary food, not very well done, so we won’t need to go there again.  After breakfast I made a quick trip into West of the Moon where I got not one but two elephant dresses, with cap sleeves! I’m very excited about them because elephant dresses are my favorite things to wear when it’s hot out. Confidential to BOS, since I know you’ll ask: they are dresses with elephants on them, not dresses that make me look like an elephant. I also got a couple of tops – a most productive outing.

We got back to the house and I did a little more knitting and then had my first nap of the entire vacation. It was very good. After nap we headed over to Nehalem Bay State Park to take stroll on their forest trail. It is both flat and paved, which makes for a very nice outing. It includes a walk through part of the campground, which is something I really enjoy doing, and it goes out past the airstrip and along the bay. The vegetation is very different from Oswald West, even though they are quite close together. Maybe the bay has a moderating effect on the temperatures? While we were hiking along we got a call from Newman’s confirming our dinner reservation, which was good to know.

After hiking we headed home and got ready to go out. When we got to Newman’s it was completely foggy, and the sun was quite red – it looks like smoke, but seems not to be. The dinner was very tasty, especially the appetizers. It was a good dinner ending to our vacation. Then home to a last fire and relaxing evening.

We had no idea what things would be like this week, so expectations were low. They were surpassed in every way – a wonderful vacation indeed! Thanks for riding along.

Day 6 - It's even better

Sunset From the Deck

Morning from the deck

Woke at the usual time after a more restless night than we’ve had – it was warmer than it’s been. The tide was pretty far out, so we drove both cars into town & left Dave’s in the parking lot behind Mariner, then drove back home and headed out on a Big Walk To Town. The beaches were fairly empty and the sky was as blue as blue can be. The waterfall has gotten even less full, becoming more like the water trickle that we're used to in the summer.

One odd thing was that it was very warm – I’d stripped down to my t-shirt and was wishing I’d worn shorts by the time we got to the other side of the carriage road. And here’s a small SAND REPORT ADDENDUM: when we took our first beach walk on Thursday morning, there had been big windstorms and the ocean was really riled up – there were breakers way far out. And the sand was very soft to walk on in many places – we’d sink in an inch or two, even barefoot. The sea is now much calmer, and the sand has gotten much more compacted. I’d hypothesized on Thursday morning that the storms had brought the sand in and it hadn’t yet had time to settle, and Dave wondered this morning if my hypothesis was correct. So we will be watching for this in the future. 

 Aside from being a little warm, the walk was really delightful – we had to time our movement across hug point and between the rocks north of arcadia, but other than that we could walk wherever we wanted. On the way in Dave and I had some disagreement about which part of the Waves motel Josh and Jen were staying in (he thought Flagship, I though La Colina, although he didn’t know the names). So we walked all the way north and came up the stairs at the hotel, and discovered that I was correct that they were at La Colina. We walked through the parking lot & saw their car was still there, but we weren’t sure if they were awake yet so we didn’t bother them.

 Our plan was to walk to pick up the car and drive to midtown for lunch at Pelican, which opens at 11 and has outdoor seating but is first come, first served and had huge lines over the weekend. We got there about 10:40 and were trying to figure out whether to hang out there or go for a walk when Josh and Jen pulled up – the restaurant they were going to go to in Astoria (Buoy, yum) isn’t open on Mondays so they’d decided to do Pelican as a second choice, and wanted to make sure they got there in time to get a table. Hooray! The three of them walked over to Elliot Cottage (where we stayed over Thanksgiving) so Josh could see the outside, and then we hung out on the benches in the sun waiting for the restaurant to open. Which they did, more or less on time, and we got the best table on the corner. Our server was very friendly and funny – when I ordered the beer called “Bronze God” he told me “You are what you drink; we’re renaming it to bronze goddess now.” The food and beer were both good (Jen’s wasabi pea crusted seared tuna was a little weird) and the company was exceptional. They even bought us lunch! They headed out to Forest Grove to pick up Dave’s old volvo to take to Medford and give to the Stanchfields, and also to water the plants on the deck.  (Ed. Note: they made it safely and the car has been delivered)

