Chapter 216

Monday I had to go to Silverdale to have my final checkup on my new eye. To cut down on the Monday morning commute, I stayed at Carissa's Sunday night. In the Walker household everyone gets up before the roosters hit the outhouse and headed off to work. This left Bear and I at the house after they had gone.  As I've mentioned before, when I'm around in the morning Bear is up and terrorizing first thing in the morning. If I'm not around, Bear barely gets out of bed to eat his breakfast. Bear was all wound up and had brought me each of his toys one-by-one and I had an hour to kill, I suggested we go for a walk. He looked sooo confused that I wanted to go for a walk in the morning. Really? In the morning??? I saddled Bear up and we toured the quiet dark streets of Gamblewood. Once Bear realized I was serious about this walk thing, he really got into it.

Chris and Carissa met us at Kyanne and Ryan's house  in Tacoma for a fantastic Thanksgiving breakfast. It's Kyanne and Ryan's year to be with the Cooks, but Kyanne creatively hosted the lot of us at her house for fun and food before they went to the Cooks for more fun and food. Thanks Kyanne and Ryan. I hope you all had as good a Thanksgiving as we did.

After we had breakfast, we went to the beach to get in a couple of coats of paint and lounge around for a couple of days. Nitro patiently napped in the car while we breakfasted at Kyanne's then we all headed down the road. When Nitro is with us, he takes some of the pressure of my having to be the driving consultant for Bob. Nitro likes to stand on the arm rests and look out the windshield and he takes his job very seriously always keeping his eyes on the road.  When Nitro takes a break from co-piloting, I am refreshed and ready to take over. I think Bob is always very appreciative to have our help on these long drives.

Once Nitro's off duty, he sits on my lap making sure the coast is clear and Bob is driving up to his standards. 

On the way to the cabin the sun was setting and the views were really beautiful. This is the Willapa River in South Bend. As you drive into South Bend you'll see a sign that proclaims "The Oyster Capital of the World" and I've always questioned this. However, that sign must be correct since Wikipedia's article on South Bend states it is the Oyster Capital of the World. We all know if it's Wiki, it's gospel.

The rest of these pictures are taken somewhere between South Bend and Long Beach. Since we were moving along at a pretty good clip, the pics aren't top quality but they are still pretty.

 Black Friday morning we both found ourselves wide awake bright and early so we decided to go to the Black Friday sale at Home Depot which started at 6 a.m.  We wheeled into Home Depot by 6:30 scored our our free hot drink and snack then grabbed our $39 push button deadbolt, a Shop Vac, and a battery drill at fantastic Black Friday sale prices.

On our way back to the cabin, we stopped for breakfast at the Pig 'n Pancake. Actually, I had a turkey sandwich since Ryan had mentioned at Thanksgiving breakfast the long forgotten Denny's Superbird turkey sandwich and it gave me a hankering for one. 

It was really foggy on our way back to the cabin and I naturally took pictures of the Astoria-Meglar Bridge. This is the Oregon side of the bridge...

...and this is the Washington side.

So, by 9:30 we found ourselves back in our bed for a nap, tired out from having gone to another state, avoided paying sales tax on our excellent deals, and our breakfast out.

After we got up from our naps, I enjoyed my new sewing machine and Bob did other miscellaneous tasks. I am working on a quilt for Carissa's co-worker and found I had forgotten my iron to press on my appliques. So, digging back to the good ol' days, I heated up the tea kettle on the stove and ironed away. I got my my monkey appliques ironed on as well as pressing some seams. 

 While I was sewing, Bob installed the new deadbolt lock on the outside door then painted the kitchen door.  Since I am magnetically attracted to freshly painted surfaces, he clearly warned me not to touch the door.He felt compelled to give me the speech since I backed into it when painted the first coat on. He did not, however, relay the message to Nitro.  As Nitro made his rounds to check out all the windows, he pushed the door open with his nose and squeezed through the opening getting paint on his face and both sides of his body. Nitro had just finally gotten the paint off himself from his last trip to the cabin where he got similar marking from the first coat of the same door. And to think, Bob was worried about me! 

 Have a good week, everyone!