March 28, 2015
We're fast coming up on our first complete month in Lincoln City and so I thought I'd give you a a short tour of our new casa. Pretty much everything is unpacked and we're still trying to figure out the best configuration but we've gotten a lot done.
Here's the view of the front door...with the Mini right outside.
Here's the view of the front door...with the Mini right outside.
The guest bedroom...behind the bookcase. Hahaha, it's an unusual house. Built in 1940, it was just a beach cottage and then they knocked down some walls and added some rooms to get it to its present layout. Not everything was done logically nor was it done professionally, either. That's evident throughout.
Looking from the living room into the kitchen and the dining area. The bathroom is on the right. Carol's making curtains for the windows back there.
Here's the front room with the two large picture windows
And the nerve center of the whole operation. Hahaha, my desk or work area. You can tell it is high tech.
The master bedroom.
And some of the bric and brac that is on the ledge in the front room.
Look! There's my President George W. Bush Bobble Head.
One of my pictures and the Drill Sergeant award I got a long time ago...in another galaxy far, far away.
On the bookcase I have this picture I took of the Yaquina Head Lighthouse back in 2007. Next to it is the postcard I bought when we visited the park a couple weeks ago.
It's obviously gotten a paint job since I was there last.
Ah, that was fun, wasn't it!?!
It's an unusual place but we're ready for visitors. The beach is just outside the door.
Saturday was Clean Oregon's Beaches Day and plenty of folks were out and about picking up the litter off the beach...gotta get ready for the summer season. You can see, in the picture above, a lot of the people carrying a white plastic bag. Doing their volunteer thing.
Me? I had a bucket and one of those extender arm thingies...I'm not a big fan of bending over anymore. Oh, and I also had my little camera. Still leery of bringing the big guns out so the little camera is doing the heavy lifting now.
And it's working out ok. I stayed up along the beach wall looking for trash and saw these young pines just starting out.
Hahaha, there I am, hard at work making the world a better place to live in. Note my jazzy swim trunks. Amy and Kristi made me buy them when I injured my back and was doing aquatic therapy.
Hahahaha, I still totally rock them.
CB
Just a nice contrast to the other colors. Hahaha, sometimes it is more fun looking down and looking small.
Not everyone was out there for the clean-up. There were plenty of folks there just for the fun. And for flying their shark kite.
This fellow was walking down the beach with his shark tagging along behind him. Then, when I was finished and heading the other way back towards home, I passed him again. Just a boy out walking his kite.
I got a couple of wings from some dead birds, about 10 cigarette butts and a bunch of plastic pieces and styrofoam bits. They did ask everyone to look for the small stuff that the birds or the fish could accidentally ingest. Being the ecological giant that I am, I made it my special mission to collect those small yet dangerous items.
Litter, no!! Fracking, si!!
It was a busy day because starting at 1300, they were having an arm-wrestling meet over at the Chinook Winds Casino. I've never been to one but I have, a while ago, seen a movie about arm wrestling.
Over the Top, a 1987 action drama film starring Sylvester Stallone as Lincoln Hawk, a long-haul truck driver who tries to win back his alienated son while becoming a champion arm wrestler.
I don't think I'll give much away if I tell you that Lincoln Hawk goes on to get his son back and then beats his rival, Bull Hurley, for the championships. In the end, he and his boy ride off into the sunset together in the cab of a brand-new custom truck on their way to starting their own trucking empire.
Internet
So with that as a reference, you can tell I was ready for some real drama and great excitement at the competition.
But before that, I had to walk on over to the Casino. It's a little over a half-mile walk. Here's some of the rooms at the Casino's motel overlooking the beach.
And it was a nice day for a stroll.
The convention center, where the arm-wrestling meet was being held, is on the second floor of the Casino and to get there you have to, gosh, walk right by main part of the Casino.
OK, I wasn't surprised by the size of the crowd. It was about what I expected. What I was surprised by is that there is like a whole sub-culture of arm wrestlers with their own language and standards.
These guys that arm wrestle are deeply into their sport. I think I was expecting some guys that decided to come on out and test their muscles and have a little fun doing it.
