Written History of My Weekend

I just remembered I forgot to journal the experience, and we didn’t take any pictures.

Sunday we went on our lone kayaking trip. The Chefs were able to rent kayaks from the Nehalem General Store and we went up the river a bit with the wind and current, then pushed our way back. The Chefs were pretty sunburned from the little adventure, Twin did get some sun and was notably burned on her feet. I lathered on the sunscreen early, and only saw redness above my collar bones.

Monday, we tried to play disc golf some. It was interesting due to the wind. It was always windy, except after 10 PM most nights so we never really had a break from that. We went to the Sand Dune Pub Monday. They have a great selection of beer and the food is phenomenal. Its not your typical bar food – I had some grilled fish tacos with cilantro lime sauce.

On the way to the Pub, we heard the Tsunami Warning System being tested. In the Pub, we didn’t continue to hear the testing… but the shift manager came out and told everyone to evacuate and that it wasn’t a test. We scampered out of the Pub without paying for our food and drinks and went to the first lookout going North on 101. It didn’t seem real, and each new carload was curious to know if we heard the same warning. The warning system came on again after 5 minutes or so and said it was just a test. This happened as SagChef was on the Emergency Hotline for Tillamook County who told him that for some reason Manzanita was "Off the grid" and there was no emergency. We went back to the Pub, had another beer and paid our bill.

Tuesday the most notable thing was the campfire discussion. It started out Astrological and turned political. Politics doesn’t come up often with Twin’s family because its really not pertinent to what’s going on – and I think there’s common ideals.

I tried to push the conversation to share their perspective of time more openly, saying that our perspective of history is so young that we’re at a disadvantage politically. The most profound tidbit of information was to point out that joining WWII wasn’t some all-inclusive decision; there were those that didn’t want anything to do with war. That would mirror loyalists for the Revolutionary War. There seems to be an sub-surface current that isn’t popularized in our linear view of history that I’d like to figure out. Conversely, maybe I should check out Tom Brokaw’s "The Greatest Generation" book.

As for how to apply some of that for the future… I’m not sure. I have some wavering thoughts. The Tsunami error showed that a big event brings people together to discuss and work to a conclusion as a community (in which us young people worked to get information, middle-aged guys were joking around, older adults were talking about their thoughts and the eldest were happy to just be safe). That’s not happening now as the division in politics seems to be prevailing stubbornly… so the economic downturn isn’t enough and something larger is probably on the horizon.

That’s pretty much it from the weekend. This weekend there’s no solid plans. Next weekend we have to take back kitchen stuff to IKEA that we won’t be using right away. The weekend after is Twin’s 10-year reunion. The weekend after is BGem’s wedding with a few days at Lake Chelan. That takes us to the middle of August. Twin and I discussed children again, and if we get into the house we’ll revisit the topic in 6 months and see where we’re at. I’ll elaborate on that in a future entry.