A little more hiking

Last night we completely overate at Castaways, and we both woke up this morning not hungry. This was sad because it was supposed to be our Pig’n morning and neither of us had any interest in going there. Instead, we started our day with a nice walk. We were able to go north by crossing Ecola Creek close to the ocean without getting our feet soaked, which is unusual. We walked about halfway to the end of the beach, then climbed up the dune and walked down 5^th street to Les Shirley Park. Both google maps and alltrails show a trail on the creek side of the park that goes up to the bridge; both google maps and alltrails are wrong, as we were to find out after hiking along the creek through the tall wet grass and coming to an uncrossable stream. We explored the Sea Ranch RV park a bit – is it possible for an outdoors location to smell like old cooking oil? – and decided we won’t be staying there. We walked back along the creek to 2^nd street and back to the hotel. Then we had our last bit of relaxing and also packing, and I ate the last poptarts.

We wanted to do one more hike but were having trouble finding one that appealed to us (read, didn’t climb up and over anything) and both of us had been looking at one called the Ecola Creek hike. We decided to try it. It takes off from near Midtown on the east side of 101, and is through the Cannon Beach watershed. It’s just lovely, a combination of trails and logging roads, with very little elevation change. It doesn’t have any views but winds its way through lush ferns and big trees. And it also has a water treatment plant.  It's part of a larger network and we are looking forward to doing more exploring.

After the hike we went back to town, and by some miracle there was a space in the Pig’n parking lot and no line! We have nailed our ordering – I get 3 pigs in blankets, Dave gets eggs & bacon with toast and hashbrowns, and then we trade one of my pigs&blankets for one of his bacons and we are both happy and not too stuffed.

Town seemed really crowded but we were able to get a perfect shady spot in the back lot for one last shopping trip; new Birkenstocks for Dave, a last sample of Bruce’s taffy, and smokked fish for tonight’s pasta dinner.  The whole time we were thinking we should stop at Schooner’s cove and see if we could get one more night, but we’re leaving Wednesday for Bend and felt like we should really head home. So we did!

And that’s the end.

OK it's not the end. Here are two more pictures from our hike. I am crossing a bridge. We don't know why there is a mason jar in a tree trunk though.

Just Us

Our just-us day started well and kept on as it started. First up was a walk up Ecola creek through Necus’ park and then along the creek again to the skatepark and back to the hotel. On the way we stopped to check out “Hipnest”, which is going to be a home décor-gift store, which will be #12 or something in Cannon Beach. It is at the extreme north end of town, past Castaways, and I just have to wonder if people do any sort of competitive analysis before they sink all their savings into a venture like this?

Then we went back to the hotel for extended relaxing, first on our balcony and then in the Adirondack chairs on the lawn with our feet up on the wall, overlooking the ocean. This place isn’t particularly special inside, but the combination of close to town and fantastic back lawn Is hard to beat.

We did a lot of walking today; our next walk was a long one. We drove to Midtown (coming soon: Frank’s Flatbreads, possibly from the same folks who brought you the prohibitively expensive Speakeasy restaurant in the same parking lot. We haven’t been there because they require each adult to get an individual entrée, and their entrees are 20 oz sirloins and the like). We walked from there down to the Rock Wahii.

On the way we saw the house that always has the shutters closed and it had its shutters open and a windsocky-decoration up, so that was exciting. We were about 20-30 minutes too early (tide was going out) to be able to get close enough to the rock to take the obligatory picture through the hole. We would have waited but timing was important, since our next stop was Warren House and there’s a limited amount of time between when they open (noon) and when there are no more tables on the sunny deck (12:25). We got there at 12:10 and snagged a table with an umbrella, which was excellent because it was a warm, sunny day and was actually too hot in the sun. Lunch was good, beer was good, and even the walk back to the car was good if a bit long.