Meanwhile we took our weary bones back to the house, stopping on the way for milk. The deck was still in the shade and the air temperature was just right, so we sat out on the deck reading, blogging, knitting, and just watching the waves with great enjoyment. Eventually all that enjoyment turned into a nap for Dave. Then the sun got to the place where it starts to heat the house, and it was time for something different. Dave went to play some recorders while I went down to the beach for a nice walk in the surf. The water wasn’t cold but it was too full of jellyfish for my taste – I think the local jellies are harmless but I’m not sure, and also ICK, there were some really big ones on the beach and some pretty big ones floating around in the water with me. This morning on our hike I think I stepped on a part of one and almost fell down, like a banana peel. I walked down to the rocks to the south and saw quite a few starfish – with the sands this high the anemones and starfish are mostly buried, and we wonder what they do down there under the sand. I also walked up to Hug Point and was able to stand on the sand down below, so that was fun. Then I came back and did some Taijifit on the beach before coming up for a shower and some knitting. Man, was it warm in the house. We briefly considered setting up some beach chairs on the front porch, but it was almost time to leave for dinner.

 We left about 10 minutes late, so when we got to the Driftwood Inn there was a short wait for a table. We took a very short walk to get my steps, then waited patiently on a bench across the street. They called not long after and we were seated at a nice corner table in their new outdoor seating area, which is a roped off area where their parking lot used to be. The menu was standard steak and (mostly fried) seafood. We split a cup of the clam chowder, Dave had fried oysters and I had ribs. We both got the undercooked and slightly underseasoned “seasonal vegetable medley” (zucchini, summer squash, carrots and celery). The food was workmanlike – nothing to write home about (even though I just did) but reasonably priced and portioned. We were in and out in under an hour, and as we were leaving the sun was setting. We jumped in Dave’s car (conveniently located very nearby, since the Driftwood Inn seating backs on the the public lot behind the Mariner market) and headed off towards the scenic overlook, the closest convenient sunset observation point.

 

Bonus Points: What's on the mask?

Yesterday for our trip to Astoria we’d downloaded the spotify app for Dave’s car (yes, his car has apps. Of course it does). On the way home from there I’d put on Philip Wesley’s Dark Night of the Soul, and it had been playing every time we got in the car today. Just as we were getting on to the highway in our run to the viewpoint the second song on the album came on – it’s called Racing the Sunset. Which we did. We got to the overlook in plenty of time and were joined by several more cars as the sun took a long time to actually set – it was clear all the way down to the horizon, which never happens. We even saw a green flash!

 Back in the car to get home, which was still very, very warm inside. So we sat out on the deck and watched the long fade of the sunset, the stars appearing, the moon peeking over the roof of the house to light up the tree at the corner of the deck and the beach and waves down below. And of course, the constant sound of the waves, and the gentle breeze. Yeah, can we talk about that breeze for a minute? Because it’s really weird. Mostly it’s cool, but every so often it is a warm, dry breeze, which seems to come from the same direction. We noticed it this morning while we were walking on the beach, too. We don’t know what it is.

It is good to have people here and play games at night, and it is good to have it be just us and sit on the deck in the dark. So far this vacation has been one of surprising contentment. Tomorrow is our last full day here.

At one point we got home and there my car was,
looking extremely handsome and sporty. So I took its picture.

Day 5 - It's all good

 

We woke up to beautiful blue skies and a much calmer ocean this morning. After breakfast Dave decided to go for a beach walk – as a side note, it’s just weird with the sands so high and the high tides so low, you can pretty much go for a walk anytime – anyway, Dave went for a beach walk and I stayed here and did Tai Chi and Pilates. Tai Chi overlooking the waves in a quiet house is peaceful and delicious.

Dave got home at the end of Tai Chi and went out on the deck for recorder practice while I did pilates, and his practice continued on through the weekly zoom call with the Bubster and Ben, except that Ben wasn’t there due to a small accident (broken glass) that required both parents for cleanup and corral. We had a nice chat anyway. The kids had crepes for breakfast and then did hanging out in town.

 

We met them for lunch at Warren House, which has a sunny beer garden in the back and a sunny deck in the front. Once we were seated at our usual table on the sunny deck it felt like a regular Warren House lunch, except they didn’t have the smokked salmon salad that I usually have. It was nice to have a break from things feeling weird. After lunch we went for a hike in Oswald West. We did the two car shuffle, and got very lucky to get parking spaces at both ends – Sunday afternoon at 2 is a pretty busy time. The hike was quite interesting, because there were many fallend trees to scramble around. If we hadn’t me someone at the first fallen tree who told us that the trail was passable to elk flats we probably would have given up. As it was there was lots of scrambling and everybody had a good time. The temperature under the trees was just right. There was some excitement at the elk flats parking area – ambulances and police cars and the like. We don’t know what it was all about – we think someone might have fallen at the Devil’s Cauldron overlook.

