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Fun fact: there's no sales tax in Oregon. 

Also my legs are stiff as heck from yesterday's sand escapade. 

We just got back from go carts and visiting the tourist town of Seaside. Go carts were a lot of fun. Although once you can already drive a real car, some of the novelty wears off. They are really fun to try to take the corners nice and tight, then really gun it on the long flat stretch. The Captain Kid place with the go carts and mini golf was displaying an American flag, Mexican flag, and Canadian flag.

Seaside was your typical tourist town, packed with beach-goers. The beach was also packed with people, and peppered with tents. We ate lunch at an expensive tourist burger joint. They had put bags of water with pennies over the doorways (later we looked it up-apparently it's to stop flies, the theory being that the water reflects light and confuses their multi-faceted eyes- this is of course a complete myth). There was a server there who was definitely having a bad day; she had a permanent scowl. Their gluten free buns were pretty good, especially if you just think of them as polenta and not as actual bread. Their milkshakes were superb and also gluten free. 

There was a ton of variety in the kinds of people walking around Seaside. Gay couples with kids, teenage mall couples, bikers, husky owners, tiny kidlets, women with hijabs, women with spray tans, First Nations families, Indian families, very sunburned white families, elderly couples, packs of toddlers with blue ice cream faces, and us. Everyone was just waddling through the sunshine. It was a good time. 

We went to Safeway on the way home and stocked up on ice cream and zucchinis. Julias, Tobin and I had a fun time criticizing the various plastic toys and cheesy greeting cards. Some of the rubber toys looked very much like nudibranchs or sea cucumbers. And I was overwhelmed by the number of perfect spherical coloured rubber balls available.

I am now very tired, as are we all. Today seemed very hot to us (about 20 Celsius) but people were in hoodies etc. I guess it is still May and not technically summer. But it sure feels like it. 

We finally had a beach fire tonight. We went out at about 5pm and got in by 10pm. I brought my mandolin and played a couple Wailin' Jenny tunes. Julias, Tobin and I walked over to the river and Julias waded about halfway across "for science". He ended up with some very wet pants and the knowledge that bare feet do not do well on sharp rocks. On the way back we tried different ways to make footprints; we were inspired by the human, seagull, crow, and dog prints abundant everywhere. There is a way of shuffling your feet next to someone else so that the impression is of a large truck with big treads has gone through. 

We watched the sun set over the large waves in a beautiful clear sky of pink and orange. Just gorgeous. We roasted our chicken sausages in the fire. 

After dark the parents and I stayed to extinguish the fire with water I fetched from the far away sea (I say far because my legs are still quite stiff and uncooperative). We watched the burning embers as the wind which had been a constant bellows died out slowly. A beautiful end to a beautiful night. Back at home we listened to "The Magicians" a bit more and had some more dried fruit and cookies and Boursin on bread. 

We are all now thoroughly exhausted , as proven by the fact that as I write this Julias has fallen asleep on the couch. I get the loft bed tonight upstairs, which is nice. I'll have to be asleep sooner than 2am today. We're off to a cheese factory tomorrow at 11am. 

(Just got the news from home that another of our hens gas gone broody… very exciting. Might give her some of the eggs that our other broody hen is currently on. )

(I know-the photos are of terrible quality. Wifi not good enough and my time not long enough to transfer them digitally from iPhone) (but at least it's something)