I just finished about three hours of typing today’s entry when, ZAP!, it all just disappeared. It was a really good one, too. But, I’m not going to try to redo it because I’m a little bummed.

It included everything that happened today, in vivid detail, and I was trying to end it with a photo of dinner when things went bad.

In a nutshell, today was cold compared to yesterday. Hence the title. Had to wear a jacket all day and it was overcast. I think I mentioned that the local weathermen decided there was a one-day cold front in the area, but the rest of our stay will be nice and sunny.

We went to San Diego which is a 35 mile, 45 minute trip.

I got a new military ID card and a base pass for the car. While I was doing that Diane got the oil changed in the car, gassed it up, did some shopping and returned to park in the furthest space away from where I was. It was planned, I’m sure.

We returned to the condo and cooked dinner and just rested. I rested so much I fell asleep.

Now it’s time for bed. We hope for sun tomorrow.

Well, here we go again.

We finally achieved escape velocity to leave our orbit around St. Helens and are now on our way to Medford, Oregon. The plan was to leave home at noon and we made it out that door around 1:45, right on time. In case you don’t have a map handy, Medford is pretty close to California’s northern border with the much prettier state of Oregon. It normally takes five hours to get there, but it took Diane 5 hours and 3 minutes. She lost the three minutes when she stopped for gas at the Seven Feathers Casino. That’s about 50-80 miles short of our destination, but it was a good choice

Diane’s real proud of me, she said so, because I didn’t rush her this morning, or get upset because it was taking so long to get gone. I admit, it was a severe struggle, but I did it. First time in 40 some years. I regret it’s taken me so long to have achieved such a calm point in my life. Sure makes things easier when Diane isn’t mad at me at the beginning of a long trip.

Another exciting thing, besides Diane not being mad at me, is that she only packed one (1, uno, ichi) suitcase. That meant less trips to the car for loading, and less trips at each stop to unload. That can only mean that packing extra suitcases all these years is directly related to her being mad at me for encouraging her to move along a little faster. I will never encourage her to do that again. Besides the benefit of hauling around less luggage, it’s a lot less stressful.

In preparation for this trip Diane made me vacuum her car yesterday. So, I got two Avon boxes and totally emptied it. One box was for all the “stuff” in bins and on the floor. I filled it. The other box was for the glove box. It was only half full. Diane’s job was to decide what went back in the car. She did a good job and I told her so. It’s not often that I get to assign her tasks.

It was sunny and clear most of the way. Got up to 62 degrees for a long time. An absolutely beautiful Oregon day.

We got into our room by 7 pm. Unfortunately, the hotel doesn’t do evening food on weekends so we had to fend for ourselves with apples and cheese.

Diane has to get a good nights sleep tonight because she has 400 miles to drive tomorrow. That will be Fresno. She has to drive all the way because I pulled a leg muscle with all that sitting today. Actually, that’s a lie. My hip and leg hurt a lot most of the time but I don’t know why because my doctor hasn’t told me. Diane said I have to make an appointment so she can do that. That’s probably not a bad idea. For now, I’ll be taking lots of ibuprofen. Lots of it.

I gotta tell you about last night … as soon as I remember what happened … oh ya, it’s about the dogs. I always take them out before we go to bed with the hope none of them will find it necessary to get creative with their need for facilities. I may have mentioned that we’ve seen coyotes in the field, but they’ve always been on the other side of the fence. Last night there was one in our side yard no doubt looking for an Ozzie snack. He was apparently hanging out by the grapes. The big dogs didn’t see it at first, and neither did I. When they did, however, both the big dogs just launched after it without making a sound. Very eerie. The coyote ran by within 30 feet of me, but doubt he saw me because our two big dogs were hot on his tail. I figured they wouldn’t be back for hours, but they returned within 10 minutes. That really surprised me. Hopefully it surprised the coyote enough that it will tell its friends that they shouldn’t mess with the big dogs at our house.

We have a cat, now, too. It lives outside in a kennel I put out for her because it was cold. She would really like to move inside, but Ziva would as soon eat her as not. They’ve visited a number of times and Ziva really wants to play, but the cat isn’t familiar with how that works so slaps and hisses at her. Makes close encounters pretty exciting.

