Day 36 - Ocean Shores, WA - 3215 Miles

Last day of the Sand and Sawdust Festival. Hopefully all these people will get the Hell out of town now. I did participate in Washington's version of bull riding. 

After watching a bunch of six-year olds do it I figured I could too. My first fear was actually getting to the shark without falling on the inflated cushions. By the time I reached the the shark a few heads were turning in the auditorium. My next fear was thinking it was a long way to swing my leg to get on without falling over. At that point an actual crowd had started to form. When I took my hat off I heard a "Yee Haw!" from somewhere in the room. Little did they know I had paid the kid extra to not actually start up the machine. I got my picture and I was done. If the kid had gone anywhere near the controls I would have been off in a heartbeat. The crowd was clearly disappointed. They had smelled blood in the water.

The older guy who was in charge of the machine said, "You could actually do it."

Things were slow at that point and I think he felt this could drum up business.

I said, "You could actually get sued."

Thus ended the encounter.

I may post a couple of pics while we're on the cruise, but Blogger via cellphone is not very elegant. Also, without my computer I can't get photos from the camera to the cellphone or do any editing so they will be pictures taken with my cellphone. Not up to my high artistic standards, but you get what you pay for.

Day 35 - Ocean Shores, WA - 3215 Miles

This weekend is the Sand and Sawdust Festival. LOTS of extra people in town. I prefer tourist places where we're the only tourists. We'll start with the sawdust. Lumberjack, macho, testosterone, artistic. Which of those words don't belong with the others. In this case, they all belong. I've always admired people with artistic ability. It's the one area where I'm completely lacking. OK - it's one of many areas I'm completely lacking. Chainsaws usually aren't listed among artist's tools, but they were in abundance here. If you ever go to one of these, take earplugs.

 

I Finally Found Them - Bigfeet

I commissioned a carving of me. I think he captured me perfectly, but the hat is way off.

Next the sand. There was a sand-sculpting competition on the beach. The plan was to start sculpting at 9am the various categories would be judged at 3:30 pm. We saw the start of the competition as part of our usual beach walk.

Let the Games Begin

We stopped back at around noon to check on the progress.

My Level of Sand Sculpture

Then we went back to the sawdust. At about 1:30 an announcement came over the PA, "If you want to see the sand sculptures, you should probably go down to the beach RIGHT NOW. The tide is coming in and the timing of the judging has been moved up." 








I had seen the schedule and it was pretty straight-forward - sculpt, judge, high tide washes everything away. The judging was scheduled for 3:30. I checked the tide tables on my phone (there's an app for that) and high tide was at 3:07. It didn't make sense to me but this was something like the 12th annual. It wasn't their first rodeo. Maybe they used a different app than I did, but it sounded like things were going south fast. We headed down to the beach.

Same Sculpture from Behind

 

Fighting a Losing Battle

There was judging for both the sand and the sawdust but to me the big winner, as he always is on event weekends, was OceanShores.mobi. He is the one who pulls vehicles out of the soft sand or those who, much like the planners of the sand sculpting event, misjudge high tide. We see him on the beach on these weekends just cruising around looking for cars stuck in the sand. He don't even bother waiting for calls.

There were a lot of people standing around talking about the trouble these two would be in, but the owners were no where in sight. This was still almost an hour before high tide. The FWD Subaru has a chance if the owner shows up quick, but the pickup is doomed.

The next exciting activity (not counting laundry on Monday) is our Alaskan cruise departing from Seattle on Tuesday.

Day 33 - Ocean Shores, WA - 3206 Miles

BAR CATASTROPHE! We tried using our hand written note from our buddy, Nancy, to gain access to the next to last bar on my list - the Eagles Club. It's a members-only club but Nancy assured us her note would work. She was wrong.

The bar tender said, "She can't do that. She has to be here."

She then looked over to a drunk sitting at the bar who was clearly the final arbitrator in the matter. He shook his head "no". It was clear at that point that all was lost. We left the bar - beerless.

I've decided to invoke a seldom-used tactic in the "every bar in town" world. Since the Eagles Club it not open to the general public, it can be excluded from the bar list even though Yelp includes it.

Now I'm down to one final bar on my list - the bar at the Shiloh Inn. I could probably do it before our cruise next week, but then when we get back back I'd have two months completely devoid of any purpose. And we all know how important it is to have dreams to pursue.

Day 32 - Ocean Shores, WA - 3191 Miles

Still here. That probably tells you all you need to know so if you want to save a couple of minutes of your life, you could just skip the rest of this.