Since we’d parked at midtown we could stop in at Icefire, but they weren’t doing any glassblowing and in fact one of the glass artists, Theresa, was out front taking care of sales. So we hopped in the car and drove down to Hug Point and I can finally do the sand report! The sand is uniformly high; it covers the rock fins and the floor of the cave to the south and the rocks next to the triangle rock to the north. The waterfall was barely a trickle, and the rocks in front of the dog photo spot are also buried. We didn’t get out onto the carriage road because the low tide was too high (more about that in a minute) but as we were turning back a very nice couple was encouraging us to keep going so we could get out onto the road because it was worth seeing, and once we were up there we wouldn’t get wet. We thanked them politely.

OK the tides. Up here at Ecola creek they just don’t matter. There are no rocks sticking up to measure by, and no places you can’t go because the tide is in or out. At the little house the tides were super important because our cove was cut off at high tide; it’s just not the same. Also because it’s a quarter moon now, and possibly because it’s close to the autumnal equinox, the tidal variation is much smaller – lower highs and higher lows.

The climb off of the beach to the car in the Hug Point parking lot almost did us in, and we were glad to get back to the hotel. Dave took a nap, and I read for a while and then went into town to walk around and also to get some ice cream, which was delicious (Tillamook chocolate Peanut Butter) but turned out not to have been a good idea.

For our last dinner we headed to Castaways, which we’ve been going to for many years. I recently read a blog entry from our first time there, which I raved about. The chef had come out that night and talked to us about how he was so excited to be able to cook what he wanted and how he wanted to always be keeping the menu changing. And for a while he did, but then they moved into a bigger space, and then the pandemic came, and the place really stagnated. The food was good, but the menu rarely changed. Tonight was much more like the first time, we did a bunch of appetizers and they were yummy, particularly the lobster bisque and the larb lettuce cups. We also had both the taco rolls and the tostada; one of them would have been sufficient although the mole sauce was so good that I ate the little cup of it that came on the side with a spoon.

Now we were completely stuffed and we both had over 20,000 steps. We got back to the hotel in time for an excellent sunset and green flash, which we watched sitting on the wall outside our room. The upstairs rooms are nicer and no-one walks on your head, but it has been nice to have the quick in/out on the beach side. We watched it get dark for a while, then started to settle in but wait! We haven’t done a twilight walk yet this trip, so we put our boots back on and did a nice short walk in the dark, enjoying the line of beach fires that people had made.

Then it was finally time for writing and relaxing. Over 24,000 steps for me today.

Bonus Photo:

We found this written in the sand.

A Visit from Kevin, and Jen

Better weather today. We went for a short walk on the beach after breakfast and then did even more relaxing until Jen and Kevin arrived – separately, but within minutes of each other. We went for a very nice hike in Oswald West, making use of having two cars. We did this hike a few years ago with Josh and Jen and Sam, and it’s a nice hike of just under 3 miles. Kevin brought his little dog Rusty, who was very fun and a good trail companion. Lunch at Bill’s, where I apparently made the server’s day during the second round of beers by ordering root beer. Rusty was well behaved at Bill’s also, and Kevin did not feed him a hamburger at the table (or anywhere).

After lunch we went to Bruce’s, then Kevin took off and Jen and I went to the Emporium, which is where Maggie & Henry’s used to be and is Not As Good. Jen came back to the hotel and we did the puzzle together and found the treasure, although mostly by guessing. After we’d solved it we looked at the hints, which were things like count the numbers of the four types of things, then plot them on this grid and see what shape they make, or notice what shape all the bats with red eyes make… well, we think it was rather advanced for a 9 year old, but we had fun doing it.

After the puzzling Jen headed home and it was time for – wait for it – more relaxing. Dave took a nap and I did some knitting. Then suddenly it was late, so we went for a short beach walk and then got ready to go to the Stephanie Inn for dinner. Last week at the Flaneur Supper Club dinner we’d sat with Ed, a former co-workor of Dave’s, and his wife Elaine, and they told us that the Stephanie Inn had been renovated. We can’t speak to the rooms, but the dining room certainly has been – the old oversized chairs have been replaced with shorter ones and the color scheme has been changed to blue and white, and they have an interesting modern glass light fixture. It now seems more like a nice restaurant and less like your stuffy grandmother’s dining room.

