travels on the coast--arrival
I thought I would offer up a few blog posts documenting our visit to the Oregon coast. It’s been a while since I have posted anything. i have decided to descibe our visit day by day with separate posts because in my head both my avid readers thirst for more words from me because…well, who knows what drives them to such boredom that they visit. The exception wil be this first post which will cover Friday and Saturday.
We decided to fly this time. A number of weeks before we were to leave, out of idle curiosity, I put together a little spreadsheet of the cost of flying v. driving. It turned out to be about $300 more expensive to fly. Mostly that’s because I refuse to drive more than 8 hours at once unless it is absolutely necessary. So
on a 13 hour trip to the Oregon coast I will take two days. That’s two extra motel rooms and meals. Anyway, in the course of my explorations, I discovered that I had enough skymiles to pay for our airfare. Fly we did then.
We didn’t kill ourselves with an early flight. We left at 11:30 and arrived at 12:20, rented our car and were on our way. One of the reasons for visiting the coast (aside from the fact that it’s gorgeous)
was to visit our daughter Catherine who now lives in Astoria. Catherine’s current employment is as the program director for three little public libraries in Washington across the Columbia river from Astoria. On the Friday of our arrival, we wanted Catherine to was heading show us her library. So, from the airport we drove to the Ilwaco, WA public library. We arrived about 4:20 and hung out until Catherine got off work about 5:00.
We then returned to Astoria and Catherine’s apartment where we unloaded her new TV. I should explain. Catherine has two cats. She obtained these cats when they were kittens. Shortly after acquiring the kittens, Catherine took an overnight trip. While she was gone the naughty felines knocked over her TV and broke it. I felt sorry for her, so i bought her a new TV which we picked up at a Bestbuy near the airport.
Anyway after that we visited a local eatery Peter Pan Market and Deli where I enjoyed a delicious sandwich. We said good bye to Catherine and drove to Seaside where we are staying. Seaside is a twenty minute drive from Astoria along highway 101. We arrived at our place around 7, relaxed and went to bed.
I had discovered on Friday night that the cable channels at our place included one that was going to cover the BYU football game the next day. So Saturday we arose and went to the store for a quick trip to pick up breakfast and lunch then returned to watch the game. The first half ended about noon our time. BYU was comfortably in the lead (a situation I was not confident would continue) so we took a nice long walk on the beach.
When we returned from our walk and had lunch, BYU was in danger of losing, so wimp that I am I turned to game off and spent some time working on my next book.
By the way if any of your are inclined to read a few chapters and help me out, your aid would be appreciated. My editor did not like the way the book started so, I spent a fair amount of time changing it along the lines she suggested. Then on thinking about it I said to myself “Hey, I liked the way I had written it and since no one reads my books anyway, I’m going to change it back to the way I had it. Nevertheless, if anyone is inclined to read both versions and tell me which you prefer, that would be great.
That afternoon Catherine was heading up a crafternoon activity in the Ilwaco Library. She was leading whoever wanted to show up in making figurines from paper mache. So we drover to Ilwaco. TLM, dutiful mother that she is, participated by making a paper mache deer of which the less said the better (no, really, sweetie it was amazing). I declined to participate. The thought of making something from paper mache made me convulse with PTSD from my unfortunate experiences as a youth with paste and paper. Seven people (not counting TLM and me) attended. Inexplicably, everyone seemed to have a good time.
After the paper mache extravaganza, TLM and I returned to Seaside to do some serious shopping. Catherine met us at our place and we went to dinner at a Thai restaurant then strolled around town for a bit.
That was it. That was Friday and Saturday. Pretty uneventful. Not much drama. It was in fact kind of relaxed and enjoyable the way a vacation should be. Next up–Sunday. Ooooh, I bet you can’t wait for that.
