The Oregon Coast

Side note: I love blog stats, and I have discovered that three visitors have found my blog in the past by searching for "Creamy corn salsa for fish". I can't imagine the disappointment of finding a regular 'ol blog when I was expecting a tasty snack. Although I have never blogged about that, you are more than welcome here.  If one of you is currently reading this, thank you for pausing your quest for the best fish salsa to read my blog.

Oregonians never say, "Hey human beings! Let's go to the beach!" And rightfully so. Beaches are sunny places with lots of sand located near a large body of water. Oregon has the large body of water but little sand and less sun. "The Coast" is what you say when you want to go look at beautiful combinations of water and rock.

Compounding the issue, the Pacific is probably the most egotistical of all the oceans. The Pacific thinks it's all that and a bowl of candy.

Indian: Wheee! I'm an ocean!

Arctic: The only reason I get noticed is because of the giant melting ice cube I'm babysitting. And the animals that live around me. 

Atlantic: I do say, Arctic old boy. Would you quit stirring about? It's frightfully chilly up there. Mmm, now that's the spot, I'm getting a current from the Gulf of Mexico. Tally ho, what what!

Pacific: I AM THE BIGGEST BESTEST OCEAN IN THE WHOLE WORLD DUDE I'M SOOOOO MASSIVE! WOW I HAVE IT ALL. SHARKS, ISLANDS, BIG WAVES WOOOOOOO

Atlantic: Good show! How are your trade routes these days, Pacific old chap? Mine are doing just splendid when I'm not buggering them up with the occasional hurricane.

Pacific: SCREW TRADE ROUTES, I'VE GOT PIRATES AND POSSIBLY SUNKEN TREASURE! GNARLY TOURISM, MAN! AND HURRICANES? I HAVE THOSE PLUS TSUNAMIS, WHAT NOW?!

Arctic: I don't see why you two distinguish yourselves apart from me. We're essentially the same body of water.

Atlantic: Do calm down up there, Arctic. You're sending a dreadful chill down my coast.

Pacific: HAW HAW WHATEVER I'M TOTALLY A DIFFERENT OCEAN THAT'S WHY MY NAME IS PACIFIC.

After Jamison's wedding, we attended a fantastic church service at Fairview Mennonite, where Jamie was married and also where Randy and Shelley attend. After the service, Shannon's family, Shelley's family, Pastor Floyd's (partial) family, Shelby, and I took off for the coast. Myron and Alissa joined in, but since those two lovebugs had plans to travel into California, they drove separate. Our group (without Myron's) was 17, so we borrowed a 15-passenger van and Shelby's car.

Over the years, I've been to the coast a couple of times with my sisters. Each time we go out, we visit Newport, a charming town located roughly 70 miles from my sister Shelley's home. Newport is a tourist town, packed with delectable shops, restaurants, and deep-sea fishing charter offices. There are a few large factories that clean and package large quantities of fresh seafood, but those places are beneficial to the shops because they provide a giant salty, fishy smell-cloud that sets the tone for the coastal-themed tourism.

What better place to start being tourists than in one of the several salt-water taffy shops?

So much candy.

So much laxative.

Myron and Alissa briefly pause from their great quandary: which free sample to try?!

Definitely the pina colada. 

I'm grateful the candy shops let you have one free sample of salt water taffy because that's the maximum limit of sugar a diabetic should have in one sitting/standing. Sure, there's sugar free options available but they're mixed bags of less-tasty taffy! Initially, I was pretty skeptical of the flavors. How peanut-buttery does the "Peanut Butter" taffy taste? Answer: very.

We stopped at a cafe so Elaine could recharge her coffee-powered batteries. 

After checking out the local shops, we visited a pier in the nearby cove. This is a favorite spot of mine, where dozens of bachelor sea lions fight for position on prime bachelor real-estate. But they were all calm and quiet, which was preposterous! Where's the noisy, barking sea lions and who substituted them with these sacks of lard?!

Shelby tried offering Jocelyn to the sea lions, but they weren't having any of that nonsense.

This dude was catching crabs off the pier. 