On the advice of several locals we took a walk through the Weatherwax property. I'm not sure who Weatherwax was, but my guess is he was into raising mosquitoes for scientific experiments. The locals probably direct tourists here as food to appease the genetically altered, intelligence enhanced mosquito king and his minions who still remain after disposing of Weatherwax. The property is now a small rain forest.

Mosquito Food

Rain Forest

I'm running out of bars on my list so I'm repeating some of my favorites. My favorites tend to be the ones frequented by locals and not on the weekends. They're usually happy to tell their stories to someone new and I just have to sit, smile, and nod occasionally while I drink my beer. I think they call that codependency. Pirate's Cove is becoming a favorite. It wasn't until our last visit that I saw how high-class the restroom was.

Pirate's Cove

High-Class Restroom

Yesterday during our morning beach walk I got a call from Carnival about our cruise next week. They're apparently making sure everything gets filled. They said if we wanted to we could upgrade from our balcony stateroom to an ocean suite for a relatively modest amount (at least by cruise ship standards). I told her I'd have to get back to her. I wasn't sure what an "ocean suite" was and I wasn't 100% certain this wasn't some sort of scam. After checking things out I called back, but she said the ocean suite she had offered us was gone, but since she already talked to us she would offer us a vista suite for the same price. I hesitated again while Terry and I talked about it.

In hindsight I can almost hear her thinking, "What is wrong with these people? This is the phone call cruisers pray to get a week before a cruise and these people aren't jumping all over it!"

I finally said, "OK. We'll do it."

Looking things up afterwards, it seems like our extra $500 got us about $2500-$3000 of upgrades. Instead of the stateroom we now get a suite with a separate bedroom and living room. Instead of maybe a 60sq ft balcony we get a wraparound balcony. In fact, the balcony of our suite is literally larger than the stateroom we started with.

We also get the perks that go with a suite such as when we go to Seattle we go straight to the VIP lounge for priority boarding instead of getting in line with all the peons - you know, the people we were until two days ago.

It was always true that our one-week cruise was going to cost a little more than three months in the Ocean Shores Ramada, but now it's not even close.

Crossed Red Genie Pizza off my list tonight.

 

Day 29 - Westport, WA - 3172 Miles

Went to the Elk Head Tap Room. We had to plan this since the Elk Head is only open Thur-Sun. In addition, despite the fact that all they do is sell their own beer and reluctantly a glass of wine, they only stay open until 7pm.

Elk Head Tap Room Happy Hour

This gives an indication of the nature of life in Ocean Shores. No one comes here because they need more thrills in their life. All bar/restaurants in town close at either 8 or 9 with one exception. The Porthole Pub stays open until 1:30am. (That's the place that knows to set me up a Pabst when I walk in the door.)

While at the Elk Head I looked through an old newspaper that had the Ocean Shores police calls for a Fri-Sun in May. Note that for three days there were 11 calls and three had to do with seal pups and one dealt with illegal clamming. The disorderly conduct took place at 11:30 in the morning and the noise complaint for loud music took place at 3:30 in the afternoon. Not much of a crime wave.

Saturday was a return visit to Westport for their annual Pirate Daze festival.

Westport Pirate Daze

Tall Ship

Pirates

Pirate-ess

 

Dead Pirate

 Some pirates aren't as fearsome as they used to be.

 Mermaid blowing bubbles with some very bored looking young mermaids.

 

Cousin It Pirate?

Day 27 - Westport, WA - 2971 Miles

Nothing exciting. This is more of a "proof of life" entry. First we'll start with a bar update:

Mike's Seafood Happy Hour

Note that we've had another laundry day so I'm back to my pickup truck sweatshirt for the week.

Homeport Happy Hour

In addition to hitting new bars, it appears I'm becoming a regular at some places. Last time I went into the Porthole Pub the barmaid asked, "Pabst Blue Ribbon?" It's not that I love PBR. It just happens to be, by far, their cheapest beer.

We made a trip from Ocean Shores to Westport. A little geography here. Ocean Shores is on a peninsula forming the northern portion of the entrance to Gray's Harbor. Westport is on a peninsula forming the southern portion of the entrance to Gray's Harbor. There is about a mile of open water across the harbor entrance. Unfortunately it's about a 52-mile each way drive around the harbor to get from one town to another.

One reason for the trip was to meet up with Terry's brother and sister-in-law who brought their horses for a ride on the beach.

