Jan’s Oregon trip, Day 1. I’m heading to Salem to visit Skye and her family for the Fourth of July weekend. Angela drops me off at King Street Station, and we stop at Zeitgeist Coffee for morning coffee and so I can pick up a better lunch than what they’ll have on the train. The train journey is uneventful.
Skye picks me up at the Salem station and we spend some time catching up at a boba cafe before heading to Skye’s home. Although Skye and Jared moved to the house two and a half years ago, this is the first chance I’ve to visit. It’s nice to meet Jared, Leif, and Auden again. The boys are consumed by the ongoing World Cup soccer tournament; Auden shows me the handmade bracket poster on which he’s tracking the progress of the games. I also get to meet their new-ish cats, Rumble and Jojo.
We walk to a Mexican restaurant for dinner, then on the way back Skye takes me to the small park near the house. Leif arrives to shoot hoops, and he and Skye have a little playful time on the court.
Back at the house, Leif pulls out fireworks he’s gotten from a friend. They’re small enough to set off on the concrete patio in the backyard. Jared proactively waters the nearby lawn. Leif and Auden have fun lighting the fireworks, many of which spin around. Some seems like they’re just going to shoot up a fountain of sparks — then surprise us by spitting out tiny fireballs in random directions. We’re happy nothing burns to the ground.
Jan’s Oregon trip, Day 2. I’d forgotten what it’s like to get a family ready for a trip — Skye and Jared spend the morning helping the boys pack for the trip, packing for themselves, loading the car, and getting the house ready for a brief absence.
We make the hour-ish drive to the Oregon coast, then drive up 101 for a bit. This is the same highway that Evan and I biked down in 2021 on our month-long bike trip from Seattle to Stanford. It’s a little strange to travel the same stretch of road again.
We stop to make a day hike at Cascade Head, a natural reserve that includes a climb through coastal rainforest. The trail eventually comes out onto a high, open scrubland that looks out over the Pacific.
After the hike we continue to Pacific City and check into our little AirBnB for the weekend. As soon as the boys are in the house, they’re keen to turn on whatever World Cup soccer match is in progress. They will spend the rest of the weekend either watching soccer or trying to watch soccer. During theoretically screen-free times, Leif will occasionally disappear “to use the bathroom” or “to get something” and then not come back. He will be found watching the game on his phone.
The best dinner option in town is Pelican Brewing Company, and we’re happy to learn that the wait for a table will be less than half an hour. We kill time on the adjacent beach.
After dinner, we walk up the beach a bit to a huge sand dune. Leif and Auden are just as keen to run up the dune as the last time we were here in 2021. It seems to take forever to reach the top, but there’s a nice view, and then the descent just takes half a minute.
Jan’s Oregon trip, Day 3. Leif and Auden consistently and immediately dismiss all predictive advice from their parents. When told to take a sweatshirt because it’s chilly outside, both boys will insist that they’re comfortable in a t-shirt. As soon as we leave to go to breakfast, first one boy, then the other, says that it’s cold. Leaving the house takes a long time.
We start the day with breakfast at Grateful Bread with its heavyhanded Greatful Dead theme: menu items like “Shakedown Street” and plenty of tie-dye.
In the mid-afternoon we drive to the small town of Neskowin, home to an annual Fourth of July fireworks show. We’re just barely early enough to secure a spot in the beach parking lot. We load ourselves with beach chairs, a beach canopy, a cooler, and so on, then trudge for 10 minutes to find a good spot on the beach near the evening’s show.
The beach is already busy but more and more people arrive for hours. Many groups set up elaborate fire pits or encampments with grills, tables, and other furnishings.
It’s pleasant to walk along the beach. Like all beaches in the Pacific Northwest, the Neskowin beach looks inviting but the water is bitterly cold. Jared and Leif recently purchased wetsuits, so they try those, but the water is still pretty cold. The wetsuits don’t come with booties, so their feet become numb with cold.
