Vacation Week

K and I took this past week off for some R&R, which in this particular case stood for Roadtrip and Point Reyes.

The roadtrip took us up to Oregon City, Oregon (just south of Portland) to visit with K's siblings and their families, with children ranging in ages from 8 months to 13 years, all brilliant and well-spoken and a ton of fun and totally exhausting. K's sister S had rented a beach house out in Pacific City. To me, Pacific City seems like just about any beach town I've stayed in, whether that's Hawaii or California -- salt-bleached houses, boating detritus, quiet suntanned locals, and a distinct local pace of life. In sum, very enjoyable and relaxing.

We spent one day down at Netarts Bay, where the RV park folks will rent you an aluminum boat with a motor and some crab traps, bait, and measuring doo-hickeys and you can try your luck at crabbing. We found no dungeness that qualified, but did pull up two small red rock crabs. (nasty little fellers)

We also made the trip over to the Tillamook Cheese Factory. This was something of a pilgrimage for K, the inveterate cheese-lover. We got to see the assembly lines where cheese is sliced, weighed, and packaged, as well as the slightly less interesting cheese fermenting vats. And then we got samples and ice cream! Fantastic. And I have verified that cheese curds do indeed squeak when you chew them.

Finally, this past weekend we went hiking in Point Reyes with two friends, E and S. They are getting ready for a trip to Alaska in August, so they were testing out various vegetarian backpacking recipes (tasty) and equipment (Jetboil - cool) and general communication/compatibility while hiking (seemed good to me). Some of the things they'll have to deal with in Alaska I don't envy - bears? Hungry bears? Hungry smart bears? Okay, maybe I'm just scared about the bears. They were saying that you have to put the clothes you cook in into the same bear-proof storage as your food, otherwise they might think you're tasty. *shudder*

No bears for us! We saw white deer, turkey vultures, berries, poison oak, other deer, red tail hawk, quail, rabbits, lizards, burned-out trees, the ocean, lots of fog, and a decent amount of sun. Pt. Reyes National Seashore is truly a wonderful place, and surprisingly close to the husle and bustle of San Francisco (we picked up E from downtown SF at 5pm and were picking up our camping permit in the park by 7pm, and that includes a packing break at S's in Marin). I'd like to go there more often. As for Alaska, assuming I go there someday? I'll take the tourist route.