Pastor Floyd was impressed. We don't have any piers in Iowa, much less piers 

you can catch crabs from. 

Carita (held by her father/my brother-in-law Konrad) wanted to let 

me know where all the sleeping sea lions were. 

 "What's the big deal?" Thinks Annika. "It's just some dumb 'ol sea lions. 

I wish there were more cows and pigs and cornfields around here..."

It was slightly disappointing to see the sea lions calm and quiet. I was hoping to see them fight and bark like they always do.

My sister Shannon leaned a little too close to the edge with Carita, who promptly kicked off one of her Crocs into the water to show how she felt about the crime of fashion adorning her feet.  Shannon removed her daughter's other Croc but didn't know what to do with it. Pitch it in the water so a sea bum could have a pair? Throw it away? Shop online for one heavily-used neon-green baby Croc?

I told Shannon I'd dive in for the Croc if she tossed one of my nieces or nephews down in there as well. Because I'm a good uncle and everything.

Carita cried for a little bit because she loves her Crocs. She's too young to realize that, as a woman, she's supposed to hate sensible, comfortable footwear and instead crave painful-yet-fashionable toe clothes. But then Carita forgot all about the Croc because, after all, she's not yet two and there were a lot of sleeping sea lions to watch.

HOLD ON TO YOUR PANTS! Shelby snatched a bucket from the crab fisherman and whisked the Croc out of the water. A decent crowd was present on the pier at that time and they all had seen the drama unfold over the little floating Croc. When Shelby successfully maneuvered the bucket to scoop up the Croc, they let out a cheer so loud, it awoke the sea lions, who immediately started fighting with each other. It was beautiful.

Hey guys, wake up. The humans are here to watch us fight 

over our seaweed-covered dock again.

After visiting the sea lions and safely stashing Carita's Crocs in a purse, we took off for the actual real coast.

The Oregon coast is usually windy and chilly, so instead of bringing suntan lotion and swimming trunks, I took an extra pair of jeans and a t-shirt that I didn't mind getting wet in. Shelby went cruising around in swimming trunks, because he's practically an Oregonian and he's used to the cold.

 

After photobombing my pastor and his beautiful wife, I started running for the ocean. You may have been told that the Pacific is saltwater, but actually it's fresh. As in freshly melted from an iceberg. I don't get to splash in the Pacific very often, so I can't be too picky.

I ran in ankle-deep at first, but Shelby started talking words at me and I couldn't understand him because the shock of the water had numbed my ears. So I ran back and he asked me if I had taken my phone out of my pocket. He's a cool brother like that, but since I'm not entirely stupid, I had already put my sensitive electronics in a safe place. I double-checked my pockets and gave him a napkin for safekeeping. Randy walked by and, noticing the water line had only gotten to an inch above my ankles, tossed the challenge, "Is that all you got, eh?"

Oh, it was on. I went into the ocean WAY past my belly button. Next Spring when I thaw out, I'll totally tell Randy he's got nothing on me. On the brisk retreat to shore, I kicked up a salty spray right into my mouth. It was liberating and awful at the same time.

We checked out some tide pools and poked some sea creatures.

To finish off our visit to the coast, we ate at Mo's. It's been a tradition to eat at one of the several Mo's restaurants along the coast, and as traditions go, it's one of my favorite.

Floyd shared some of his baked oysters with me and they were a 

lot better than my imagination told me they would be.

 

 

 This play-by-play account shows Christopher's reaction to eating 

buttery baked oyster for the first time in his life.

 

I had shrimp, mashed potatoes, and chili. Not the most seafoodish of choices, but that's because Mo has yet to create a gluten-free clam chowder option.

These two photos were taken MOMENTS apart. It's a good indicator of how ravenous I was. The camera couldn't keep up. My hands were like a blurred conveyor belt to my mouth.

After Mo's, we traveled back to Shannon's. Tourism is exhausting!

The following day, I took off for home. Shelby very kindly drove me to the airport because I had too much luggage to fit in with Floyd's carload. Let me just go on a giant tangent about how awesome Southwest airlines is.