Now I’m going to watch the rest of the Blazer game.

Today Diane tricked me into the car then drove me to Seaside where she had book a room at the Hillcrest Inn. I can only guess that she figured that i would confuse the name of the hotel with our home address. I must admit that I was temporarily confused when she took off my blindfold, which I was encouraged to wear for the entire trip. It wasn’t bad, actually. I had a little nap then we were there. Like magic. I should have known something was up when she made me pack a suitcase.

I really didn’t have to wear a blindfold. And, I knew where we were going, but I know you probably already figured that out. I’m so transparent.

On the way here we stopped at Astoria Safeway Gas Station for gas, then went to COSTCO and got the surprise of our short lives. It was closed. Actually, it’s not only closed, it’s turned into a strip mall and none of them are COSTCO. So, I did a little investigation and discovered that it was moved a few miles down the road toward Seaside. It’s in a brand new shopping mall that wasn’t there last week. Well, it wasn’t there the last time we were out this way and neither of us can remember when that was. Maybe one or two years. I guess they can build an entire mall in that amount of time. If anyone’s interested, there’s still lots of open space if you want to come over and build a store. COSTCO and Home Depot are already there, so think up something different.

The reason we stopped at COSTCO was to get lunch. We love their ginormous Polish dogs. For $3 we can both eat and walk away satisfied. The downside of the $3 meal is that it cost an additional $150 for all the other things we didn’t need.

We drove the rest of the way to the Hillcrest Inn without further expense. Ruth, the owneress, met us at the front desk. We knew it was Ruth because that’s who Diane made the reservations with and Ruth called Diane by name. She’s a very nice lady.

We got all checked in and visited our room before getting the luggage, and other “stuff”. It’s a suite. Cute. And we can see the ocean. For the price, it’s exceptional.

After getting settled, we bundled up and headed for the boardwalk. The Seaside Aquarium is just a block away. They have a really cool whale skeleton hanging in their front window. Nice. At the boardwalk, we turned left and headed for the Seaside Turnaround which is an international landmark known throughout the world as the place where Lewis & Clark ended their epic journey. That’s probably not epically correct, but it has a nice statue commemorating that event so it’s good PR for the city. There were people walking all over the beach, and many standing on the boardwalk pretending to watch the sunset. I say pretending because the sky was overcast and it was just getting dark and no one could see the sun. It just got darker, and darker. The was a guy taking a video of the waterfront building’s lights. I walked in front of him and waved at him. He waved back.

By this time we decided we were getting hungry and headed down Broadway (I think) toward Duggars for some good seafood. On the way we stopped and at many of the eclectic shops lining the street. Nifty stuff. When we got to 1st street we met Virginia, from our church, heading toward us. We chatted a little bit then parted mentioning that we were headed for Duggars. Virginia shrugged and said, “they’re good, but I always go to Norma’s Ocean Diner when I’m in Seaside”. We, of course, had never heard of it so decided to give it a visit instead of Duggars. Turns out it was an excellent choice. Norma’s is rated as one of the best restaurants on the Oregon coast. It’s been there for 35 years. Go figure. So, we figure that’s the reason we met Virginia on the street. She led us there.

Diane had halibut fish and chips, and I had a classic dungeness crab louie. Diane’s came with a cup of chowder, which she doesn’t like, so I ate it. It was absolutely wonderful. So was my louie, and Diane’s fish. Easily the best either of us has ever had. So, it was a terrific coincidence that we encountered Virginia on this, the last day of 2011, in a town 120 miles from home. Pretty cool coincidence

From Norma’s we headed back to our room which was only 1.5 blocks north. We stopped at the office to pick up an extra blankie for Diane because she like to have heavy covers and the ones on the bed appeared to be pretty light. Plus, it was chilly in the room when we left. But, when we returned it was toasty warm, probably because we cranked the thermostats up in both rooms before we left. They worked nicely.

Now we’re all cozy in our room watching an NCIS marathon. It’s 8:41pm (2041 if you have a military nature), and it’s almost time for bed. Perhaps we’ll watch the ball drop in NYC at 9pm then go to bed. Staying up until midnight just isn’t in our best interests. We’re old.

G’nite.