Where the White Things Are

Wednesday, August 1, 2018: We drove 2.5 hours from Cougar Campground on Yale Lake in Washington to Otter Rock, Oregon, arriving a little bit after 3pm. We stopped in Portland and got food cart lunches: Indian (Jeff and me), Turkish (Jay), and Mexican (Rose) foods. We let the kids each pick a cart and a meal. It felt so extravagant letting the kids choose their own food at different places. We sat on stone benches in front of Portland State University across the street from the food carts and ate our lunches. Jeff ordered Amber some french fries since she didn't understand about choosing her own food, and french fries are about the only fast food she's ever liked anyways.

It seemed risky going camping for two nights before even driving to the coast since arriving at the beach already tired could be a recipe for meltdowns. Thankfully, the beach breathed new life into all of us and we were able to frolic fully for two days in the sand before heading home. The older our kids get, the more we can push the limits of their/our endurance. Yes!

The cabin we stayed in at the beach was a small A-frame house called the Mermaid's Rest. It was decorated with ocean themed decor and lots of blue-green lamps. The kids loved the sweet loft area in the top of the A. It had a half bathroom with a bedroom on one side and a small couch with a TV and VCR on the other side. There was also small shelf of well-curated classic videos.

We went to the beach right before dinner on Wednesday night and Amber was so happy--a big change from the banshee-like shrieks we endured for a solid 15-20 minutes of our car ride. We had to turn off our Harry Potter audiobook (we started book 4) until she calmed down.

While the kids watched a movie, I went to Safeway in nearby Newport, OR and got us eggs, frozen Eggo waffles, and orange juice for dinner on Wednesday night. Our little kitchen had a stove AND a toaster, so breakfast for dinner won out. I am mentioning our meals because it is a huge consideration on trips, especially with a full fledged family to feed on the fly. Also of note: showering feels lovely after two nights of camping.

Jeff parallel parked like a pro. One of the great things about quirky Portland is even a minivan with two bright orange kayaks on top doesn't seem too out of place.
Walking to the food carts.
I couldn't resist a food cart selfie: pardon the massive Shaina-noggin in this picture! Normally I hold the phone farther away from my head, but the sidewalk was crowded. Hah, Wordpress doesn't let me adjust the image size, so it's all or nothing. A New Taste of India's Goa Curry wasn't quite as good as A Taste of India, sadly. But it still was better than I could make!
Sitting outside the university, enjoying our food cart lunch. How urban of us. It felt weird to be downtown at lunchtime after having slept in a tent the night before.
THE BEACH!
It was hard re-training Amber NOT to throw the sand.
Jay enjoyed writing messages in the sand. This one says Harry (we are on another Harry Potter kick).
This stream in the sand had the most beautiful marbled pattern.
Busy busy.
The kids watched 101 Dalmatians twice as well as The Neverending Story and Snow White. That little movie nook was a lifesaver for our overtired wild children!
While the kids are watching their movie, how about a brief tour of The Mermaid's Rest? We were in #8 in a row of 11 cute A-frames.
Walking in through the front door into the family room, with the kitchen to the right.
Looking back out the front door.
The kids upstairs movie loft. Jay slept on the fold-out couch.
Across from the movie loft was this little bedroom for the girls.
Mermaid and ocean-themed details were tucked everywhere in the decor. Jeff particularly liked this crocheted mermaid tail blanket.

Thursday, August 2, 2018: Beach day! It was gray, dark, and misty at 7 when I went on my run on Thursday morning. I decided to run along the beach all the way to Yaquina Point Lighthouse, so I hit the sand and turned my toes south. On Wednesday night I could see the lighthouse from our beach access point, but by Thursday morning it was totally obscured in fog. It was also farther away than I expected. After 4.7 miles of running on the packed sand, the lighthouse finally materialized out of the mist. When I was as close to the lighthouse as I could get from down low by the water, the lighthouse still looked rather distant, and the beach completely ended at some big jagged rocks a short while later.

The tide was too high for me to get any closer to the lighthouse, so I turned back. I almost exited the beach and called Jeff for a ride home, but the first two beach access points (stairs up the steep rocky bluff) were private and by then I figured I could finish the run. I arrived back at our cabin's beach access at 9.7 miles and started to run up the steep trail to our cabin to round it off at an even 10 miler, but then the hill got steeper and 9.75 was already at least 4 miles more than I had planned on running, so I stopped and walked it in.

Thursday gifted me a cool misty morning for a beach run. It was gloriously different from the dry blazing heat back home. I brought my sunglasses because I was sure the sun would start glaring off of the mist any minute, but it never did. These are prescription sunglasses, but it was too dark with them on my eyes, so I ran blind. The mist made everything fuzzy anyways, so my lack of corrective lenses didn't change the scene too much.