Uh-uh!! These guys were deadly serious...and I wasn't about to make any flip remarks about them or their sport. Not and live, anyway. There were some seriously mean looking dudes there.
And the crowd was polite and attentive.
I know this is out of focus, I was trying to be sneaky getting this shot. But this is from another event for the Washington State Championships...I think.
And this guy, either from Vancouver, Washington or Vancouver, British Columbia, belongs to an Arm Wrestling Club!! I didn't know they had arm wrestling clubs!!
Wha...!?!?!
OK, this was the first match and it was different from the ones that followed. These two guys were going head-to-head in a best out of five match and the winner got a purse of...
$1,000!!!!
They explained the rules and then the judges moved in to get them set.
There's a very rigorous protocol that they follow. The judges have to position the hands just so. From either side. The official on the left judges the hands from the audience side and the other fellow positions them and gets things ready from the other side.
Here are just a few of the 24 rules for competition:
- Free hand must be in contact with the peg at all times.
- Shoulders must be square to the table before start of match.
- Competing elbow must be placed on the elbow pad at all times.
-Thumb knuckles must show on competing hands before match starts.
- Referee must be able to pass closed fist between biceps and forearm of competitor before start of match.
- Competing wrists must be straight before start of match.
- Gripped hands must be in center of table, in line with pegs.
Oh, the guy in the blue shirt won the match and the money.
Next up was the left-handed competition. They had six guys competing and none of them looked like a push-over. Good grief!! My first thought was, Steroids, anyone?
Now this I did not know but there are several different styles of arm wrestling each with their own name. One of these guys, I think it was the second from the right, evaded the question when asked what style he used to wrestle with.
And they were off.
Notice the straps around their wrists? If the judges can't get the hands positioned right after 30 seconds then they can strap the two together for the match. Every precaution is taken to ensure each competitor gets an equal start. After that, there was a lot of contortion and movement trying to get that extra edge in order to win.
The guy on the left...the one looking a wee bit bored as the judges got the hands just so, eventually won. No big surprise there, right? Look at those guns!!
Judas Priest!!!
See what I mean about the contortions. But ya gotta keep your elbow on the pad and not release the dowel with your non-wrestling hand.
The guy on the right was the best at playing the mind games. He'd fiddle with the grip and then push away and walk around disgusted, rosin up his elbow and hand again and then slowly step back up to the table. All the while his mouth was ratcheting up and down with smack talk.
Didn't help with Goliath.
Seems not too long ago, during one of these matches the Emcee said the wrestlers broke the table with the pressure and weight they put on it.
After an hour of standing and two of those Smith & Forge Hard Ciders (Hahaha, they were really hard and I was regretting pounding them down so quickly), I decided to call it a day. There was a lot more arm wrestling but I'd seen enough for me.
Heading out towards the escalators.
And as I was meandering home, I saw this car in the parking lot of the resort. Hahaha, some SeaHawks Fans from Arizona.
Goooooo, 'Hawks!!
So that was our Saturday. Today, we were enjoying our day so much, we took a long walk on the beach.
March 29, 2015
We got off to a late start but it was still a nice day. This one was ready to go.
CB
And to start it off, we got to admire the lawn in front of our place. Cory mowed it yesterday and it looks good. You can just make out the bird feeders that Carol transplanted here from Seattle.
Always good to know...my philosophy is very simple regarding Tsunamis...head to the high ground. I doubt I'll be looking down for any signs about which route to take.
Duh!!
It's the last day of Spring Break for the Oregon schools and the beach was semi-busy. This is looking north. We headed south, though.
Ahoy, Matey!! Me and me First Mate are setting sail for beaches unknown!!
Argh!!
A Happy Accident. Hahaha, I think it's interesting.
I am totally enjoying these walks along the beach. We wear flip-flops down to the sand and then we stash them along the side in the rocks and stroll down the beach barefoot.
Surprisingly, the Pacific isn't all that cold. It's cool enough to let you know you got your tootsies in the ocean but not cold enough to be uncomfortable. We usually walk far enough in that the waves roll in over our feet.
I'm sorry. They're still so new to me and I'm still fascinated with the patterns the sands make. Maybe, someday, I'll stop posting pictures like this. Just don't hold your breath, OK?
