Better

All of the things you saw in the last photo of the last post were what we purchased for our power outage. Flashlights, batteries, headlamps, battery powered Coleman lamp and batteries, matches and candles, they all went into a moisture proof "Power Outage Kit". Family members will be informed.  

Wednesday was still dark and lightly raining, but the forecast was for better weather ahead, and we set out to do some touring. 

We stopped at the Barview jetty, where the tide was high and the surf was discouraging fishing. 

In Garibaldi we decided to finally stop and check out this shop. We're glad we did. The artisan had a shop right there for creating interesting pieces. 

I bought a small Myrtle Wood bowl with lovely grain. 

The Garibaldi "obelisk", is a huge smokestack, the remnants of a huge sawmill that once produced lumber from logging in the Coast Range. Logging still happens here, but most of the logs are now trucked out.

Tillamook Bay didn't have many fishermen either. 

Once we drove south to Oceanside, the weather began to clear.

Since we were here last, a walkway has been built down to the beach, just for people like me!

Oceanside is at the opening of Netarts Bay. At the south end of the bay oysters are commercially grown and the resulting pure salt water is perfect for boiling down to make sea salt. 

We bought some salt here last year and use it sparingly. It is delicious on homegrown tomatoes. 

We did buy a new supply of chocolate salted caramels.

Farther down the coast we stopped at The Pelican Brew Pub at Cape Kiawanda for a light lunch and a look at the beach and the cape where many hours were spend flying down sand dunes in our younger days. 

Of course we found a coffee shop to top off our lunch.

Then we worked our way back north to the cabin and settled in until it was time for dinner. It was time to eat out, and we found a restaurant open by the docks in Garibaldi.

Thursday we slept in and then packed up, cleaned up, and headed home. With traffic and accidents it took all the rest of the day, but we had saved our left over pasta dish from two night before, so cooking was easy. 

I needed easy. 

It Wasn't the Best of Times, It Wasn't the Worst of Times

 The walls of wind and rain that I posted about on Monday continued through Tuesday and into Wednesday, gave us a bit of a respite, and then just rained on Thursday. 

We traveled to Rockaway from Seattle on Sunday, across the Longview Bridge over the Columbia River and down the river to Astoria, where the river meets the sea. 

There was some clearing at the viewpoint on Neahkahnie Mountain. 

A native shrub I don't know was blooming, and wild asters.

We arrived late in the afternoon, turned on the heat, and settled in.

Sunday night was stormy. 

On Monday we ventured out to shop a bit in Tillamook, and stopped at the Blue Heron, a cheese and food specialty shop with a pretty new garden and outdoor area. It was between squalls. 

Then it was back to walls of wind and water at Starbucks. 

It stayed stormy through the afternoon and evening. Since we had a late lunch, we were just getting ready to prepare our supper at 6:00 when the power went out. 

We looked around for emergency supplies and found almost nothing: a couple of candles, two of which we had brought with us from the wedding, and no matches, no flashlights. Tom went into Rockaway where there was no power but got a book of matches at the little grocery store. 

We had a candlelight dinner with BLTA's without the bacon or toast.

Then as darkness fell, we drove south, where we found the power on in Tillamook and could get some power outage suppiles. 

Our Kindle and tablet were powered up so we spent the evening reading. The power was restored at 1:00AM. 

Tuesday the stormy weather continued intermittently. We drove to Wheeler and spent an hour looking at everything in the antique mall. It was stormy most of the day again and we spent time reading and napping. I cooked a pasta dish for dinner with left overs for another meal. 

Someone in the family purchased a new TV, a Fire TV, and it is mainly for streaming with internet. We don't have internet there. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to get broadcast TV. I finally figured it out, but our selection was limited. We did get Public TV for our Sunday night programs, and then ABC for evening viewing, so Hey!, we got Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune! Lucky us. 

We did a lot of reading. 

More tomorrow.

Walls of Wind and Rain

 I read it on another blog, "Walls of wind and rain".

That is exactly what we have this Monday afternoon in Tillamook, as we hole up in a Starbucks, where after some struggles, we got my laptop connected to the internet. 

The wind gusts even blow the doors open!

But we both had a great night's sleep Sunday night.

We do miss technology. Even TV is very limited. But we have things to read.

And we are on vacation, sort of.

See you later.

It Didn't Rain!

 Well, not much, and not until the wedding was over and we were all under cover.

We took the highway around the back of The Mountain. Vine maple lit up the roadsides at lower elevation.

At the higher elevations, in the Mt Rainier National Park, the trees were tall and the mountains rugged. The Mountain itself was shy, hiding in heavy clouds. 

We arrived at our destination in plenty of time to explore and visit. Here is Isaac in the Cowlitz River bed.

The wedding ceremony took place on the river bank, just across the road from my sister Laurie's family lodge, newly hand crafted by her "boys". 

We were impressed by how formal it was, but beautiful. Seeing our Andy in a suit was fun and surprising. Like my Jake, his cousin, he is an outdoor guy. But his bride, Coral, got her way and her beautiful wedding. 

There was lots of eating and talking and "relating".

We came back around the mountain as darkness fell. Now I am rushing this off so we can finish packing and get on our way to Rockaway.

See you later.