New Traditions?

 
What to do after they sell the rental you’ve been going to forever? Well, one idea is to go to a hotel nearby – in this case, the Schooner’s Cove Inn, which has the advantage of being pretty much in the middle of “uptown” Cannon Beach. Dave came out on Tuesday, but we had our Wellness/Safety Fair & Employee Appreciation gathering at work early Wednesday afternoon, so I stayed at work to pick up my 5 year pin in person. I also won a UV sanitizer for my phone in a raffle, so now I can sanitize my phone (is that a thing, even?)

I had an easy drive out  – the least traffic I’ve ever seen, as it was a cool drizzly day. I had to pass exactly two cars the whole trip, and once I’d gotten settled in we had dinner at Pelican. For the first time ever I was disappointed in the Pelican menu. They had neither the walnut tacos (not surprising as they were a rotating special but MAN were they good) nor the sweet potato quinoa pattie over a salad, which was an unpleasant surprise as I thought that was a menu staple. But we had a flatbread and roasted cauliflower and it was good. I had a Happoshu beer (a Japanese-style beer containing less than 67% malt content, in case you were wondering) which was quite nice. We walked to and from the restaurant, and on our way back Dave took the short route to the hotel while I walked all the way up to Bill’s through town to see what was what and also hoping for a small sweet snack. It was about 7, and pretty much the entire town was completely shut down. It made me want to open a dessert place that is only open in the evenings and has small cookies. Once I got back to the hotel we had a nice evening of reading, made perfect by finding a packet of two Milano cookies in the snack bag I got at the party.

The second best thing about Schooner’s Cove (ok, it’s the 3^rd, because the first thing is that it has floor to ceiling windows that look out over the beach and Ecola creek) is that the bedroom closes off from the sitting area and is dark in the morning, so I slept in until after 7. Then we got moving pretty quickly, because the tide was pretty much out according to my tide tables. We hopped in the car and headed down to Hug Point, because it had to be done. We were startled as we made the turn onto 101 from midtown to find a Huge Herd of Helk pretty much right on the side of the road. Close enough to see their fine beards, in fact. But I digress.

Here is the sand report: The Sand is High. It comes up into the cave to the south and the rock fins are all covered, and you can walk on sand in the narrow place behind the triangular rock between “our” beach and the Hug Point beach, and the sand comes right up to the dog-photo-rocks by the Carriage Road. The waterfall was probably the lightest water trickle we’ve ever seen – the sand came all the way up to the rocks. We walked down to the rocks to the south and there were tons of starfish, pretty much back to pre-starfish disease numbers.

And, to answer the biggest question of all, the house is still there, looking unchanged. When the owners sold the house I figured the folks who bought it would continue to use it, but Dave suspected they would tear it down and build a mansion. We still don’t know for sure that they won’t, but for right now it’s still there. However, the lowest segment of the path to the beach – the steep stairs – had either washed away or been removed and was now just a sandy path. We headed back towards the car and on the stairs to the parking lot we met a young man who was here for his first time from New York, and we directed him over toward the carriage road. It made me think what it would be like to be here for the first time and see these rocks and the trees growing right down to the edge of the beach and the little creeks running out to the ocean and the expanses of hard empty sand. What an amazing place this is!

We got back in the car and were heading back to the hotel when Dave noticed a beach access sign at the
southernmost end of Cannon Beach (the one on the west side of the road). We’d been talking about how the Rock Wahii was one of our favorite places but that it was a long walk from both Arcadia Beach and Tolovana. Then this beach access sign made us think and wonder. So we got off at the Tolovana exit and headed south, continuing south on the dead end road past the turnoff to 101, and eventually found a place to park near a beach access point and went down and were as close to the Rock Wahii as you would want to be – maybe 200 yards away? So we walked over and climbed over to the hole (it seemed rockier in front to me than usual, but Dave didn’t think so) and looked through and walked back to the car, all in about 15 minutes. Both of us were very pleased to have been to the Rock, and also vaguely unsatisfied, as if we’d somehow cheated. It just doesn’t seem right to have the experience of seeing the hole in the rock without working for it.

It was chilly when we set out (47 degrees!) thanks to a clear night. There was some light fog over the ocean while we had our walks, but that all cleared out and it’s now a beautiful, warm, sunny day and we have a whole day of relaxing in front of us. I’d better get started.