Mick and Linda Coming in Off the Beach

Linda and Phoenix

The other reason was to see Westport. Where Ocean Shores was set up to be a resort and summer home community, Wesport is a working fishing community with some tourism thrown in. You better like a constant fishy smell if you go to Westport.

Westport Fishing Fleet

Westport Main Street

Crabby the Crabber

On today's beach walk we got our first look at some eagles.

I Wasn't the Only Bald Eagle out for a Beach Stroll

Golden Eagle

Two Bald and One Golden Eagle

Two Bald Eagles Arguing While Two Golden Eagles Watch

Day 22 - Ocean Shores, WA - 2839 Miles

We're still here. I'm starting to run into a wall here. We've settled into a routine which makes for very pleasant days but very little that anyone would find interesting to read about. If I don't tell what happened, you can assume the day went something like this:

Get up and laze around a little bit. Take our 2.2 mile walk of about a mile down the beach and a mile back across the front of the hotels. Eat breakfast. Laze around a little bit. Walk to one of four or five coffee shops for coffee and to split a muffin or cookie. Laze around a while. Walk to one of 15-20 bars/restaurants for happy hour/dinner. Laze around. Go to bed.

Add to that a collection of activities sprinkled in at random like going to the casino, watching sunset on the beach, wandering parks and small communities up and down the coast, and the various events small towns host during all too brief summers.

One such event was the Flag Day parade last weekend in Ocean Shores. It claims to be the largest Flag Day parade on the west coast. I was really impressed until I saw that only two communities in the state of Washington have these parades. The competition may not really be that intense.

Our Ramada Inn's Float

One of the top billed participants on the flyers was Matilda the camel. I felt kind of bad for some of the school marching bands who practiced all year to end up receiving less attention than Matilda the camel.

I had my beer at Waves Bar and Restaurant. One more scratched off the list.

Day 19 - Ocean Shores, WA - 2685 Miles

Very little to report. Yesterday we went to Sipping Serendipity Wine Bar. As the name implies they specialize in wine. After I explained my Ocean Shores quest, they managed to dust off a bottle of beer from the back of the cooler so I can now cross one more place off my list. 

I also met Nancy, my new best friend in Ocean Shores. I was asking about a place on my list, FOE Eagles 4197. It is in the Yelp bars list for Ocean Shores but is a private club. I was asking if you really had to be a member to have a beer there and Nancy, who seemed to be a fixture at the bar of Sipping Serendipity, said you had to be a member or guest of a member. Then she wrote out instructions to be given to the doorman to let us in as her guests. It'll be just like walking past all the hipsters in line at the "in" spot to tell the bouncer, "I'm on the list." Finally I'll get to know what it's like on the other side of the velvet rope.

Tonight was dinner and beer at Viet Hoa Restaurant. I have no idea how this made Yelp's bar list. It would basically be like Panda Express serving beer. Since I don't question, I just drink the beer, we ate dinner and I had my obligatory beer. It's a long way from my favorite bar, but it, too, can now be crossed off the list. I'm now officially half way done.

Day 17 - Pacific Beach, WA - 2680 Miles

You may notice that since yesterday was wash day, I'll be sporting a different sweat shirt in photos this week. Also, no one said you had to be smart to travel. I reached for my camera in a case I keep on my belt, opened it, and pulled out binoculars. The cases are similar but I should have known the difference when I strapped it on this morning. As a result today's photos are with a cell phone.

Just so we could say we went someplace more than two miles from our hotel we headed north up the coast a ways to a couple of small towns and beach access points. This is where I'm heading if there's a tsunami warning. I can get 200 feet above sea level. 

Beach photos from a little farther north.

Me Swimming in the Pacific

On the way back we stopped in Seabrook, WA. If Stepford actually exists, this is it. The place just has a sense of being assembled rather than built - kind of like Suburbialand in Disneyworld. My theory is the residents are either aliens or robots. There seemed to be an inordinate amount of staff in powder blue polo shirts riding around in golf carts. The whole time we were in town we had no cellphone service or 4g. Coincidence? I don't think so.

Typical Stepford Street

The town hall was mixed in with the houses. I think they ring the bell when the mother ship shows up.

 
I've seen lots of parks and playgrounds and they have all had some innocuous feel-good name. This is the first park I've seen that issued an order for action.

They issued orders at the dog park, too.

I also came across this sign. I have no idea what they are trying to tell me. It probably has a great deal of significance to insiders.

The whole way back to the hotel I kept checking the mirror to make sure we weren't being followed.