Cute little hole in the rock.

The hole was bigger up close.

At last, the Yaquina Point Lighthouse came into view through the mist.

Turning point: time to run back to the mermaid's rest.

Thursday August 2nd, continued. After I quickly showered post-run, we all walked down for beach round one, which was chilly and gray. At one point, the sun almost came out and the clouds got bright, so I walked away from the water to the back edge of the beach to get my sunglasses out of our bag. On my way, a scary black dog started chasing me and barking. I had no pepper spray or anywhere to hide. The dog wasn't snarling, but it also wasn't wagging. It crouched low and followed my every move with its eyes, lunging, barking, and chasing every few steps. I lost it. The oblivious owners were in the background ineffectively calling off the dog. The dog ignored them and kept tracking me. In desperation, the next time it lunged, I screamed "NO! GET AWAY!" and kicked sand in its evil face. That got it to stop long enough for me to reach our bag.

Then Jeff came to my rescue and talked with the dog owners, standing between the dog and me while I quietly went to pieces, muffling my tears/sobs into a beach towel. I totally broke down! I tried to hold it in, but I was so scared! Why are dog owners so rarely considerate of other humans' feelings? Why do they ignore leash and restraint laws so blindly? Why do they act like I am dumb for being scared of their dogs? Why do dogs always come after me? Why do I have to be so PTSD-scared of them? When will I be able to confront dogs calmly again? I hate it all. Ugh.

Eventually Jeff left the irresponsible dog owners and came over to hold my hand and let me gasp, sob, and rant until I was calmed down again. Then we gathered the kids and walked along the beach about a half mile over to Devil's Punch Bowl to admire the sea caves at low tide. I was feeling all wrung out after the dog encounter, so we walked slowly. The post-adrenaline slump is real. Eventually I recovered myself and managed to enjoy the large swoopy caves. We didn't have shoes on to climb the stairs and walk across the parking lot to see the actual punch bowl itself, so after checking out the sea caves, we turned back and played in the sand.

Beach visit #2: Thursday morning, still gray and misty
The rental houses had a private trail to the beach. At the beginning of the trail was a big metal box full of people's discarded sand buckets, shovels, and even a kite. The kids were ecstatic about finally having REAL sandcastle-shaped buckets and those cute little square plastic shovels. I wasn't trying to deprive them before; I just never remembered to buy the sandcastle sets at the store. My negligence paid off this time.
A little girl and her bucket.
Walking over to the sea caves by Devil's Punch Bowl.
Purple sea stars! I love how soft, squashy, and chubby they look, but how firm and rough they really are. I touched one and it squirmed a little.
A pretty orange fellow, curling his tips for a picture.
A certain amount of wading was required to reach the caves. Rose did not like the cold water.

Thursday, August 2nd continued some more... Next up was lunch: sandwiches in our A-frame cabin. We all had grocery store Moose Tracks ice cream for dessert: a true sign of vacation is ice cream at lunchtime! Jay, Rose, and Amber reveled in the extravagance of it, haha. After our "fancy" lunch, the kids settled down to watch 101 Dalmatians again up in their loft while Jeff and I sat downstairs and watched a Netflix episode on his phone. That lunch-movie-siesta was a much-needed rest, and we hit the beach running again afterwards, around 3pm, feeling fresh as daisies...daisies who have been camping, hiking, kayaking, spelunking, beach combing, running, and swimming practically non-stop all week! Haha.

We spent an idyllic afternoon at the beach. The clouds and mist cleared away to reveal a bright blue sky, and the sun was shining warmly. The temperature may have even risen above 70 degrees. At one point, Jeff looked over and said "this is the afternoon we came for." He was right; the entire beach trip was worth it for that one heavenly sunny afternoon at the beach. We stayed and played, played, played for 2.5 hours.

Our row of cabins had a box of beach toys for renters to borrow, so we took some buckets, shovels, and a kite from the box down to the beach. The girls and I had fun running around flying the butterfly kite, then I went out into the waves all the way up to my waist (almost) in that frigid Pacific water. Jeff was out far on the horizon, body surfing on the bigger waves. He taught Jay how to body surf and they had a grand time battling the waves. The girls were back on shore digging in the sand and playing with the buckets.

Eventually we all built a massive castle in the wet sand for the incoming tide to destroy, which it did. Then Jeff and Rose built another one. Every time a big wave threatened the castle, Jeff laid down in the sand and blocked the foundation of the castle from being washed away. Surprisingly, his efforts paid off and Rose was able to keep the sand heap-castle alive in spite of waves for half an hour after Jeff stopped helping. I ran in the waves with Amby a little, then Jeff took over with her and I laid down on a towel to sun dry. It felt lovely. Rose joined me.

