Inauguration Day AND the Beach

Happy Inauguration Day! I’ve been watching on CNN.com. I just can’t seem to move away from the screen even though there are long stretches that are just people in the crowd waiting. Yes, waiting people! Awesome! Everything about this Inauguration Day seems extra exciting and inspiring.

In other news, we spent a chunkjan_beach of this last weekend at the beach. I am so in love with living in Portland. I know that I am like one of those obnoxious people who is newly in love and just cannot stop talking about their great new s.o. Sorry about that. It cannot be helped. It’s warm out and the beach is just an hour and a bit away! Truthfully though (shh… don’t tell Portland) when I actually get to the coast I always think why don’t we live HERE? An hour and a bit really seems like too much, doesn’t it? I want to see the ocean every day. Every. Single. Day. In all of its smashing and sparkling glory with little crooked trees and cliffs everywhere.

We set out to check out a new coast trail we hadn’t been on before (Falcon Head). It’s always good to have a goal like checking out a new hike to feel like you’ve achieved something. You can check the trail off the list in the guide book and you get that nice accelerated heart rate that a five mile hike will give you.

This didn’t actually work out so much. We started down the old growth forest path (no little crooked trees here, these were the big ones), it smelled good, was oh so green, but then we hit some mud. We skirted right around. Then some more mud — bigger, squishier and less easily skirtable mud. But we managed. Then the trail disappeared into some really serious mud — regular squishy, super squishy and some of the puddle variety. This was TOO MUCH mud. It didn’t help that as I was trying to do some tricky jumping and mud dodging maneuvurs that I fell forward and the weight of my backpack shot to one side completely unbalancing me and I was only just saved from a full body mud dive by a hand. (See previous blog entry on not having access to laundry to see why having super muddy clothes would be bad).

So we didn’t have any choice but to go the opposite direction down to the beach to spend the rest of the day bumming around soaking up some sunshine instead of going on a nice brisk hike.

Which made me think that we need an emergency preparedness kit — probably one of the regular kind for mud slides and whatnot, but more importantly an emergency preparedness kit for Fun Times. With beach towels and a frisbee. Maybe a tank top.

Because it was seriously hot out. I didn’t believe the forecast. It’s usually a bit chilly on the beach even in the summer. But not so this weekend.

Here I am at the beginning of the trip with my long underwear (not pictured), wool sweater, heavy fleece, and goretex jacket (my hat and gloves are in my pack): jan1

Two layers down:

jan2

Seriously wishing I hadn’t worn long underwear: jan3

Also, I’ve been tagged by Lisa Nowak. More on this next post!

Happy Inauguration Day!

Bridget

3 replies on “Inauguration Day AND the Beach”

  1. How warm was it at the coast? Because I’m freezing my little Oregonian butt off here in Portland. Yeah, I know 40° isn’t cold to someone from the midwest, but it’s cold to us webfoots (webfeet?).

    Sounds like you had a great time, in spite of the mud. Your photos are awesome.

  2. When we got in the car around dusk to come home from the beach our external car thermometer said it was in the low 60’s. It dropped steadily as we drove back to Portland and when we got here it was in the low 40’s. So it must have been even warmer when the sun was out and beaming down us. I swear it wasn’t just the crazy mid-westerners out there in tees with no shoes on! Everyone was and there were even kids with swimsuits on and surfers. It was crazy.
    But I have to say the temps in the forties and fifties we’ve been getting in Portland still feel like a warm luxury to us. It’s JANUARY!! We can go for a walk every single day without any chance of frostbite or accidentally freezing to death.

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