Camping with Cats at Cannon Beach

Almost awesome alliteration. We're on Day 1 of the rest of our lives. Mike is re-retired, and we're here with the kitties in Cannon Beach, Oregon, to celebrate. We arrived yesterday afternoon, and we've spent the day being lazy. I wasn't sure if blogging would be on the agenda, but I'm kind of bored, and so I came where all the exciting stuff is happening. Yes, it's you, my blogging friends. You guys are a complete and total party every day of every week of every season of every year. And hey! Happy Winter Solstice, Everybody!

It's the shortest day, and the longest night of the year, so it only gets better from here. Mike lit a fire in our electric fireplace right after we arrived. He's so romantic that way. Flip a switch, and instant romance. Yep...that's what you get with a re-retired engineer.

Sadie was a little freaked out when we arrived. The last several times we've been camping, we've been in our truck camper. She had to readjust to the lay of the land here. Thank goodness, we brought along our laps and quilts, and she was all over that. She settled down pretty quickly.

Smitty's an old hand at camping. He went on his first camping trip when he was just a kitten, and so he knows the ropes.

He figured out the new kitty door to the catio right away. It was pouring rain when we arrived and all night long. It rained until around noon today, but now it appears to be finished at least until tomorrow.

We brought in the cushion and quilt from the catio, and so it was a little wet out there. He didn't mind. A few times last night, he got into bed with me, and he was decidedly damp.

They like their new window seats. Sadie is sitting on the one that's been in the living room for the past several weeks, and Smitty was pretty sure she was intruding onto his territory. He was a little miffed with her in this picture.

Hey, you two! Your audience wants to see your purretty faces.

Just a few minutes after I took that picture, he reached over and nipped her on her behind. When they switched places, and turned so they weren't facing one another, everybody was a lot happier.

We're still working out the rules about these window seats. Smitty is keeping his lasers on, just in case he needs to dispense some quick justice. Sadie only has one of her lasers on. She's only half interested in anything he has to say, but she is minding her rump.

This morning, and against my own better judgment, I started the process of big stitch hand quilting the Mulligan Stew quilt. I have hand quilted only two other quilts, and I've always used Tiger Tape in the past. It's kind of a hassle, and it doesn't stick after being moved several times. This time, I used one of my quilting rulers to put a little dot at each needle in and out.

And then, I started. This will take forever, and I'll probably hate myself for ever starting, but we're off and running...a running stitch, that is. I'll still need to use tiger tape inside the quilt blocks because the marker won't show up there.

When we went to do our morning dishes, we discovered our box of dishwasher soap had hardened into a brick. (Yes, we do have a dishwasher in our RV, and it isn't me.) So, we drove into town to get some more. There were a couple of other items we needed as well. The streets of Cannon Beach are all decorated. I couldn't get a very good picture without standing in the middle of the road.

If you want to see more pictures of Cannon Beach, you can see more from our last visit right here. You can also see more about the restaurant, EVOO, where we'll have dinner tonight. It's like watching a program on the Food Network, only you get to eat the food after it's cooked.

We went to a small supermarket. I liked this "sculpture" hanging on one of the exterior walls. It's really a series of planters. The plants are all dead now, but you can see how it's made from a "trunk" of metal bar with tin cans attached for the plants. Cute, and probably pretty simple to do if you happen to have welding skills.

Later this afternoon, I got out for a walk. That's our rig there in the foreground. There are a lot of RVs here in the park, but only a few of them are actually inhabited right now. The rest have their slides pulled in and they are just being stored here for the winter.

It seems like kind of an expensive way to store an RV, but they charge $300 per month, and the owners are allowed 8 free nights for each month. With the winter rate being $40 per night, it works out to be a pretty good deal, and a safe storage place as well. We generally stay at this park when we come to Cannon Beach. It's a nice park, with a good amount of space between sites, and we pretty much have the place to ourselves right now.

So, okay, that's all I have for you today. I need to get in the shower and start getting ready for dinner tonight. I'll probably be back tomorrow with some pictures of our dinner. We're also hoping the weather will continue to improve. We're informed there is good whale watching this weekend, and so it would be good to check that out.