Vacation

Thursday

I didn't hold out any hope that Driftwood Shores would have a broadband connection, and they don't. All they have is a 'data port' on the phone, which means, "dial long distance to your ISP", so I'll be keeping my notes on this trip offline and posting them in one big chunk when I get back.

We left for Florence around noon, and got here shortly after 3pm, as expected. The hotel is pretty nice, we're on the top floor, and have an ocean view. We've just been taking it easy, snacking in the hotel room. Kelly spent around an hour down on the beach diving into the waves, building sand castles, the like. I took around twenty pictures on the beach, including one of a person riding a horse, and a few of a genuine timberwolf, a domesticated animal from a local petting zoo. I knew when I saw it that it wasn't an ordinary dog, and when it came up, friendly as can be, I said, "wow, look at the shoulders on that thing!" Definitely not a dog's.

Kelly didn't get enough splashing in the water, so Jean took her to the hotel pool, and I stretched out because my back was bothering me. I ended up falling asleep, but I still woke up in time to walk over to the pool and watch Kelly swim for awhile. I brought a library book, Masters of Doom, about John Romero and John Carmack, the founders of id Software. Now we're just sitting in the room waiting for Kelly to konk out, and I just finished watching episode 23 of Groove Adventure Rave on my laptop. I'll spend a half hour or so reading, then konk out myself. Later.

Friday

Did the dunes today. We mainly went to the coastal dunes, rather than the ones frequented by the dune buggy crowd. I went for a walk in the morning to try to get some exercise, but it turns out I didn't need to worry, as Kelly had me running up and down steep thirty foot dunes most of the morning.

Then we went off to Old Town Florence and walked around for awhile, finally settling in for lunch at a little Italian hole in the wall. Kelly had the 'appetizer' pizza, but it was huge.

In the afternoon we went back to the hotel and let Kelly play on the beach. I'm so sick of bright sunlight, literally. I got a minor sunburn, but my constitution just doesn't sit well with all that sun. In the hour we were outside, I probably got a week's worth of sunlight.

Kelly didn't get enough water though, and ended up back in the hotel pool. After an hour of that, we went back to the room, where Jean and I practiced our cha-cha while Kelly relaxed. Now we're all zoning. After I help Kelly clean her teeth (new braces!) I'm probably gonna watch another episode of Rave...

Saturday

We've enjoyed ourselves, and are nevertheless ready to go home. I am already half-packed, and planning on showering tonight so that I can just pop into my day clothes in the morning and leave.

Today we went to the sea lion caves, and I tried taking a few pictures. I expect that they'll all be either underexposed (the cave shots) or too far away (the cliff shots). But at least I tried. Then we went to Heceta Head Light House, which was just up the coast. It is named after Bruno Heceta (Heh SEE tah), a Spanish explorer who surveyed the Pacific coast. Finally, we visited the Pioneer Museum, which was more a collection of artifacts from the long history of Oregon and the U.S. than an organized museum. I even found an Osborne computer, a 'portable' I remember lusting after in my larval stage as a programmer. It ran C/PM and was considered a business computer, having a tiny screen which was sufficient for a few rows or columns of a spreadsheet.

This evening we had dinner at Mo's Seafood Restaurant, and now Kelly and Jean are down at the beach while I write this note. Next entry will most likely be back in Tualatin...