Day 9 - Ocean Shores, WA - 2551 Miles

(Note: The one mile today was round trip to the laundromat.)

Good news. We came back from an early morning walk along the beach ready to do battle with the hotel manager. As we entered the door, the desk clerk said, "Oh, I'm glad to see you. Here are the keys to your new room." We were moved from the fourth best room in the hotel to the second best. Since it was a move from the second floor to the third floor, neither of us considered pressing things further. I mean, c'mon. We may both be jerks, but even we aren't that big of jerks. We thanked her profusely and moved our stuff to the third floor. That 10' makes a huge difference in the view. We went from looking through the tops of the trees to the ocean, to looking over the tops of the trees to the ocean.

During our beach walk, we came across what we first thought was a dog laying on the beach but it turned out to be a baby seal. We thought it had been abandoned and was in distress but it turned out to be like fawns in Texas. The mother leaves them for a long period of time while she goes off and does her thing before returning to collect the baby. There's never a club around when you need one.

Mid Yawn

View from our New Room Over the Dunes to the Ocean

After breakfast at McDonald's we went to the Visitor Center to collect information on local events and activities. I know this part is particularly uninteresting, but it comes into play shortly.

I've set a goal for myself for the summer. I'll admit it's the same goal I set the last time we spent the summer in a small town, but it's a personal favorite. I plan to have at least one beer in every single bar in town while we're here. My only problem this time around is defining "bar". At least initially I'll bypass hotel restaurants that happen to serve beer. Things get a little fuzzy when I run into things like a local bowling alley that has beer. Maybe I'll just go with the most obvious candidates and work my way down from there. We started today with Pirate's Cove Bar and Grill. There was no question with that one.

Happy Hour in Ocean Shores, WA

Pirate's Cove

Pirate's Cove

While at Pirate's cove we ran into Susie. She was one of the two women working the Visitor Center. She was at a regular Monday dinner gathering of the Ocean Shores Food Bank volunteers. She talked about a community garden they have which grows food for the food bank. She also said how after we left the Visitor Center she mentioned to her coworker that's the reason she works there - to talk to people like us. How pathetic can that be? She also introduced us to Leon, the head of the food bank, and his wife Roberta. They both happen to be UT grads. Roberta got our names and contact info saying she would invite us to dinner. I swear, if we gave one hour to the Food Bank we could now seriously be in the running for volunteer of the year.

Big activity for tomorrow - 10,000 mile checkup for the car at the Toyota dealership in Aberdeen.