After the hike we had time to go back to our respective places and get cleaned up and then head up to Astoria for dinner at the Bridgewater Bistro. Because of eating outside all of our dinners have been early – last year they ended up all being early too, for some reason – and it makes the afternoons too short. But it’s not a lot of fun eating dinner outside when it’s dark and cold, so it is what it is. We had a marvelous table at the far corner of the deck, and the it was warm enough for shirtsleeves through most of the meal. The food was wonderful – they make a savory crab cheesecake that’s just wonderful, for example – and the drinks were also good, and my raspberry peach crumble with ice cream pretty much was the cherry on the cake, if you’ll permit me to mix my metaphors.

 

We came back to the house for our last game night – we started with pepper, which Dave won and then Jen won and then I won TWICE IN A ROW, which is the first time I have won at pepper in several years. Then we had a totally wild and crazy trouble game which Jen also won, even though Josh had looked like a shoo-in. Josh is a very good sport about not winning, which he did not learn from me.

 

Then it was late, and time for J&J to head back to their hotel. They’re taking off tomorrow so Josh can get ready for Army school. It was so good to have them here, and I’m glad our last day together was close to perfect.

Day 4 - Toes in the Sand

Once again we slept in past 7, and woke to a cloudy blue sky. The tide was partway out, so we walked most of the way to Hug Point but were cut off by high water at the waterfall,and then turned around and walked almost all the way down to the creek at the south end, but the sand was cold and our feet were too frozen to make it all the way there. We got back up and had breakfast, and heard from Josh & Jen that they’d about finished their breakfast at the Lazy Susan and were headed over.

When they got here we pulled the table out of the kitchen into the living room so we could watch the sky get clearer and clearer as we tried to Exit the Room. The adventure was called Polar Station, and it was 3 out of 5 stars hard. I don’t know if it was the wrong combination of skills (we’ve had Tim, Tabetha, and/or Reagan for all our other escapes) or that we were feeling rushed because it was Saturday and we would get to lunch late or if it was the extreme creepiness of the soundtrack that Dave had playing from the Exit the Room app, but we had a terrible time getting out! Many of the puzzles had an ah-ha! Kind of quality, which if you didn’t get the ah-ha you just felt stupid, which we did much of the time. We had to use many more of the hint cards than usual and didn’t come away with quite the high we usually do – it took almost two hours and we were hungry. Next time, no starting to escape after 9-ish. And maybe back to 2 stars of difficulty. They had a chart at the end where you got a rating based on how long it took and how many hints you used, and we were at 3 of 10 stars. Not impressive.

 

We went into town which was more crowded (not unexpected on the weekend) and ended up eating at Public Coast, a restaurant at the north end of town which has been both Clarks and Lumbermans. We have eaten there only once in each of its incarnations, and have now eaten at it once (Dave’s been twice) as Public Coast and don’t need to go back. The beer was pretty good, but the food was meh or meh-minus. We were able to get a table outside and sitting and eating in the sun felt pretty good.

 

After lunch Dave and I went for a walk and the kids hung out in the house. The tide was about 2/3 to low, and with the high sand it was easy to get over the carriage road and walk all the way to Tolovana. Well, mostly easy. For some reason every time we get to a narrow place a giant wave comes and we have to wait it out. Crossing the waterfall, which is much lower today than yesterday, there was even a surge of water coming down the waterfall. We don’t know what that’s about. Also leading up to high tide there were astonishing numbers of dead jellyfish – some whole ones, including several really big ones – and lots of jellyfish bits. They were in lines where the wave edges had been – I’ve never seen so many.

 

When we got back there was more relaxing and showering, and then it was time to head out for dinner. There are limited choices, so we ended up back at Castaways. The food and drink were very good and came out more quickly, but it was windy and colder than Thursday night. Once again Dave chose spice level 2, and once again I am recording that it’s the right spice level. After dinner we had more game night – I did an impressive amount of losing. You may notice that no knitting got done – it was a busy day!

Day 3, when we become a pod

We woke up in the night to humongous winds and heavy rain, which continued on through the morning. One thing I forgot to mention on the first day is that there is a strange moaning noise coming from a drainpipe on the outside wall between the two small bedrooms. It’s a good thing there are no children trying to sleep in those bedrooms, because it’s quite spooky. Dave calls it the ghoul.

We got up and had a slow morning listening to the rain and wind and waves. Josh and Jen are staying in town at the Waves motel, They got here around 10, which was just wonderful. They have been keeping good COVID hygiene so we decided to form a bubble, which meant I got to give them both giant hugs – I got pretty teary. Josh is looking good and enjoying the cool rain after Somalia.