They're the best.

I had two check-in bags FOR FREE on the way out, and since one of them was a giant cardboard care package from Grandma Debby, Shelby was able to send some of his luggage home with me. (Because he drove out two years ago and he will be coming home this January.) Southwest is not only totally chill about check-in bags, they let you sit wherever. Prior to boarding, I found a penny on the ground and could hardly contain my enthusiasm. My close friends know how much I love spare change, but this surprised the kind folks waiting to board. The discovery of the penny led to not one BUT TWO more pennies and a nickel! A sweet young lady had seen the other coins forlornly abandoned underneath the lobby bench we were sitting on, so since she pointed them out, I split the spoils with her: 4 cents apiece.

Oh yeah, Southwest lets you sit by whomever you wish, which is awesome. I got to sit by the girl that likes spare change as much as I do. (For my friends that antagonize me about my penny-pinching ways, you should start collecting coins.) We chatted the whole 4-hour flight to Las Vegas and I totally didn't forget to catch her name like I did with Christian Girl. This young lady's name was Erin and we're friends.

Erin declared that she didn't know how airplanes worked, but she didn't want to know. I am fairly knowledgeable about aerodynamics, lift vs. drag, wing shape, and thrust, but I refrained from saying anything about those (allegedly boring) topics and said "It's mostly wizard magic." A young man named David was sitting beside us on the flight. He is an engineer and was bursting at the seams to tell us about how airplanes work. I giggled inside because I met a lot of engineers like him when I was in college, and they're truly charming in their own socially-awkward way.

I got into Omaha around 11pm and drove to my cousin Kyle's. I slowed down as I popped over the hill that Kyle frequently monitors in his squad car. As I got to the bottom of the hill, there was the ominous Crown Vic sitting there, eyeballin' me. Kyle sent me a text: "61, tsk tsk." I told him that I was still on 9pm time and would keep him company if he'd like.

He picked me up and we cruised around looking for bad guys til 1am. But evidently bad guys go to bed early on Monday nights, so we just had some good conversations. I stayed the night at Kyle's, then drove home on Tuesday.

I really enjoyed my trip to Oregon and realized that I don't visit as much as I should. I should visit every other month, probably.

I should also fly Southwest more often. That company is the best.

Jamison & Ciara's Wedding

My trip to Oregon started at my cousin Kyle's home, which I blogged about previously. It was more like a pre-trip vacation. Here's some photos that I didn't add to the last post.

Kyle's faithful dog, Willow.

Running around in one of Kyle's bulletproof vests was AWESOME. Come at me, Willow.

Kyle's very own Adventure Chariot.

My trip to Oregon started by driving to the wrong airport. I'm sure this happens to everybody in the whole world just me. I wasn't about to trust my ancient GPS so I planned ahead and printed out directions from Kyle's to the airport. But when given the choice between Eppley Airfield and North Omaha Airport, I logically chose the latter. C'mon, this is what comes to mind when you think "airfield".

But that just shows how wrong preconceived notions are. This is North Omaha Airport:

I plugged in my ancient GPS and it rewarded my distrust by slowly acquiring satellites. This process takes ten minutes on a good day, so I decided to speed up the process by doing some footwork. I walked into the small hangar and met the sole occupant: an octogenarian reclining leisurely in an armchair, watching the Iowa football game on a small television. I liked him immediately.

"Excuse me, sir. You have a beautiful airport here, but it's the wrong one. Where's the main Omaha airport?"

He eyeballed me for a moment. What he saw no doubt confirmed his suspicion about my entire generation; a group of strangely-dressed kids with money to travel but not enough brains to know where they're traveling.

"Eh, ah, well..." He scratched his chin, totally unaware that my flight was an hour away and I was panicking a wee bit. "You just need to head East on the nearest boulevard, then eventually you'll see some signs."

I envisioned driving for 12 hours and seeing signs, alright. 

The ones that say "Welcome to Ohio".

"I can't quite remember the name of the street." The old man said. "But you just turn East and eventually there will be signs for the airport."