The food has pretty much always been good at the Stephanie Inn, but they flip flop between a prix fixe and an a la carte menu; we’re in a prix fixe period now which is fine. The amuse-bouche of asparagus with a grape reduction was spectacular, the scallop appetizer and potato-leek soup (it’s a high end restaurant so they’ve figured out how to keep it in the bowl) also excellent, but the entrees, while very good, suffered from boring entrée syndrome. Last night at Bistro we skipped dessert, but their special was a pecan-crust pie with Swedish cream filling, prompting me to tell Dave I had never had a Swedish cream that I liked. Well, tonight I did – it was delicious, and the black currant compote on top was outstanding.

We were home in time for the sunset, but I missed it – Dave says there was a small green flash. Another evening of watching it get dark, listening to the waves and the seagulls, and having a (gas) fire cheerily burning in the fireplace. We both brought leisure pants, and we’re having a lovely time.

A Visit from Amber and Thomas

A cloudy but otherwise near-perfect day means not much to write about. We had a lovely slow morning and since we forgot to bring cacklin’, I had unfrosted strawberry poptarts while Dave had granola, both courtesy of the Mariner market. We hung out in the room with the door cracked open and the fire on until Amber and Thomas got here a little after 10, then walked to Tolovana and back followed by lunch at Bill’s. Our legs are still tired. Thomas has always been a good buddy and at Bill’s we found out one reason why we get along so well; he’s the only other person I’ve ever met who prefers unfrosted poptarts!

After lunch and a short walk through town they came back to the hotel and we hung out there for a while, then headed back to return to their life with kids. Just thinking about having kids that age made me need a nap, which I did on the couch while Dave read and worked on next week’s David Hill education night talk on the wines of Alsace. Then he took a nap while I did some knitting.

Once we were both awake we went for a short and pleasant walk around the sewage ponds, followed by more relaxing until dinner. We bought an escape room mystery puzzle in town. It will be our third mystery puzzle, starting with one that Jen and Reagan did at Elliot Way that was so hard that Dave and I couldn’t even get more than two pieces in, then last Thanksgiving’s where we got the puzzle done but needed to get a hint for the solution. You may see a getting easier trend here.  This one is for kids 9 & up so we’re hopeful.

Dinner was at the Bistro, whose slogan has changed from “Memorable Meals of Honorable Mention” to “Food without Confusion”, which I find a little confusing because, well, food generally isn’t confusing. Dinner was excellent although their great use of end of season corn and peaches meant that the whole meal was a little too sweet. Dave’s Thai style seafood stew was the exception; it was not sweet but it was very spicy and delicious. A few spoonfuls of the spicy broth over my halibut (with peaches AND corn) balanced everything out.

After dinner we came back to the room and worked on the puzzle. We managed to get the edges done, but it was harder than we thought it would be, since there were two places in the sides where we got things attached in the not right place. Also the table is v. small and the puzzle kind of hangs off the edges. Stay tuned.

September at the Coast

Cannon Beach, aaaah. We had such a crazy first half of the year for travel – Sedona, Panama Canal, Australia, East Coast – that we really didn’t go anywhere in July and August. And being retired you’d think we wouldn’t need a vacation, but we do, and this is the place to do it.

It was a nice day when we woke up in the Grove, and we had a leisurely morning of getting ready. We headed out about 10:30 and took the Jewell/Mist cutoff to Astoria, where we had a nice lunch at Fort George and then walked around downtown a little bit. Astoria is closed on Tuesdays pretty much, and feels a little dingy. It didn’t help that it was overcast and cool.

