fall break

So my 6th grad class ended October 16 and I had until the 26th before my next class started. Ten days of freedom!!! It also just so happened to be parent-teacher conference time when I wasn't working. When I saw that was going to happen back in August, I told Phil, "We are going to the beach." And we did. We went camping. Well, not exactly. We went cabining. Because who wants to set up and sleep in a tent at the beach in October? Not me. (In other news, I think our tenting days are done. But back to the story.)

We looked online for either a pet friendly cabin or yurt so we could take the world's best dog. Turns out, there aren't a lot of choices. But Cape Disappointment on the Washington coast has three pet friendly (heated) cabins. And that's where we went. Neither Phil505 nor myself had ever been to Cape Disappointment, and, unlike Lewis and Clark, we were not disappointed. It was so beautiful!

Cape Disappointment is on the north side of the Columbia River in the bottom corner of Washington. So in some spots you see the river and the jetties and in others you see the Pacific Ocean.

We left Thursday after Phil got home from work and we got to the beach just in time for the sunset. This is the view from Beards Hollow Overlook.

The first night we were the only people in our loop except the camp hosts. That changed Friday night when we were invaded by two Boy Scout troops on both sides of the cabins. Middle school boys are. . . interesting.

We hiked the Benson Beach Trail and ended up here. This, I guess, is Benson Beach on the Pacific. Wilson was the only dog and there were only two other people out here that we saw.

Looking north you can see the North Head Lighthouse. The other white building is the keeper's quarters which you can rent out in the summer.

I didn't remember ever going to see this lighthouse, but Phil505 assured me we had. When I saw the pointy spire thing on top, then I remembered.

Just mere steps away from our cabin was Waikiki Beach and the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse. Tucked up on the hill is also the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center. We didn't make it up there this time, but we plan on going back for sure.

The beach was small, and tucked in between this cliff and the jetty. It was one of the best beaches I've ever been to on the coast.

It was a nice relaxing getaway with my guy. He even drove me to Long Beach so I could get an ice cream cone. Huckleberry cheesecake in a waffle cone, in case you were wondering.

Wilson is a great camping dog. To an extent. Then when he can't tolerate being on the ground anymore, he wines for a chair. He does love the beach though, no doubt about that.

From our little picnic table area we saw a whole lot of wildlife. Can you spot the bald eagle? I saw it fly across the lake. That was so cool.

We had a blue heron and another kind of crane fishing just on the other side of the lake.

There were deer all over the place. We also saw raccoons and otters.

And then there was my personal favorite, the wooly bears. The term wooly bear is an Ohio thing. We have wooly bear festivals and all kinds of weirdness about wooly bears on the 6:00 news' weather report. This was only the second time I've seen them in the northwest, so I had to take a picture.

Saturday night it started to rain. We were fine, heated cabin and all. We drove home earlier on Sunday than we had planned after we stopped for breakfast. It was like driving through the clouds. The rain has been (an annoying) welcome around here after our extremely dry summer.

And now we're back and I'm deep in the books again. I'm taking Children of Exceptionality this subterm. It's class #7 out of 12. I'm on the downhill slide now and hope to be finished by the end of August 2016, just in time to hopefully get a job for the fall.