3 Days in Nehalem...

Tuesday, July 3 (Nehalem Bay)

Happy Birthday Kellen! Hopefully you’re having fun on the island with Grandpa Stan and Uncle Seth. We called and left a message for you on Seth’s cell phone – hope you got it! We also sang Happy Birthday to you around the campfire. So we were thinking of you on your 17th! :-)

We’ve been having fun days at the beach. Yesterday we walked over the sand dunes to the beach here at Nehalem Bay, and found that it was quite pleasant – not as windy and chilly as it gets sometimes. In fact, downright balmy and reasonably calm. Though I couldn’t keep my sunhat on, so I guess there was some wind. :-) The tide was pretty far out and Niall spent a long time constructing a sand fort, hoping to keep the waves back. Tynor joined him as the tide drew near and made a quick moat, which helped for a couple of big waves anyway. After a few minutes, the water conquered the fort, despite the moat, but it was a quite satisfying endeavor.

Cory played happily with sand toys higher up on the beach – he wasn’t very excited about visiting the ocean waves. We brought him lots of buckets of water from the surf, though, and he enjoyed sprinkling his “garden” and then using his “weeding rake” to help it grow (being Farmer Gary from Richard Scarry, he said). He had corn and carrots and all kinds of good stuff growing.

By the time we get up and going, have breakfast and clean up, it’s nearly lunchtime (how can that be?!). So after a few hours of playing at the beach, even with snacks, we’re ready to come back for some lunch. We were worn out by all the sun and sand and water play, so we mostly just hung out at the campsite for the rest of the afternoon. I took Cory and Niall on a walk around the D-E-F loops (we’re in F28 – next door to party central apparently, as Tynor mentioned – argg!). Cory had his trike (he’s bummed that I didn’t bring his bike – hoping to put together a bike rack system of some kind later this summer, but it hasn’t happened yet) and Niall was scootering. We stopped by the playset in the middle of the campground to play for awhile, then headed back to start dinner.

Spaghetti and meatballs were on the menu, plus biscuits in our little toaster oven. The biscuits turned out great, despite having to cook them in two batches. The spaghetti hit the spot, too, after a busy day. Besides, everything tastes better when you eat outside. We actually haven’t set up the table in the popup yet; we’ve just used the picnic table outside. It makes it easier for Tynor, not having to reconfigure for bedtime at night, and it actually makes a nice lounge area inside too. We’ve been lucky to have great weather so far. Lots of sunshine, some wind and breezes but not too much, and occasional clouds and overcast skies but not for long.

Last night was worse than the first night in the party-animals-next-door department. They were up until at least 1:30 in the morning, hooting and hollering and carrying on. Apparently they have five sites altogether, but they’ve chosen the one next to us to converge on for their partying. Tonight we finally called the ranger, when it seemed clear they had at least a dozen people around the campfire and were gearing up for another night of horsing around. We’ll see if his words to the wise make any difference (he said he’d tell them they needed to take their party to the beach), or if they just get louder in retaliation. I’m sure they’re having fun, but not so fun for the folks around them trying to get some sleep.

Today after a pancake and sausage breakfast, we drove up to Hug Point for our beach outing. Last year we escaped to Hug Point when the winds at Nehalem were just too much to enjoy being at the beach here. It’s a great beach, with lots of caves and rock formations to explore, and much warmer and calmer than down here. We ended up playing there for four hours; we were having so much fun. The tide was way out, and Niall and I walked around a point to see what was over there. We found some cool caves and even a waterfall. Once again, Cory played in the sand most of the time, but near the end, he ventured into the surf a bit – and loved it! Pretty soon we were all jumping waves and watching out for “the big ones.” Unfortunately, one “big one” caught Niall and tumbled him into the water. But he recovered pretty quickly – though he won’t forget that adventure, I’m sure.

A somewhat more unfortunate mishap was the loss of one of our walkie-talkies, which fell out of Tynor’s pocket into the water soon after we arrived, never to be seen again (though we looked for awhile). Darn! We lost our favorite digging scoop, too – no idea where it went, and we looked all through the sand and all around. Maybe Hug Point exacts a price from visitors? (In which case, quite the misleading name!)

We were all pretty exhausted by the time we made our way back to the campsite, with brief stops at the lookout over Nehalem Bay and at the gas station to fill up for the next leg of our trip tomorrow. We had a very late lunch, then a quick (and kid-favorite) dinner – hotdogs roasted over the fire. S’mores followed almost immediately, so the little guys could be cleaned up and popped into bed. It’s a lot harder for them to get to sleep in the popup than at home, especially with our noisy neighbors, but at last they were snoozing and…it was nearly time to call the ranger. Ok, we did wait until well after 10:00 (quiet time) but that wasn’t much longer after the little boys were in bed.

Now Tynor is waiting for me to wrap this up so he can reclaim his bed and get some sleep himself! Maybe he’ll write again tomorrow, on our way to Harris Beach.