The beach.
CB
Fun Facts: Sea foam, ocean foam, beach foam or spume is a type of foam crated by the agitation of seawater, particularly when it has high concentrations of dissolved organic matter from things like the offshore breakdown of algal blooms.
As the seawater is churned by breaking waves in the surf zone adjacent to the shore, the presence of these compounds under the turbulent waters traps air, forming persistent bubbles that stick to each other through surface tension. Due to its low density and persistence, foam can be blown by strong on-shore winds from the beach towards the inland.
We've seen this guy so often it is no longer novel. The Coast Guard helicopter seemingly just flies up and down the coast at different times of the day.
We walked a mile down the beach to a series of large rocks along the waterline. The tide was going out and the rocks were pretty much exposed.
Fun Facts: When there are two high and low tides each day with different heights, that pattern is called a mixed semi-diurnal tide. The semi-diurnal range (the difference in height between high and low waters over about half a day) varies in a two-week cycle. Approximately twice a month, around new moon and full moon when the Sun, Moon and Earth form a line, the tidal forces are stronger.
The tide's range is then at its maximum; this is called the Spring Tide. It's not named after the season, but, like that word, derives from the meaning jump, burst forth, rise, as in a natural spring.
When the Moon is at first quarter or third quarter, the Sun and Moon are separated by 90 degrees when viewed from the Earth, and the Sun's tidal force partially cancels the Moon's. At these points in the lunar cycle the tide's range is at its minimum; this is called the Neap Tide.
Spring Tides result in high waters that are higher than average and low waters that are lower than average. They also have stronger tidal currents than average. There's about a seven-day interval between springs and neaps.
Ah, I see.
Internet
And they fish along this beach, too.
CB
So we found a bunch of anemones...and took pictures of same.
Hahaha, plenty of them. It's still new to me folks. Just be glad I didn't include all the pictures of them that I took. Be very glad.
Lots of folks were out and combing the rocks looking for rocks and shells and sea life.
There were all kinds of critters climbing over the rocks. I think these are Spotted Sandpipers.
There's a ramp down to the beach for cars here. It still doesn't seem right for cars to park on the beach. Hahaha, I'm still stuck in the Southern California mode for Huntington Beach and Malibu.
All the little kids were out excitedly combing the beach for treasures.
And we even found some small fish in the tidal pools.
I was curious about the name of these small critters and so I checked several sites on the Internet and the best name I came up with for these things, and I saw it several times in several different sites, was Tiny Fish. I like a good, scientific name.
It's hard to see but it is the slightly darker line just a bit to the right of center in the picture.
I went back and checked one more site and I think this is a sculpin, a well-camouflaged fish with fan shaped fins at its side.
While we were there a Mom and her son were searching around the tide pools. She found this small Hermit Crab and was showing it to her boy.
Ahhh, anemones.
I walked up the side of the beach a bit and got this shot looking back down towards the ocean.
You can't always trust pictures. Looking at this shot you'd think the waves were like 20 feet tall but they weren't. I guess it's the angle because the waves were maybe, at best 5-7 feet tall.
Hahahaha, but waves do not bother this one when she's on the trail of something interesting. In fact, we both got a bit wetter than we wanted to when a rogue wave came in fast while we were getting some pictures of a starfish.
Taking the time to enjoy the sights and sounds.
And he was still out there on his perch casting his fates into the wind.
Remember I told you we got swamped by a rogue wave? Well, this is what I was trying to shoot. A black starfish that Carol had found.
Then she found a more conventionally colored starfish.
There's some beautiful sights along this beach. And even though there were some ominous clouds off towards the horizon, it was a pleasant day. And the winds weren't that bad today, either.
Hahahaha, me getting all artsy-fartsy again. I can't help it.
Hahahaha, it'll be over soon enough.
So we had an enjoyable walk. Carol got around 15 new stones to add to her collection. We found a couple of starfish, some tiny fish and a couple of Sandpipers.
CB
This is a kick, living by the beach. I'm not big on swimming in the ocean but I'm pretty much the king of wading. And strolling along taking in the sights and sounds.
All in all, it's a great way to spend a day.
Life is good.
Hooah!!
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