We took a few hilariously awful family pictures on the beach (tired kids don't stand still or look at the camera), tried some jumping pictures, then trooped up the hill for dinner. It was past 5:30pm when everyone was changed out of suits and ready to eat, so I dashed off and got McDonald's happy meals for the kids and big delicious hamburgers from the popular hole-in-the-wall Newport Cafe for Jeff and I (Google search for the win--the Newport Cafe had over 1000 four-point-eight-to-five star online reviews, and was very affordable to boot). For the record, we nobly offered to order the kids Newport Cafe burgers, but they opted for happy meals. Jeff and I were very pleased with the quality, size, and yum-factor of the Newport Cafe burgers. They hit the spot after our long active day. I traveled 25,000 steps on Thursday. Vacation means go time for us White Things. None of that relaxation stuff for us!

We let the kids live large and watch another movie after dinner on Thursday night even though it was late, since it was our last night in the beach cabin. They chose The Neverending Story (this cabin's owners had excellent vintage movie taste).

The glorious afternoon of sunshine and blue skies begins.
I laboriously untangled the kite we dug out of the beach toy box at our rental cottage, and it turned out to be a great little flier with a satisfyingly long tail to float in the breeze. Teaching Amber to fly the kite was sweaty, exasperating business (she kept reversing course and making the string go slack, plummeting the kite back to earth), but she got a few good runs in with it and you never stay sweaty for long with the Pacific Ocean nearby to chill your bones.
I have less pictures of Jay in the water because he spent most of the time waaaay out off shore jumping in the big waves and trying to body surf. I refused to go in that frigid water past my hips.
Jeff and Amber must've run a couple of miles, back and forth in the waves. Amber has quite the good running form.
The tide-proof sandcastle challenge.
Save the castle!
Rose doggedly kept piling sand back on top of the slowly sinking castle, long after the rest of us had given up on it. Watching her work and work against the tide was quite entertaining.
Jay built his own chain of lakes and walls for the tide to fill.
Eventually I retired to lay on a towel and soak up the vitamin D.
The sun was so bright and perfect against that deep blue sky.
This family picture turned out better than I thought it would with the light behind us.
We took a picture with the sun in front of us just to be sure we got a good one, and...nobody likes taking more than one family picture! haha, good thing the first one turned out.
Rose kept wanting to do silly poses for pictures, and Jeff and Amber joined in.
We did some jumping pictures with the rapid fire setting on the camera.
It was hard getting the kids all to jump at the same time...
We look like we're flying! Really, I barely got off the sand. Jumping pictures are all about the camera angle and bending the knees to give the illusion of distance from the ground.
Jay and I paused at a sunwarmed bench to take in one last sunny view of the beach on our way up the trail to our cabin.
Our view from the bench was quite lovely.
Swimsuit sidenote: Female swimwear is a nightmare. I just want to be comfortable so I can enjoy the water without worrying about what body parts are being exposed, and yet most women's swimwear is uncomfortable, and requires severe body waxing to keep it from being awkward. No thank you! This year I finally hit upon my ideal swim costume: On the bottom, I wear snug fitting shorts (confession: I wear men's Speedo shorties because they feel the best). On top, I wear a racerback sports bra-style bikini top with a short sleeve rash guard over it (with raglan sleeves to accommodate my wide shoulders). I found my rash guard at Big Five Sporting Goods of all places. Bonus A: no bikini waxing or razor burn necessary! Bonus B: sun protection (no twisty-turny gymnastics to rub sunscreen onto my back). Bonus C: worry-free, functional comfort.
Jeff and I briefly slipped outside while the kids were watching their movie to watch the sunset. Sadly, a huge bank of clouds had rolled in so we only saw a sliver of color on the horizon, but oh well.
A mini 15 minute date is still a date!

Thursday, August 3, 2018: Jeff and I were up by 6:30am. It was soaking wet and mist-raining outside our little A-frame rental house in Otter Rock, Oregon. The kids soon straggled downstairs, and after breakfast we reverse-engineered our day, starting with the time we hoped to arrive home (4:30pm), then adding the time we needed to do everything up until that time. It was a 5 hour 18 minute drive home, and we wanted to: visit the beach one more time, visit the Devil's Punch Bowl, stop at the Nike Outlet in Lincoln City, OR to pick up a pair of running shoes for Jeff, and stop for a walk around the Portland Temple. A back and forth glance between the window outside our cabin (still sopping wet and gray) and our barely-hanging-on vacation-fatigued children told us that we could nix the final visit to the beach. That made our day quite manageable.