Back to the car and off to Ecola State Park for the Clatsop loop trail, one of my favorite hikes. We do it clockwise, so you climb up a narrow path with many viewpoints overlooking the ocean, which makes it less obvious that we need to stop to catch our breath.  The clouds were completely gone and the ocean and Tilly looked terrific. We only saw about 10 other people on the hike, which was nice. The downhill part of the hike is on a wide dirt road which was so quiet and green. I was sorry when we got to the end of it. Here’s what, though. All along the trail are numbered signposts, and they’re even on the trail map. But I can’t find the text for them anywhere. It’s a mystery!

By the time we got back to town it was late enough that we could check into the hotel. We’d come in May and reserved our room, but apparently it got entered wrong and we’re on the 1^st floor instead of the second. It is ok, and kind of nice to be able to come off our patio onto the lawn, but we prefer the 2^nd floor. We took advantage of our easy access to the beach by going for a walk across Ecola creek, which is only about ½ calf height and a nice temperature. We also walked up to Thayer cottage where we’ll be spending Thanksgiving, and aside from the roof looking like it’s falling apart it looks really nice – also a great location & view.

We hung out in our room for a short time until it was time to head over to Newman’s for dinner. Our legs are very tired from yesterday’s hike at Chehalem Ridge (aka Chicken run) and today’s climb, but we made it to the restaurant and had an enjoyable meal. Standouts were the seared scallop on corn puree and two wines, an Alsatian Riesling and a Coe Cellars sangiovese, which was both delicious and extra special because of its story. Here is the story; about a year ago we were at Mucca restaurant and our waiter was telling us all about how he was trying to make the best Italian-style Sangiovese, and invited us to come taste it. We never did, but last Sunday night after the amazing 45^th Parallel concert of Bolling’s suite for flute and jazz piano we went to a Cena restaurant in Sellwood and guess who was our waiter telling us about his sangiovese? You guessed it, Coe Cellars. And it was very very good! The food was overall lacking a little in seasoning but the dessert, chocolate torte with honey sorbet, was outstanding.

I want to mention here that is is the Tuesday after Labor day and we have not seen anyone without gray hair. It is entirely older folks here.

We walked home on the beach road watching the afterglow of a nice sunset, then happily collapsed into our hotel room where we opened the door and turned on the fireplace. It’s all very good.

I wrote this after dinner and two glasses of wine. I did my best.

Travel 1

 

This starts the travel section, never terribly interesting, but here goes.

Even with the blackout curtains we were up early. Dave had paid extra to get us breaky, so we went over to the restaurant and had a surprisingly tasty breakfast – avo toast with poached egg for Dave, and tasty eggs benedict with spinach for me. Walking around the hotel we noticed all sorts of Chinese touches, like statuary and the sweeping roofs with corner decorations, but there’s nothing about the Sanno Marracoonda Inn that explains why. It could be a really nice hotel with some minor upgrades, but it was just fine for our purposes.

The hotel is next to the airport and in a residential neighborhood, so we went for a short walk around the neighborhood which had a couple of schools and a lot of green space. We also saw a highlight reel of the birds we’ve come to love, including a flock of small cockatoos, a single and then a small pack of gallahs, green parrots, ibises, and finally as we were almost back to the hotel, a raven making its usual complaints as it flew by. We had a short relax in the hotel, then packed up and got on the shuttle for our usual early arrival to the airport. Check-in went smoothly with another nice chatty Qantas agent, and we settled in to wait for our flight. We did see something we’d never seen before – Qantas does a lot to make their top mileage frequent flyer and business class customers feel special, and in this case they had their own jetway to the business class section of the plane.

Our flight was uneventful, and our transfer to the international terminal was uneventful, even if it did feel as though we’ve seen all there is to see of the Sydney airport, between the bus ride to the turbo-prop that we took to Tamworth and this one which seemed to go on and on. We arrived at the international terminal with plenty of time to spare – in fact the monitor that displayed the departure times even told us to relax. It was impossible to relax, though, because this is one of those shopping mall duty fee international airports and we used up all our relaxing time window shopping! Highlights included finding small souvenirs for certain nieces and The two-story Mcdonalds with the kitchen on the top floow and a circular chain with clips to get the food downstairs.

