Four Days at the Coast.

Gather round, friends, it is time for the dreaded vacation slideshow.

Not really. But sort of.

On Monday, AM, IK, Seeley, Mondo and I set off on a little mini-vacation. Destination, Beverley Beach Oregon for a bit of camping.

It was a super fun blast. The weather was great. Beautiful. Not a drop of rain. We were prepared with several large tarps and a pop-up awning. But we didn't have a single drop of rain. Thank you, Mother Earth.

What follows is a quick re-cap of our fun and not so-fun adventures through some pictures I took along the way.

Most Photogenic: The landscape and horizon definitely take the cake for most beautiful part of the vacation. Both by day or by night, I always feel most myself while at the coast.

Best Part / Most Exasperating:  The best part of the trip was definitely seeing IK. He moved to Seattle at the beginning of the year. It was so much fun to see him and he had a blast. But boy howdy, is it hard to run herd on a 4 year-old.

On our last night, we sat around the fire telling ghost stories, which for IK's sake were really just stories that involved Casper the Friendly Ghost. I told a really long story about a little boy who secretly took a monkey home from the zoo and the monkey got away and was lost in the house. At the end of the story the little boy told his mom about the missing monkey and after Casper reunited them, they took the monkey back to the zoo. The End. Except that IK added this last sentence "And then the monkey sneaked back into his backpack and went home again."

Scariest Moment: On our first morning, I was cooking breakfast. I was not using my Boy Scout skills and being safe. Which resulted in a small incident with the grease in the sausage pan that splashed and burned my face. I was okay, my glasses saved my eyes. But now my face looks like I've been doing meth for the past year. If you hear a rumor about what a wreck I look, please defend my honor. This picture doesn't do the actual damage justice. I currently have what looks like open sores (burns) on my face. Sigh.

Best Side Trip: While we did hit up the Yaquina Head Lighthouse and had a yummy picnic, the trip was sort of a bust since IK was in major need of a nap. So in my opinion, the best side trip we took was into Newport. We ate some tasty ice cream, walked around the bay front. And saw these seals.

I was also able to buy an emergency nose stud as at some point on Day 1, the bar in my nose fell out. I spent a few days worried my nose piercing was going to close up. 

Most Miserable: While having a "category" for most miserable seems like a terrible thing for a vacation blog, the good news is that this goes to the dogs. 

Mondo was miserable because he was cold, something he solved by putting himself to bed in the tent anytime the sun went down. Seeley was miserable because she was on a leash. She also got in trouble a lot when she was off-leash because she really, really, really, really wanted to play with all the other dogs on the beach whether they were on a leash or not. 

Most Delicious: The food, of course! Despite some pretty soggy hash browns the first day, we did eat like kings. 

Most Missed: Sort of a throwaway, but technology! We actually used a real map at one point when I couldn't remember the highway that would cut us over the freeway and home through Salem. While luckily IK was able to play games and watch shows AM had on her phone that didn't require cell service, we were pretty much at the mercy of good old fashioned entertainment. Games and reading. Which was sort of nice. Except if you wanted to do something like Google "Tide Pools at Yaquina Bay." And we could recharge our cell phones in the car, which is how I was able to take several hundred photos of the beach. What can I say? I love the beach!

And now we are home. I'm headed to work in a little bit and AM has to drive IK back to Seattle.

It was a fun and fairly blissful four days away from everything and everyone. I can't wait to do it again!