They had brought some items from home that we’d asked for, including some pruning shears to clean up the downed tree on the way down to the beach. Josh and Dave went down to take care of it but discovered that it had already been cleared away. The hourly forecast was encouraging, so we went down for a short walk to hug point, but once again sneaker waves came at the waterfall. Also the hourly forecast was overly optimistic, so it was raining pretty hard by the time we came back.

Its wrongness notwithstanding, when it said it would be clear for several hours we decided to go into town for lunch and were rewarded with good enough weather to eat outside at Bill’s and for us to get fish for dinner at Ecola and J&J to go to Bruce’s for their big bag of Bruce’s bounty. And for all of us but Dave to have Osborn’s ice cream. In fact, it held off until we got home. Once we were there, it drizzled on and off all afternoon and we just hung out and did our own stuff – lots of knitting for me, reading for Dave, and screen time for the kids.

Dave and Josh cooked the dinner (grilled salmon, steamed broccoli, boiled new potatoes, with smoked mussels and smoked salmon appetizer) and it came together very oddly , one item at a time, but was just fine. It was the anniversary of Josh and Jen’s first date, so we toasted that. That was a good day for all of us. Jen dried while I washed and the cleanup went very quickly.

After dinner is always game time, and tonight was not exception. We played Chronology and Exploding Kittens and had a good time. The report is a bit sparse tonight since I didn’t work on it during the day. I was just too busy basking in how good it was to have Josh back, and of course enjoying Jen’s company as well. I’m one lucky mother/mother-in-law!

Bonus Picture from a long time ago - 1969? 

Day 2 - Upsides.

This is either the latest in the summer or the earliest in the fall that we’ve ever stayed here, and it has some definite advantages. The first one became clear this morning when it stayed dark until after 6, allowing us to get a very good sleep – earlier in the summer it gets light around 4:30 and makes for a much earlier awakening. It wasn’t raining when we got up, and even though it was high tide it was a very low high tide, and (wait for it!) the sands are so HIGH that we were able to cross behind the pyramid rock into hug point park without any difficulty. My, those sands are high. 

The fins in front of the rock cave to the south are completely buried, and the rocky place to the north which sometimes requires a scramble is barely knee high. The sand is also really squishy in a lot of places, like it’s not compacted down at all. We walked up to the waterfall which is nice and full after all the rain we’ve had. Coming back we got caught in a couple of higher waves, and I got a little water – not much – in my short Columbia boots. We have arrived indeed. There was some unexpected excitement on the way down to the beach – a small tree has fallen across the path. Fortunately we work out and do yoga and are experienced cavers, so it was only a minor inconvenience.

We came back up to the house, where the sky seemed to be lightening up. A look at the hourly forecast showed no rain until 2, so we decided to believe it and head down to Oswald West for a walk. We parked at the South lot and started out on the cedar crossing trail. Like Stubb Stewart, OW has lots of short trails that criss cross each other, so you can go a fair distance without ever going very far. We did have a moment of extreme confusion when we came off of the short sand beach trail into the parking lot and got turned around, but Dave was able to figure it out and we made it safely across the road and onto the falcon cove trail.

The section of the falcon cove trail before the turnoff to short sands has always been a little narrow, and it has clearly washed out some over the winter. Like the path down to the beach from the house there have been some trees down, and we did have to climb over one of them with not a lot of clearance on the dropoff side. Luckily it had fallen in a way that the branches made good hand and footholds, so we were able to cross safely. Once we got to the turnoff for short sands beach the rest of the trail was uneventful and quite lovely. We hiked the falcon cove trail over Thanksgiving with Tim, and the path was very crowded. This late in the season, with the weather cool and cloudy, we only saw one other group on the trails. And Necarney creek was running very full, so we got to hike along with the sounds of the ocean and the creek – these are a few of my favorite things.

We got back and it was still a beautiful day – a little hazy but mostly sunny and wonderful. That made it easy to simply sit in the black chairs and relax until it was time to head to town. We got there just in time to get the best table at Bill’s – there are only two outside tables in the front, and we got one of them. We drank Bill’s beer and ate Bill’s burgers in the sun and watched the mask wearing crowds go by. Dave had a pint of the peated porter and pronounced it, er, very good. What is a word for very good that starts with ‘P’? Perfect is a bit too strong.

