Franky and Pearl

Sometimes I think Jay might become a biologist or something of that sort. He seems to love living things. From plants to fish to birds to .....crabs. On his first night at the beach, Jay went exploring and found two hermit crabs who he adopted for a couple of days.

He proudly showed them to me when we arrived on Sunday. As usual, Jay named this cute pair. Franky and Pearl were Jay's newest pets. They would crawl around his hand and up his arm seemingly enjoying his company.

We stopped at the dollar store and bought a bowl that became their habitat while they lived with him. He placed sea water and a variety of rocks and sea shells.

He knew that he had named Pearl appropriately when she could not decide which shell she was going to live in. She finally settled on the biggest and prettiest of the shells and you could almost see her placing her sign on the front....."Pearl's Pad".

Jay was loving his newest adventure. We all took a long walk on the beach right after settling in our house for the next two days. We had stayed in the house last year so it almost seemed like going back to an old home. During the walk, we watched a woman trying to get a sea gull out of an enclosed porch in the house three down from us. The gull just sat there on a table while she threw him food.

Our house which is called the beach house used to be the house of a doctor over here before they turned it in to a rental house. Three bedrooms and three baths along with two fireplaces and two decks over looking the ocean made this abode a very comfortable break. Judy and my bedroom was very comfortable with bay windows overlooking the beach. Judy opened the windows and we were lulled to sleep by the comforting symphony of waves that broke below us.

A fireplace in the room with a bathroom with jetted tub and walk in closet made the room a beautiful getaway of it's own. A filling supper of chicken and french bread from Safeway finished off the day.

The next morning, Jay and I got up early to tackle our beach golf course with a couple of clubs and some balls that we brought over. We noticed the gull still sitting in the enclosed porch so I went up to see if I could coax him out. It only seemed to agitate him more and I could see from all of the white spots in the porch that he had probably been there for a while. So, I decided to call services to see if someone could come out to help. I dialed 911. the phone rang....and rang....and rang. After 6 rings, someone answered the phone and said, "Can I put you on hold?". Before I could answer, I was on hold for .....4 Minutes!. When the operator finally answered, I said, "I am glad this is not a heart attack or something.". The operator then hung up on me?! So, I called back again. This time they answered very quickly and turned me over to the State Police and I was guiding them in when Jay came around the building and announced that he had done what no other was able to. He had freed the bird. He had coaxed it out with some of my crackers. The lady who had worked for hours the day before to coax him out, thanked Jay for his work. A proud Jay said, "You are welcome!".

The morning golf tourney went well with Mia enjoying chasing the ball. Jay and I began a new sport called beach golf hockey with Mia chasing the ball between us. Every time that I would hit, I had to work around a jumping Mia. This did well and all were enjoying themselves until Mia jumped in front of my pitch getting the ball on her right shoulder and twisting her face in a look of hurt and shock and turning me into the big beast. I felt horrible as Judy picked her howling body up. I had not hit hard but the hard ball had done it's job to well.

We retreated back to the house and prepared to head out to Newport to show the kids a pier that we had found on the south side of the river that people loved to crab off of. We had figured on stopping at the Pirate Coffee shop where we knew the owners down in Depot Bay but found them closed for Mondays so we just kept on going down to the pier.

We walked out on the pier and while walking down it, I noticed someone walking the other way that I thought I recognized. Sure enough, it was a photographer friend of ours from Bend, Vern, who was out for a walk with his wife. We chatted with them for a while and then enjoyed watching the locals as they brought in their traps and sorted out their crabs. Jay wanted so bad to join in and pleaded with me to get a license, go rent the equipment, and crab with him.

We walked back down the pier to the brewery that was at the parking lot where we left our car. We then went in and found their restaurant for lunch. I looked across the room and saw Vern again and went over to ask him for suggestions. It was there first time also but we talked of other favorites that they had in town and I logged them down for future reference.

After lunch, Jay and I found an ice cream parlor while the girls did a little antique shopping. We then headed back to our house in the now sunny beautiful day.

On our way back, we took a side trip down a small road that Judy and I knew of which ran across a very photogenic bridge. After taking some shots, we started back down the one lane road. Coming around the corner we spied a couple of vultures sweeping around the sky. Upon closer look, we realized there were over 10 of these ugly but gracefully flying beasts sweeping back and forth across the sky. I had never seen so many in one place before.

Trin and Jay headed down to the beach to play in the surf with the other girls going down to film their adventure leaving me in the warm house. I sat in the chair and was off to sleep in seconds. Sometime later, Jay woke me up. "Come on Papa!, we are going down to the rocks to find some more crabs."

The afternoon was beautiful and warm as we walked down the beach. Upon reaching the rocks, Jay began to scrounge around the pools. Someone yelled, "Look!". We all looked up to see a large whale jumping out of the water just yards from where we stood. Cameras were quickly pointed that direction with some more lucky than others and Judy yelling out....."I got it!". I was able to capture the moment also but the image ended up on the right side of my pic and could be easily mistaken for a rock.

Meanwhile, Jay had found two more crabs. "What are you going to call these guys?", I asked. "Well, I have named the first one after the man this town was named after. I named him Abe after Abe Lincoln. And the second is the smallest of them all. I call him Shorty."

On our way back to the house, we ran across another strange sight. Two ducks waddling down the beach. We took a few pictures before they decided they were in the wrong place and flew off.

We fixed ourselves some supper and Shorty danced on Jay's knee as we watched the sunset on the first full day at the beach. We could not get over how beautiful the day had been and how many cool things that had made the day so memorable.

We all watched a movie, staggering ourselves off to bed to refresh ourselves for the next day that we hoped would have even a small amount of the fun of the first.