Wednesday, 06-Sept-2017

 

As mentioned in the previous post, Daniel came out to visit for a week!  We’d made plans to do some awesome basalt climbing near the house, and then do some hiking up on Mt. Hood.  Unfortunately… there were fires.  Massive wildfires, that dropped Portland air quality into the “unhealthy” category.  And worse, literally burnt huge swaths of the Columbia River Gorge.

So climbing in the gorge was out.  Mt. Hood was in the smoke zone too, so that was out.

 

What wasn’t in the smoke was west of us; the beach and the Tillamook State Forest.  We’d already tried hiking one of the mountains in the forest, which didn’t quite work, so the next logical step was the beach!

Unfortunately, the air quality by the water wasn’t super good either… it was clear enough that Daniel, Ollie and I could breath pretty well… but Sarah was still pretty well hampered by it.  To keep her asthma as down as possible, she ended up hanging out and doing some drawing and writing at a coffee shop in town while Daniel and I took Ollie for a run up and down Cannon Beach.

It wasn’t quite the same without Sarah… but Ollie still enjoyed herself, and Daniel and I got an amazing chance to catch up, which was really amazing and much needed; though I don’t know if either of us realized that at the time.

We just walked.  Ollie frolicked and chased seagulls, maintaining a 300 yard seagull-free zone around us as we explored up and down the beach.  It was excellent.  Daniel got to take photos, I got to relax, Sarah got some alone time, and Ollie was able to get the zoomies out.

Or at east get some of them out… right?  Right?

She’ll be tired tomorrow, right?

(Ed Note: Ollie was not, in fact, tired the next day)