Day 1: The Adventure Begins

Ah, the first day on the road. Feeling good and ready for adventure. Well first of all, Sabrina got off to an excellent start last night by stubbing her little toe so hard she thought it was broken. This morning she could barely walk, and was so slow that Laura had to leave her in the corner at two different grocery stores rather than wait for her to hobble all over and back. Fortunately it is getting better and appears to be just badly bruised, not broken. Well, plans never go as planned. We were on the road by 11:40, better than the predicted 12:00, only 3 ½ hours after Laura arrived to pick Sabrina up. Why you ask? Food. We spent all morning at three different stores trying to find what we needed and some stuff we didn’t need. Needless to say, we are not going to go hungry.

So after trips to Trader Joes, Whole Foods, QFC and Laura’s apartment, it was lunch time, so we had to stop for that, then we finally got on the road. We drove along happily until South of Olympia when we got confused about how to get to 101. Much confusion ensued. Mainly because Sabrina doesn’t know the difference between East and West, specifically which way the ocean might be. (She can see her mom and Marc rolling their eyes right now as they read this). Laura just went along with Sabrina’s directionally challenged ideas—rooky mistake. Everyone knows to go the opposite way of the way Sabrina says to go 98% of the time, or so she says. Anyway, after that little excursion, and another one to check voicemail at work we finally found 101.

We stopped for a snack at Safeway in Astoria, where we sat at their tables eating the food we bought at Whole Foods in Seattle, naturally. Since we know you were wondering, we had Laura’s homemade hummus and Mary’s gone crackers, steamed string beans (no I’m not joking) and 2 fresh plums.

We arrived at Cannon beach around 5pm, and could not for the life of us find our campsite, and ended up driving up and down 101 for about 20 minutes before finally finding what we have re-named, Cindy’s Kitty Campground. Cindy is the manger of this lovely establishment which is located about 30 feet from 101 over a very rickety bridge. It is approximately 60% mobile homes (not RVs, people LIVE here), and the rest campsites. There are many cats in residence here, including one that chased our car about 50 yards before giving up. Upon entering the campsite, we were greeted by an older gentleman, who could have only assumed we were lost. I mean, we get out of the car, lip gloss and all, clearly not belonging there and ask for a campsite. He directed us to Cindy “house” (see picture of here lovely knick knack garden) and told us to pay her.

We walk up to the trailer, chilled to the bone (it is now 60 something degrees and we are in summer clothes), knock on the door, but scared of what we may find. The door clearly posts “Beware of Dog”. Cindy, turned out to be a middle aged woman in bright blue Capri pants and a gravity defying blond ponytail, so high it looked like it should hurt. She demanded to see both our IDs, thinking perhaps we were highschool runaways? She then lead us to a campsite a good 100 yards from where we had parked the car, even though the campsite IS TOTALLY EMPTY. Why we couldn’t have the site we were already parked, we’ll never know. Cindy did not appear to be a woman you want to mess with. After taking our $20 and reiterating the 5 mile per hour speed limit and strict 10pm silence policy, we were off to yet another grocery store, this time for wood.

We managed to erect our tent and build a fire without incident. Dinner, however, was interesting. The fire has no grill, and we didn’t feel like busting out the camp stove, so we attempted to roast chicken sausages on sad, wimpy, droopy sticks. The result was rather charbroiled shall we say, and one sad sausage was forever lost to the flames. (See attached picture our Laura’s lovely stick just prior to the sausage’s untimely demise.) Needless to say they were delicious. Or something. This was followed by many gluten free smores (thank you Health Valley company for making graham crackers out of rice. We salute you!) Topped off by wine consumed in giant soup mugs, I think you’ll agree it is a meal nutritionists everywhere would approve of.

So as you can see, we are off to a great start! And no, we did not consume large amounts of wine while writing this. We are just naturally this amusing.