His directions proved true and I quickly rushed to the airFIELD. Finding the correct destination was only the first hurdle. I then had to find adequate parking that wouldn't cost me my life savings while the car awaited pickup by Kyle and his wife. I turned into a "Convenient Outdoor Parking Ramp" and texted the location of the car to Kyle. I unloaded my two check-in bags (Thank you, O Benevolent Southwest Airlines!) and immediately recognized my next hurdle: carrying all of my worldly possessions from the outskirts of the airport complex to the terminal. I then began to question why I had so much luggage for a 10-day trip. As a Mennonite, I felt full responsibility to make good on the Two Free Checked Bags policy that Southwest offers. Mom filled a cardboard box with goodies for her daughters in Oregon and I loaded a steamer trunk the approximate size of Rhode Island for myself. With precious few hands to manage the luggage, I wore my coat and backpack despite the temperature soaring past 75 degrees. So by the time I threw my check-in bags at the nice Southwest attendant, I was all sweaty and pretty much a nervous wreck.

Mom's cardboard box was bursting at the seams, partially because she packed so much, and also partially because the slippery cardboard box visited the parking garage cement a few times on the way to the terminal. The Southwest attendant brought me a roll of packing tape and I stitched the box back together. It eventually made its way to Oregon all in one piece.

My flights were uneventful but very pleasant because Southwest is the coolest airline in the entire US. No assigned seats! How cool is that. On my way to Denver, I sat in the front row by an elderly lady and her husband. She had flown countless times, but this flight was her husband's first, so she talked him through each step, and comforted him during each spot of turbulence.

My flight to Portland was shared with a nice young Christian lady that I never caught the name of but wished I had. She was reading "Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?" and I was reading "One Second After". The majority of the flight was fairly uneventful but our concentration was interrupted frequently by a small clique of giggly teenaged girls a few rows back. They laughed about everything, including how silly their laughs sounded. The male flight attendant stopped by their aisle roughly 36 times on his own volition. The girls were too short to press the Attendant Button, which made me thankful. They giggled and cooed at the middle-aged flight attendant. Christian Girl and I smiled and postulated on the vast emptiness of their craniums.


Near the very end of the flight, we soared over a large mountain range and hit our very first serious turbulence of the day. I've been given worse spankings than that turbulence, but obviously the Clique had never experienced anything so terrifying in their life. They immediately began wailing that we were most assuredly going to perish. Christian Girl and I laughed. The "bumpy air" subsided and we landed safely.

As we exited the plane and headed toward baggage claim, I meant to ask Christian Girl what her name was. Instead, I caught sight of my sister Shannon and several of her children, so I ended up running over to them instead.

I spent many awesome days with my sisters Shannon and Shelley, who had joint custody of me. I stayed at Shannon's to begin, then Shelley's until Pastor Floyd's family arrived, then I moved back to Shannon's, with occasional stops at Shelley's. I was constantly making the 15-minute trip between the two homes and quickly had half my luggage at either place. I spent a lot of time with my nieces, nephews, Shelby, and even a little time with Jamison. My days were filled primarily with recovering from the shock of how much my nieces and nephews have grown in my 10-month absence. Charlotte and Carita are nearly walking while Jocelyn has a decent grasp of at least two languages, English and Gibberish.

 Benson had his 8th birthday when I was out there.

Annika and Elissa

Carson, reloading his rubber band gun after an intense skirmish.

Jocelyn, getting some office work done.

Charlotte, pondering her life's decisions while using a walker.

Jamison, the dapper groom.

Shield your eyes, Shelby's dessert is strong enough to cause 

cardiac arrests just from one glance.

October 5th, 2013.
Oregon is beautiful. There's a slight breeze pushing the morning fog away and the sun is breaking through the ever-present rainclouds. Today's weather is going to be fantastic.

Jamison organized a breakfast at Pioneer Villa this morning, and around 20 people came. Friends, relatives, and siblings. Because of the healthy dose of Iowans present, there was a decent amount of noise being produced by our group. We ordered breakfast and jokingly tried to talk Jamison out of getting married.

