But the area outside of town has changed a lot.
Ocean Shores is on a long piece of land that hangs down from our coastline like an appendix. Because of that, there is basically one way in or out. The town itself is at the entrance--The first thing you see really. As you continue down, you get a feeling of what it's turned into from the houses that are lining the coastal view. They are all relatively new construction, all very interesting with no two alike. So many of them had fancy "viewing areas" built into them, like pseudo-lighthouse beacons, top floor sun rooms, and multi-level decks. It was also very clean and empty-looking. I would be surprised if anyone was home in 1 out of every 10 homes. Obviously vacation properties. It almost had a Stephen King feel to it.There was lots of wandering wildlife that we came into contact with as well. People that were centered in town might never see them, but because we had rented a house down near the bottom it was different. We saw deer everywhere. It wasn't uncommon to have multiple deer sightings in one day. I walked up to one of them and managed to get pretty close before he finally decided I was close enough and slowly wandered away. We had a gang of raccoons that visited our house each night, uncaring about how close we were to them. We saw them first on Friday night when we were in the hot tub, then a little after that they were on the upstairs deck. They did a repeat the next night. I guess word gets out in the animal kingdom when a house is inhabited. We also had sightings of a dolphin, a seal, pelicans, bald eagles, as well as the more common seagulls and crows.
As I said before we had rented a house. All of Sue's kids and their respective family members were there, and Sarah and Sopha came along too. Even though it was a big house, it was a full one. All 4 bedrooms and all of the couches were used by various people.
Friday night we all went to the main beach near town for some pictures. That's the only real beach you can drive on, and it's very wide and firm. It was just after sundown, and the idea was to get pictures of Tony's Jeep charging through the edge of the surf. As Sue found out, you can get too close. We had a great time there, with lots of good pictures being taken of the Jeep as the different people kept "taking a turn" at swirling around and doing donuts and stuff.
Saturday was weird. First of all, the weather was gorgeous! Sue left early in her car to go all the way back to Puyallup for a big Witness event that she didn't want to miss. We had come at different times in our own vehicles, so after breakfast me, Sarah, and Sopha piled into my car in search of photo ops. Boy did we find them! We spent a couple hours getting excellent shots of crashing waves, surfers, seagulls, and scenery in general. From there we wandered into town and stuffed ourselves at Subway. It was the same weekend as the annual Kite Festival they have in town, and right across the street was the main beach entrance where they where it was taking place. Having such a beautiful blue sky for the event was probably unusual, but we sure took advantage of it. Over 500 pictures were taken by me that day, and Sarah wasn't far behind!
When the family regrouped later in the day, it was decided that we would all go to the beach a couple blocks away to fly our own kites. They had 3 kites among the family members that were flying. I had my first taste of flying a two-string kite. It was awesome! They have so much pull at times that it will literally drag you in the sand. All of us got a taste of it, and again--Had a fantastic time.Yesterday was mine and Suzie's anniversary. 1 year! So what did we do? Nothing. I felt bad--I still feel bad. I talked with her about it before we went down for the weekend--About how frustrated I felt that it was our first anniversary and we were going to be spending it in a chaotic, family, communal environment. To top it off, she surprised me with a really nice leather jacket (dressy-style) yesterday morning at breakfast. What did I have to give her? Nothing. Nada. I felt (and still feel like) the world's biggest idiot. I planned to buy her a camera lens, but wanted to hold out until next weekend for a big sale event in Seattle. But did I get her anything for a "place holder" even? No. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
We drove home in rain yesterday. We (me, Sarah, and Sopha) left ahead of everyone else because they wanted to make another stop in town or something so I thought. While they were there they went back over to the beach to fly kites again. Apparently Suzie was helping a guy re-launch his kite and its string pulled her feet out from under her and she lit hard on packed sand--Flat on her back. She's in a lot of pain from that. Add the fact that I wasn't there for her during that to my "I'm stupid" list...
Anyway, it's good to be home.
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