We started packing and loading the van immediately and left Otter Rock before 9am. Three minutes down the road, we pulled over and peeked at the Devil's Punch Bowl, which was at low tide and therefore empty of "punch," aka seawater. After five minutes of taking in the misty gray pit in the rock, we loaded back up and rolled out. One minute later, I jumped out of the van and made a brief fangirl pilgrimage at a random TARDIS blue police box replica (time machine spaceship from BBC's classic show, Dr. Who) standing on the edge of someone's yard in Otter Rock. It was excellent! It wasn't exactly bigger on the inside, but the attention to detail made me feel bigger on the inside, ha ha. The door even opened and I peeked in. There was a small shelf with a jar full of tips sitting on it. Props to the photo prop culture for creating amusing nuggets and tucking them into the most unexpected nooks and crannies. There's a TARDIS in Otter Rock, Oregon. Ten points for Dr. Who.

After the Tardis, we were really on our way home, with Jim Dale reading HP4. 40 miles or so north up the road in Lincoln City, we discovered that the Nike Outlet was not open yet (too early in the day), so we forged onward through the rain. Jeff can just order some new running shoes online. Jeff got drowsy so I took over driving a little while later. It has been a while since we ventured outside of familiar territory, and Jeff did not get much of a nap because I needed him to correct a wrong turn and prevent future directional mishaps. The Willamette Valley is gorgeous, even if the roads are winding and confusing.

I survived driving in I-5 traffic and pulled into the Portland Temple, parallel parked our kayak-laden van, and navigated an overly emotional Rose into her shoes, only to discover that the temple grounds were closed for annual maintenance. We peeked at the gorgeous white temple spires through the fence and tree branches briefly, then hit the road again with Jeff back at the wheel. He drove us the rest of the way home from Portland: three-ish hours. We ate sandwiches I packed us for lunch while we drove and stopped once for the bathroom and once for gas (we waited till we crossed the Columbia back into Washington to get gas so we could pump it ourselves since we are independent Washingtonians. Sorry, Oregon, it makes me jumpy having a stranger fill my car with gas for me.

During our drive, there was only one segment of time that we had to turn off the Harry Potter CD due to Amber's loudness. Jeff and I joined in singing Little Mermaid songs with her/at her and thankfully her overtired-boredom-noise was not nearly as long-winded or as shrill as our previous drive. Oh our Amby.

Between Goldendale and Toppenish, WA, there is exactly one business: a Greek Orthodox monastery runs a cafe and bakery in the wilderness. We always wonder about it every time we drive past it, and on our way home, Jeff finally pulled over there. We went inside and each chose a Greek treat: I got baklava, Amber chose a chocolate dipped biscotti, Rose got a powdered sugar crumbly almond thing, and Jeff and Jay both got a flaky pastry reminiscent of pain-aux-almondes de France (the Greek names of our treats were too complicated for me to remember and spell out later, and I was too photo'd out to take pictures of our pretty treats). Just like with the Portland food carts, it felt so extravagant and vacation-y to let the kids each choose their own Thing at an Eatery. The treats were quite tasty (except I didn't like Rose's) and they all seemed rather fresh and authentic. Two Greek/Eastern Orthodox nuns in habits were working in the cafe. It was an unexpected dose of culture in the middle of nowhere. Someday I want to go back during lunch and try their Moussaka--it can either be delicious or horribly soggy (I've had it both ways in Greece).

After that delightful wilderness Greek experience, we drove straight home (arriving just after 3pm), unloaded the van (kayaks, camping gear, sandy beach shoes, and all), ordered pizza, collapsed onto the couch, and watched Disney's Tarzan for family movie night.

Checking out Devil's Punch Bowl in the morning mist.
We didn't realize that it was low tide, so there was no punch in the devil's bowl. But it was still a lovely big deep rocky hole.

Right down the street from Devil's Punch Bowl, the TARDIS was parked in someone's side yard!! I appreciated this clever way to identify the "Whovians" among the tourists. (Whovian = fan of the BBC classic, Dr. Who.)

This was all we managed to see of the Portland Temple. Someday I will actually see the whole thing!

And the rest of the car ride home was about as wild and crazy as it looks. Amber only sleeps in the car if she has done enough physical activity to exhaust several fit adults, and even then, she rarely sleeps for more than 40 minutes. Hint: she did not sleep on the drive home.

Fleece jacket with her legs in the arms. She thought she was so funny.

Tuesday, August 7, 2018

Otter Rock