Eventually it was time to go to our gate area, where Victor, an employee of the US government, picked us out for a little prescreen. The boarding process was a little chaotic – they boarded their special people first, and then opened the flight to general boarding. To be honest it didn’t seem like it took much longer than doing it by sections. Eventually we were all on board and here we go to Honolulu. We both slept some on the flight, and watching movies seems to make it go faster, and also lots of food and snacks. Once again it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. All during the trip our Qantas flights were delayed, and with a layover in Sydney that was just under 2 hours we’d been a little nervous, but both of our flights were on time. Speaking of time, we left Sydney on Wednesday evening 26/4 and arrived in Honolulu Wednesday morning 4/26.

From the plane you get herded onto the “wiki wiki” busses to go through immigration and baggage claim and customs. Our immigration officer was pretty relaxed and funny, making a big deal of ensuring that the koala I bought at the Perth zoo was not, in fact, a live koala. Baggage claim was a little scary because someone had pulled my bag off the carousel and put it with the business class bags, so we never saw it come through and had started looking around for the lost luggage office. But I went and checked again more carefully in the special luggage section and there it was, so it was through customs (nobody even wanted to talk to us) and then the part where you try to find the ride share pickup area which is always very far away with minimal signage. Our rider zipped us to the hotel and we tried to check in.

Our room wasn’t ready, so we left the bags and went to find some lunch. It was noon and we figured if we ate lunch at lunchtime we could eat dinner at dinnertime and start the system reset. We found a little sushi joint with table service across the street from Waikiki beach, and paid a bit of a premium for the service and location, but the sushi was very tasty and it was exactly the right place to have gone. We still hadn’t heard from the hotel, so we decided to walk to the zoo. On the way we passed a billabong store and Dave picked up a pair of shorts and a short sleeved shirt – he changed into the shorts in the store and was much more comfortable. The zoo is pretty good, lots of native plants, but one of those zoos that only has one or two of something that it should have a pack of. It did have a sloth and a large number of giant tortoises and reptiles, and we saw a rhinoceros peeing, which if you haven’t seen it you need to google it right now.

By now I was very hot and sweaty since I was still wearing jeans, and we decided to head back. We stopped at an ABC store (always a lucky feeling when you find one, she noted sarcastically – they are ubiquitous) and bought some sunscreen, and as we were walking back we got the notification that our room was ready. We checked in and got our bags and took showers and felt Much Better. We didn’t have a lot of time in our room because our uber was coming at 5 to take us to our dinner cruise, a sunset trip to Diamond Head on the Prince Kuhio.

The cruise was nice, the boat very slowly put-putted its way to Diamond Head and back while we enjoyed the sea breeze. The food was meh but it was a very nice evening out, and it didn’t even get too cold. We were thrilled to get back to the hotel and get ready for bed – it was a very long days!

Margaret River 4

Happy Anzac Day!

At Brewfarm

It rained all night and was still raining when we woke up, which was too bad because we are finally caught up on sleep from the cruise (late dinner+early sunrise=not enough sleep!) and would have had time for a nice walk up the river. The good news was that we still had half our breakfasts from yesterday so we didn’t have to go out in the rain to get fed. We had a quiet morning of packing and relaxing, then checked out and hopped in the van at 10:45. Our destination was Ngilgi Cave, about a 40 minute drive up to the northwestern tip of WA. Daniel hadn’t made a reservation, and the combination of public holiday (extra 15% gratuity added to your bill) so none of the wineries could open until noon AND it was raining so there was nothing to do AND the giant surf competition was cancelled the tour was fully booked by the time we got there. The ranger said it had never been that crowded in the 16 years he’d worked there. So that was a little disappointing. No wineries were open but there are a couple of places that do honey so we headed to one of them… also closed. Desperate, we stopped at the Margaret River Dairy Company who were advertising their cheese tasting, which turned out to be 3 bits of cheese on a stick. They had a little gift shop, though, so we wandered through it a bit and I found some mugs I just loved. No room in the suitcase though. We had driven through the town of Cowaramup on the way to the cave and noticed that in addition to cow statues everywhere they also had a chocolate store, so we stopped there and got some hot chocolate (and a flat white for Daniel) which made us all happier. Sadly it was raining hard otherwise we would have walked around the town center taking pictures with all the cows.