After lunch we headed to Bruce’s for some necessities (salt water taffy, salted caramels, licorice wheels). Dave waited outside and was checking the weather, and discovered that it was supposed to stay not raining until 7. So we decided to keep counting on the felix felicis and made dinner reservations at Castaways. Then was the only sad part, which is that Maggie & Henry’s which is one of our favorite stores and one of the few places left in town where you could get real clothes (as opposed to kitschy tourist wear) is going out of business, and in fact only had about 40 items left in the whole store, none of which we wanted.

We headed on out of town and stopped at the Fresh Foods market in Tolovana to pick up some things we might need – hotdogs and buns for lunch on a rainy day, oreos, peanuts, and fizzy water. They had pretty much everything we wanted – it is a good market. Then we came back and it was STILL sunny, so Dave read on the porch for a while, and I got started on my wine colored sweater. After a while Dave decided to do some recorder practice, which he tried doing on the deck but it was too windy (did you know you can’t play recorders in the wind?) so he went into the bedroom, which was just as well because the first 8 rows of the sleeves cause a lot of muttering. By the time he was done practicing (and napping) I had gotten past the muttering part.

After our restful afternoon we headed into town for dinner on the lawn at Castaways. It’s semi self-serve; you order at the window and bus your own table, but they bring the food out. As always at Castaways the wait was long and the food was yummy. Dave had something called the Louisiana Mop, which was pulled pork with shrimp and andouille sausage and noodles, and it was delicious and perfect at spice level 2. I have the Korean wings and a salad and they were good too. No dessert, which is ok since their desserts are too sweet anyway and we have oreos at home.

Josh and Jen are on their way out, so the rains are scheduled to start tomorrow. We are happy to have had a wonderful day today and look forward to seeing them tomorrow. Time for oreos!

Demonstrating high sands. The place where I'm standing is often 3 feet or more above the sand. And the narrow space in front of the rock on the left side is often a deep pool.

Random squirrel.

Vacation in the time of COVID: The Arrival

The first thing that has to be acknowledged is the sadness – this isn’t the vacation we wanted it to be, with all the kids here, eating at restaurants and hanging out playing games in the evenings. The weather is nasty, cold, windy, and rainy, and is supposed to stay that way for most of our time here.

There, now I’ve said that, and from now on I’ll be doing my best to move forward and enjoy what we do have. And we have a lot. I mean A LOT – you would think that two people going to a civilized location could do it without completely filling the back of my car and Dave’s trunk, but you’d be wrong. We spent the day packing up (with laundry, of course) and still forgot to bring an Alexa, which we might not be able to do without – how will we find out things? Who will set timers for us? The drive out was icky, very hard rain and wind and hydroplaning and not being able to see. I had prepared for it by cueing up Singin’ in the Bathtub by John Lithgow on my spotify, and singing along made the trip a little less scary.

We arrived and it was still pouring, so we did the inside/outside person unloading – Dave very generously did the outside part, which won’t come as a surprise to anyone. The very first thing is that both decks have been replaced, and they’ve put a kid-safe railing up on the back deck. I will use up my one nag here and say that this is clearly a sign that it is time for grandchildren. Also on the deck are new plastic Adirondack chairs, which are good, even if I don’t know how you can have Adirondack chairs this far from the Adirondacks. Anyway, they are good. They also replaced the siding on the part of the house that faces the ocean on the deck, which is probably a good thing, since it will not leak or fall down, but they took down the wonderful mystic symbols that were there, and that is too bad. That is also the wall that desperately wants a window, since the kitchen table is on the other side and it would be nice to look out when you were eating, but no window happened. When we got here the internet was broken and the alarm was beeping, but Dave fixed everything, because he is the fixer.

Inside the house we think there is new carpeting in the living room and big bedroom – it seems more padded and less stained than we remember. The problem is I am writing this on Hermes, my new laptop, and he doesn’t have all the old blogs so it’s hard to remember what is new – like, the kitchen faucet, which replaced the old one that sprayed everywhere all the time – is that new this year or was that last year? And did they have both of the black leather chairs? The big news, and it’s not good, is that they have finally gotten rid of the giant brown naugahide chair, site of many, many photos over the years, and an excellent place for napping. Its ottoman [note to BOS: the furniture, not the empire] has also been removed, so I’m using a sterilite box with a pillow on it for now, and we’ll see what happens.

Meanwhile Dave is making shakshuka for dinner and the house smells delicious, and a wild wind is blowing and the rain is pouring down, and there are many reasons to be thankful. The tide is high, so it’s hard to see the height of the sand – my guess is very high sands here. Stay tuned.