Day 98 - Ocean Shores, WA - 5772 Miles

Sometimes I think the good people of Ocean Shores hold secret town meetings in the middle of the night just to come up with ways to entertain me the following day. Well all I can say is kudos to the chair of last night's meeting since this morning on our daily beach walk we were greeted with this:

The unfortunate occupants, a young family with a small child and a babe in arms, stood nearby gazing forlornly at the vehicle. I was going to ask them how exactly they managed this, but I figured it probably wouldn't be viewed as helpful so I left them alone.

Ultimately North Beach Towing came to the rescue.

SUV Owner Explaining his Plight

Terry discussed the situation with Officer Sean of the OSPD. He also doubles as Happy Hour entertainment at Mike's Seafood.

Eventually the entire OSPD showed up - I'm guessing for crowd control rather than personal amusement.

It took a lot of tugging.....

...but finally success.

They towed him a LONG way from the water before they let him go. Amazingly the SUV started up. I'm guessing it's their last ocean-side drive for a while

Day 94 - Ocean Shores, WA - 5734 Miles

Everyone survived Chris' visit to the Pacific northwest. After Seattle there was an uneventful day in Ocean Shores (as most days are), several days in Olympia, and a night in Victoria, BC.

Much of the Ocean Shores day was spent at the Quinault Rain Forest. All this time I thought it was simply the name of a casino, but it turns out it is the name of a lake, a rain forest, and an entire Indian tribe.

Quinault Rain Forest

Quinault Rain Forest

In Olympia Chris was interested in outdoor stuff like horseback riding, hiking, ATV'ing, and shooting. This left me free for my favorite pastimes like wandering the mall and coffee shops.

Chris and his Cousin Maggie

I'm guessing I was the first person in Olympia to come up with this photo idea.

"The Kiss"

A happy accident in Olympia was that we were there for the Tumwater Artesian  Beerfest. I never pass up an event that has "beer" and "fest" in it's name.

One if the contests was a beer stein holding contest.

Women Contestants 

I stayed to watch because I assumed it would be followed by a wet T-shirt contest. Sadly, I was mistaken.

The trip to Victoria was a personal disaster. Despite all my practice during my Ocean Shores beer quest, I found I could not keep up with my 30 year-old son. We got to our room around 3 and Chris made a dinner reservation for 8 before we hit some local pubs.

One of my Final Coherent Moments

At about 6:30 I left to return to the room for a quick nap before dinner. That was truly my intention, but I think we all knew how it was really going to play out. Chris did manage to include me in photos from later in the evening, though.

Terry and Me at Dinner

Terry, Chris, and Me at a Bar After Dinner

Now I'm back to my hectic Ocean Shores life.


 

Day 87 - Seattle, WA - 5002 Miles

Quick update. Chris made it in from Austin and we spent Monday in Seattle before coming to Ocean Shores on Tuesday.

Pike Market

Pike Market

Seattle Aquarium

Seattle Happy Hour

It took about 15 minutes to show him the highlights of Ocean Shores. He was more interested in going to the casino. After 12 weeks of worrying about being up $5 or down $3 on the slot machines, Chris introduced me to craps. I never understood how it works and I still don't. I just followed his lead on betting. I'd roll the dice but it was a big table and I couldn't see what I even rolled down at the other end of the table. I would just wait and see if they took my money or added to my stack. Terry rolled a few times and managed to bounce the dice off the table and onto the floor twice. It turns out that is frowned upon. We played for a while and between that and blackjack I lost $100. We played later and I won it all back plus a little. Too fast paced for me. I went back to my slot machine. I won $1.75 on that but more importantly I understood what was happening.
 

Day 83 - Ocean Shores, WA - 4684 Miles

Good news. Ate and had a beer at Dugan's Pizza. That finished off my list of Ocean Shores eateries and added to my unlisted places to have a beer. Bad news. A new place, Wings and Things, opened up two days ago. I think they're just trying to make my life difficult, but I can tough it out and eat there too.

Quite a bit of excitement at the Ramada last night. The alarms went off at about 10 and everyone had to evacuate. Since 10pm is the middle of the night to me, I had to throw clothes on first. When you grab stuff going out the door in that situation you learn what is really important to you. It seems all I need is my wallet and the room key. Oh yeah. Terry went too.

Most emergency evacuations are prompted by a bomb threat or a shooter. In Ocean Shores, though, the common threat is a spider weaving it's web inside a smoke detector. This is interpreted as smoke and the alarms are triggered. Police and the fire department showed up. Once the offending spider was located we were allowed back in our rooms.

The real big news is that we hit 70 degrees yesterday. Not 71 mind you. Seventy. It lasted about half an hour and is probably gone for the rest of the summer.

Day 82 - Ocean Shores, WA - 4684 Miles

Simply another "proof-of-life" post. Haven't even taken a picture in days.

The Body and Soul Festival was a bit less of a freak show than I expected. I should note, though, that after living in Austin for five years my threshold for freak shows has probably shifted a bit. We didn't stay long but I did see one woman getting her toes analyzed, one having her fortune told, and one having her pain and/or stress relieved. People were looking at the magic rocks but I don't know if they bought any.