At Vasse Felix

It was now just before noon and the day was about to get much better; we made a stop at Stormflower which is one of Daniel and Lauren’s favorites. We only had about 25 minutes there because we had an appointment at 12:30, but there were only 7 wines and we zoomed right through it. They were all really good, especially the sparkling chenin and the pet-nat, which was funky in all the right ways. Overall it was our favorite of the small wineries. Our next stop couldn’t have been more different. Cullen is one of the 3 earliest wineries (along with Mosswood and Vasse Felix) in Margaret River, and they know it. It’s very pretty (although not as pretty as Voyager) and very spendy – the reserve tasting was $70 AU, which is more than 4 times more than almost anywhere we’ve been. Their wines were priced accordingly. So we tasted through many of their high end wines (not the $650.00 one) and they were all very well made and very refined – maybe a little too refined? The winery is both organic and seriously biodynamic, leading to modifiers for the wine names like “fruit day” “flower day” and my favorite, “Moon opposite Saturn”. Our pourer was their sommelier, a nice young guy who’d completed WSET 3 and was living the dream – their winemaker (Vanya Cullen, daughter of Kevin John Cullen and Diana Madeline Cullen, the original owners) has taken a liking to him and not only has him tasting all of their wines, including library wines, but also has him tasting great wines from around the world. He was very enthusiastic, used the word incredible an incredible number of times, and knew comparatively little about the actual winemaking process. I mention all the names above because many of the wines are named for them, often with the biodynamic tags listed above.

At Windance

The day continued to get better with lunch at Brewfarm, which is the restaurant we’d been hoping that River would be. We shared a bunch of small plates and had two 4-beer tasters and enjoyed them all. Daniel took our orders and we just sat at the table next to the space heater – in addition to being rainy all day it was cold. We’ll miss being pampered! This is a good place to talk about Aussie toilets again. Everywhere seems to have three types – Female Toilets, Male Toilets, and Unisex Toilets. They may be further classified as “Ambulant”, which seem to have a grab bar. So some of the toilets at this place were labeled Female Female Ambulant, and so on. Well, I find it fascinating.

We finished lunch at about 3, and our bus wasn’t until 4:45. We were all feeling like we’d done everything that needed to be done. The bus stop is just a stop, and it was still cold and windy and rainy, so our idea of just hanging out there until it was time to go was clearly not going to work. Daniel offered to let us come to his house and just sit by the fire again until it was time to go, which sounded perfect to us. So we did just that, and Lauren was gracious about being invaded, and it was a very pleasant end to our time together.

On the beach

We got to the bus stop just after 4:30 and the bus was already there. It was just a small shuttle bus for the short hop to Busselton, which seems to be the main stop between Perth and Margaret River (aka Margs in Aussie) whether you’re going by car or bus. Our Busselton-Perth bus was a standard long haul bus with a toilet, and we had an unremarkable ride to Perth Airport, arriving right on time at 8:45. Dave called the hotel for a shuttle and we waited outside for it – not raining in Perth. The airport seemed unusually busy for 9:00 – many people going in as well as coming out. There was a bit of a wait for the shuttle and I wondered if we should have just taken a taxi, but it turns out the shuttle didn’t take too long and a taxi is $40, which seems high. We got to the hotel and got checked into our very large, very basic room with a very thin blanket. We turned up the heat and went to bed.

A note about today's photos - we didn't take any pictures, so these are some photos of us that Daniel took. The only one from today is the top one at Brewfarm