Rosh Hashanah at the beach

Here are my two favorite shots from this weekend.*

A forecast of rain didn't stop Hen and I from traveling west to Fort Stevens for a little Rosh Hashanah relaxation at the beach. Thankfully, before we left Portland my friend, Molly, (a.k.a. Hen's school librarian) gave me the keys to her beach house just in case the rain proved too much for our tent. (Spoiler alert - it was.) We stayed for one night at Fort Stevens. We arrived with just enough time to pitch our tent and get into our pajamas before darkness descended.

I awoke to the sounds of heavy rainfall around 4a.m. the next morning. It was really coming down. Because we had parked our tent under the trees the water collected and hit our tent with tremendous splat sounds. Three hours later, we both got up and braved the outdoors to take care of business. The short trip to the bathrooms and back left us soaked to the bone. I got Hen in the tent, had him change his clothes, carried him to the car, and proceeded to load up our stuff and dismantle the tent in record time.

There was no way we could leave Fort Stevens without checking out the shipwreck. So that is what we did. It was a beautiful morning. Beautiful in its grayness and stillness. Nobody else was on the beach. We took Hen's dinosaurs for a mini photo shoot, checked out what's left of the ship, took more pics and headed out just as more people were arriving.

We breakfasted in Astoria before heading south on 101. Molly's beach house is adorable and beautiful and, yes, does have a scary basement I didn't even open the door to investigate. We dumped our stuff and went back up to Rockaway where we spent the majority of the day. On our way to our beach home we stopped at the grocery store to grab food for dinner. Smoked salmon, oranges, spinach, radishes, and tater tots. Yum. We ended the day with showers and a few episodes of Gravity Falls.

The next morning we walked down to the bakery at the end of the block. A hop in the car and we were back at the beach. As we were walking down, we ran into a gentleman with several SOLVE bags because they were doing a beach cleanup at Rockaway. Hen and I got a bag and spent the next several hours walking down the beach, picking up trash, and, when done with that, I read my book while Hen played with other kids he met. We ended our day out by stopping to pick up a small gift for Molly et al, and grabbing ice cream at the Tillamook Cheese Factory. You can't go through Tillamook and not stop, can you?

Being in the little sunbelt along the Oregon coast meant we could finally dry out our tent, sleeping bag, and rain cover once we returned to the beach house. I took care of getting the house cleaned and our stuff packed while Hen looked for bugs and played dinosaurs in the front yard.

All in all, it was a great Rosh Hashanah weekend. Sure, there wasn't any religious reflection, no new resolutions, etc. But I feel as if we put some good back out in the world. In Astoria, we bought breakfast for a couple of soldiers who came into the restaurant as we were finishing up, we helped clean up the beach, and we didn't destroy Molly's beach house.

For the full set of pictures because, of course, there were pictures, see below.

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