At one point we notice some odd, clear blobs in the sand that look like water but are semi-solid. They turn out to be moon jellyfish.
By the time the sun begins to go down, there are countless campfires along the beach in both directions — a hundred maybe? Many groups begin to set off their own fireworks, some small, some frighteningly large and loud. (Some of them rival the fireworks in the official show.) These are going off all around and above us; it’s somewhat unnerving.
One type of popular firework is a box that launches a volley of packages. When each package reaches its zenith, it deploys a parachute and a small American flag, which then drifts down to the beach. Each time such a volley begins, Leif and Auden join the horde of kids that go running in pursuit of the flags. Both boys end up with a small pile of them.
Finally, when it’s nearly 10:00 pm, the official fireworks show begins. It’s a good show, and we all enjoy it. It’s also gotten fairly cold, so we’re happy when the show ends and we can carry everything to the parking lot and drive back.
Jan’s Oregon trip, Day 4. In the late morning we drive from Pacific City back to Salem. Leif and Auden show me two of their favorite Nintendo Switch games. One is Little Kitty, Big City, in which you control a cat exploring a small corner of a cartoon Tokyo. The real cat Jojo is fascinated by the virtual cat.
The second game is Overcooked, a fast-order meal-prep simulator. Skye, Leif, Auden, and I all play together. We manage to clear a few levels, but the action keeps getting speeding up until we’re overwhelmed and laughing so hard we can’t play.
Jan’s Oregon trip, Day 5. After breakfast, Skye and Leif take me to the train station for my return trip. The train is only a little delayed getting to Seattle.
Bree has graciously agreed to pick me up at the station — only neither of us were aware that the train’s arrival coincides with yet another World Cup match in the stadium next to the station. Streets are blocked off, there are crowds everywhere, and it’s very hard for her to find anywhere she can park the car. She’s very happy after I get in the car and we can leave the area.
In the evening, we download our own copy of the Nintendo game Little Kitty, Big City. As expected, Bree enjoys the game too.
Our honorary family member, Evrim, arrives for a week and a half visit. She’s working this summer for Brown University in Providence and also taking a class. It’s been a year since she was last in Seattle.
Bree turns 19! Her friend Marina joins us for a celebratory dinner at Ishoni. Marina knows Bree well: she gives Bree a pair of earings, each of which has a 20-sided Dungeons & Dragons die and a little danging cat.
Liya was home just a month ago but decides to come down again for the weekend so she can see Evrim. Sadly, Liya’s afternoon bus never appears, and after two hours the bus company finally cancels the ride.
Angela swings into action, hopping in her car to drive up and retrieve Liya. Liya, meanwhile, takes Vancouver public transit to the town of White Rock, BC, just across the U.S./Canada border. They make it back home just after midnight.
We spend the afternoon at the Woodland Park Zoo. We used to take the kids there all the time, but it’s been years since we were last at the zoo. Bree’s friend, Marina, meets us there.
It’s a big enough zoo that we have to focus on the things we really want to see before we get tired and melt. The red panda is a hit, as are lion cubs. An unexpected favorite in the rainforest aviary is the Cock-of-the-rock, a vividly bright orange bird with a dopey expression.
Liya, Evrim, and Jan go for hike to Mirror Lake along the Pacific Crest Trail near Snoqualmie Pass. The last time Liya and Jan had visited the lake was during the pandemic in October 2020. Today it’s a much more warmer and pleasant day for a hike. It is a bit of trick to reach the trailhead, however — Jan’s new car is a sedan that rides a little low, and the divots in the gravel road get worse and worse the higher we climb. We eventually reach a rocky section that looks like too much for the car, but it’s only half a mile from the trailhead so we just park on the side of the road and walk to the trail.
The PCT is a popular trail, so we see a fair number of people, but it’s still not crowded. We only see small animals, plus Liya spots a cute salamander. We eat lunch on a spot looking out over the crystal-clear lake. A pair of cute birds keeps flying around, angling to get a bit of our lunch.