Pacific City, Oregon
There are a lot of ways to recuperate after a long hard bike ride. Climbing a giant hill is an odd one.
About half our beach house contingent returned to the “real world” today, leaving Joe, Carol, Susan, Dave, Eileen, Erin, Jonah, and me at Pacific City.
We packed Jonah into a Snugli, a carrying pack for infants, and walked down to the beach. With the sun shining brightly and a cold wind blowing, Jonah burrowed himself down into my chest and was presumably lulled to sleep by the beat of my heart and the jostling of my steps. One way or another, he was passed out for almost the entirety of the walk.
I gave the Jonah and the Snugli to Erin before Joe and I climbed the dune. Susan, Carol, Erin, and Jonah waited below while Joe and I hoofed it to the top. Quite a view from up there, and a bit of struggle to make it that far, but Joe and I both tend to love a challenge (particularly those which require effort but are ultimately surmountable). Truth be told, I’m already looking forward to the day when Jonah can join us in making the climb. That’s probably not more than 2-3 years off. If I continue to ride Reach the Beach, he’ll probably even climb the dune faster them I will.
After our return to the beach house, we played a game of Worst Case Scenario, wherein teams attempt to guess the correct way to handle one dire situation after another. For example, a card might read, “How to treat a poisonous snake bite” with the choices being (a) start running around really fast to get the venom out of your system; (b) attempt to suck venom out of the wound, dress it, and proceed to emergency care; or (c) attempt to bite the snake back as this will transfer the venom back to the snake. Many times the solution was obvious, but some times not, and a few times the group concensus was that the card’s answer was wrong. Nonetheless, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that I was somehow persuaded to allow our team (Erin, Eileen, me) to answer “slap the victim on the back of the head” to the worst case scenario of “What do you do when someone gets something in their eye?” That’s not just wrong, that’s embarrassing. And funny.
In evening, most of the group turned to Phase 10—the world’s longest card game—while Erin and Jonah slept a bit, and I did some reading. I’m not sure how late we all stayed up, but it was past 1 when I finally turned in. The card game was still going strong.