The only one I paid much attention to was the pain relief. It seems like to have your pain relieved all you have to do (for a fee of course) is lie back in a recliner with your feet up and eyes closed. At one point the miracle worker touched the woman's temples and whispered something in her ear, but the rest of the time she sat reading a book or wandered around looking at what other vendors were doing. She did have on her sign in big letters "Not Guaranteed" so I guess she was covered. When I get home I may make the healing power of my recliner publicly available (for a fee of course). Oh yeah, "Not Guaranteed". 

As a side effect of my bar quest coupled with a lot of time in town, we are now also within one establishment of hitting every eatery in town. Than even includes the Chinese food they dish out at the convenience store and a chicken sandwich at the bowling alley. The only place left is Dugan's Pizza. Here's my dilemma. I really would like to be able to claim this additional accomplishment, feeble though it may be. However Dugan's seems pretty universally recognized as a dumpy place serving bad pizza at a price at least double what it should be. Anyone who knows me at all knows which of those three issues is the true stumbling block. I have another month to sort it out.

Our son flies into Seattle on Sunday for a week or so, so we'll be on the road in Seattle, Olympia, Victoria, BC, and one night in Ocean Shores. That one night should be more than enough time to show him the highlights. ("There's the ocean, son. Let's go.") 

Day 76 - Ocean Shores, WA - 4602 Miles

Well not every weekend can be action-packed and full of excitement. After the thrills of Bike Week, the Kite Festival, and the Sand & Sawdust Festival, this is going to be one of those tier 2 or maybe tier 3 weekends. This weekend is the Body & Soul Festival. The good news is it is being held right across the street from our hotel so we won't have to go far for the vendors and seminars.

I checked the official Ocean Shores festival web site to see what to expect. Seminars I plan on attending include:

Communicating with your spirit guides using the pendulum
I want to see if beer can be substituted for a pendulum.

Living Beyond the Third Dimension 
I'm actually trying to cut back to two.

Deciphering the Secret Codes of Your Toes
I want to see what my toes reveal beyond questionable personal hygiene. 

Intro to Mediumship Training
Possible retirement career?

Linda Joy and Andrew: Connecting With Source
I'm guessing Source is a new ISP kind of like Google Fiber.

Between seminars I'll visit some of the vendors like:

Black Bear Energetics
Their certified Energy Medicine Practioner (sic) claims she can make me pain free in 3 minutes or less either in person or over the phone.

Aura Imaging
I'm guessing mine is black & white

The Toe Lady
"Nancy Newman is a registered Master Toe Reader and a frequent speaker and guest on radio shows." I'm curious to find who this overseeing authority is that registers Master Toe Readers and what additional credentials are required to achieve the level of "Master".

Zara Angel
"During a session, I contact Archangel Michael and, as needed, your Angels and Guides." She claims she will guide me to spiritual and financial prosperity. I could use some angelic help with my investing.

In addition there is a wide assortment of folks specializing in paranormal investigations, shamanism, medical intuition, and pet communications.
  
I didn't see a list of food vendors but I'm assuming I'll be able to get a turkey leg, funnel cake, and a beer. Even the spirit world has to eat.   

Day 73 - Lake Quinault, WA - 4568 Miles

Another week in my summer that no one could possibly find interesting.

OceanShores.MOBI still has the most consistent income stream in town prowling for stranded vehicles on the beach.

 

 

I see these cars and RV's every day littering the beach and think, "What in God's name made you think this was going to end up any other way?"

I guess they figured they didn't want to be where all the cars were. They preferred a more desolate spot off by themselves.

We made a trip yesterday about an hour north up Rt 101 to Lake Quinault/Quinault Rain Forest on the edge of Olympic National Park. We just needed a little different scenery for the day and some of the additional warmth you get as you move away from the coast.

Abandoned homestead from the 1890's. 

Rambo and vampire country in the Quinault Rain Forest.

Quinault River that feeds into Lake Quinault.

Lake Quinault.

One note about the added warmth of going inland. I had planned to make a post, particularly for people in Texas, celebrating the first day we hit 70 degrees in Ocean Shores. Well now we're in August and I've given up. I don't think it's going to happen. Weather here is incredibly consistent. Lows in the mid 50's. Highs in the mid 60's. Also we alternate two or three times a day between bright sunshine and fog where you can barely see your hand in front of your face. Olympia, less than an hour and a half inland, will have lows in the upper 50's and highs of 90. If we ever start to feel chilly, we head east until we're warm.

My plan for today was to head about two hours north to Forks, WA, made famous by the Twilight movies. I wanted to take pictures of us in some of the iconic locations from the films. Fortunately I did a little research last night to see where the iconic locations were. This may be common knowledge to everyone else, but as it turns out not one second of the movie was actually shot in Forks. I saved myself four hours of driving and the embarrassment of asking what would have been some really dumb questions when we got there.