Right after I closed this notebook when I was done with my last entry, the owner of the hostel pulled me out of my pouting and invited me to a local bon-fire at the beach. It was a pot-luck, so in exchange for a delicios vietnamese rice dish, a hot dog, chips, grape-juice, and smores for desert, I brought some cheese and summer sausage I had bought in Cannon Beach. The meal was fantastic, and I met a lot of interesting locals. A woman moved to Seaside from Colorado, and another guy I met is the one who gave Keiko (the Free Willy whale) his memorial service. This man got teary-eyed just talking about Keiko. We all watched another beautiful Pacific sunset and afterward, I walked back to the hostel with Nicholas.
I slept solid and awoke to eat a bowl of oatmeal in the community kitchen. 3 cups of coffee later, I was talking to Nicholas again about him traveling north with me along the coast to do some camping. His siberian-blue eyes lit up. He abandoned his plans to travel down to Sacramento, and together we hopped on a bus that brough us 20 miles north to Ft. Stevens State Park, just west of Astoria, which is where I write this from.
I slept solid and awoke to eat a bowl of oatmeal in the community kitchen. 3 cups of coffee later, I was talking to Nicholas again about him traveling north with me along the coast to do some camping. His siberian-blue eyes lit up. He abandoned his plans to travel down to Sacramento, and together we hopped on a bus that brough us 20 miles north to Ft. Stevens State Park, just west of Astoria, which is where I write this from.
We got here, each paid our four dollars, and pitched our camp. He needed to get settled with his amenities, so we took the bus back into town to a Fred Myers, (basically a Wal-Mart disguised under a different name). While we were there, we met Angela from Vancouver--the city just north of Portland, not Vancouver Canada-- who was also camping at Ft. Stevens, who ended up giving us a ride back into the state park so we wouldn't have to pay for another bus fare.
After we got dropped off in camp, we took a walk to the lake and then to the ocean where we lounged about for a while before heading back to camp. After eating, we went to Angela's camp ground. She was with her 2 kids, and we discovered that she was having some serious problems with her husband. She got me drunk off of her last 4 beers and gave Nicholas and I the last of her firewood.
We got back to camp in the dark, and not even 5 minutes after laying down in our separate tents, we heard a coon getting into some meat we left in out in a cooler made from a milk jug. Nicholas threw his shoes out at the coon when he realized that there was also a skunk roaming around camp, so we got out of our tents until the critters got tired of Nicholas throwing camping gear at them
. Nick woke me at around 9:00 this morning, and we made our oatmeal and I called Sonny to have her send me out my re-supply box. Apparently, Fed-Ex wanted to charge $130 for my little package, so she took it to the post office, where they sent it out to the Seaside Hostel for only $25. So it looks like I'm stuck here at Ft. Stevens until at least the 1st.
I rode my bike out to the mouth of the Columbia river today. Went to the corner store and bought Nick a pack of smokes. I came back to camp and met Tim, our camp neighbor, who is 22 years old and biked here from Virginia. Very cool kid. I talked to him alot about backpackintg and ultra-light philosophy, as he did the entire Appilachian Trail in 3 and a half months.
Tim hit the sack and Nicholas and I spent another night watching the embers pop and flare in the fire pit.
I hope the package gets here soon....
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