"What would it take to get you to walk away from the wedding?" Pastor Floyd shouted over the not-so-dull roar.

"Not much." Said Jamison.

I was shocked, but realized Jamie had thought we asked "What could stop you from getting married?"

We reworded it and he replied, "Oh, I don't think you'd be able to keep me from getting married. I love Ciara." So we laughed and congratulated him for his big day.

This is the newest Instagram shading option. It's called "Mortuary", for when

 you want your healthy, handsome friend to look sickly and pale.

Stephanie declared that her waffle was inedible. Shelby started munching 

on it because hey, free waffle.

A booth full of Jamie's charming sisters.

Solly told us about that one time when his fantastic girlfriend Christina caught a four-foot shark.

In the back of my mind, I remembered that my sisters were planning a giant brunch. So I didn't order much food. A slice of grilled ham, two eggs, some hash browns, and orange juice. As a side note, the food out here in Oregon is great (and there are way more Gluten-Free options) but the staff is definitely more, uh, East-coast? I can't really put my finger on it, but they're not as friendly as humans are in the Midwest. Except for the girl who works at Subway. She definitely had a Midwest sense of humor.

We had a wonderful time with Jamie, who sat there like this was any other Saturday. Just hours away from his marriage to a beautiful Oregonian, he's extremely calm.

After breakfast we ran back to Shelley's for a monstrous brunch. Floyd Yutzy is assisting in the marriage ceremony, so he and Elaine, Christopher, and Michelle are staying at Shelley's. Konrad and Shannon's family joined, and we had a grand brunch.

Uncle Shelby with Charlotte. 

My sister Shelley and her husband Randy. In the background is Randy's brother, Justin.

My sister Shannon and her husband Konrad

Michelle and Christopher

There was a snafu on the wedding brochures that labeled Solomon as a "Friend of the Groom" instead of his rightful title, "Brother of the Groom." But aside from that tiny detail, the wedding went incredibly well.

 I already said this once, but seriously. DAPPER.

Jamison, his bride Ciara, and her mother Juanita.

 We snatched up Jamie for a pre-wedding prayer meeting in the nursery/Groom Changing Room.

We got the two lovebirds hitched up and proceeded to the reception. The church's gymnasium was completely packed with tables and chairs and guests and food. At the open mic, we got to make fun of Jamison and Ciara and tell heartwarming childhood memories. Several people sang songs, including Jamison's Dad, Darrell. Jamison sang a song to Ciara that he had wrote, and by the end of it, he had captured the hearts of every single girl in the audience. Whole generations of young girls will now expect their fiance's to write them endearing love songs for their weddings.

Ciara threw her bouquet to a mass of energetic bachelorettes, and Jamison tossed a garter a distance of 8 inches, which caught everyone except me off-guard. I full-out tackled the garter. The bachelors standing there empty-handed cried for a re-throw, but Jamie declared that his botched toss was final.

[For those of you counting at home, this marks my third garter. I've also gotten a wedding pickle thrown in lieu of a garter, but I didn't catch that one, technically. Wrestled it from a girl, who wasn't supposed to have it in the first place. It was the bachelor's pickle, after all.]

After the reception, we staged a marriage ceremony for myself and Becca, the poor girl that caught the wedding bouquet. Because that's the logical next step.

Mom, I'm sorry you couldn't make it to my wedding. It happened so fast.

We cleaned up the church and gym before heading home for a few hours of sleep. On Sunday, my good friend Kyle (not to be confused with my cousin Kyle) picked me up and took me to church. My pastor Floyd spoke and it was a fantastic message about what true Church looks like, and it's still rocking my little world. More on that in a future post.

After the service, we headed out to the coast. "We" included Shannon's, Shelley's, Floyd's, Shelby, Myron & Alissa, and myself. We took three vehicles and blasted out to Newport, OR for the afternoon. It was beautiful.

I just now decided that The Coast is going to get a post of its very own. Seriously, I have so many photos to share it would possibly wreck the internet. Those of you whining "Are we THERE yet?" may now relax. We are "there", and "there" is the end of this post.

Congratulations, Jamie and Ciara!