Another Shining Sea

If you haven't drowned in the mid-Atlantic, you might be aware that the Northwest has experienced a record-setting heatwave in the last few days. Moxie & I were roasting in Kelso's near-triple-digit temps yesterday. She couldn't stop panting and I stopped working for fear my computer, which had become hot to the touch, was going to melt! Fed up around four, we took off for the coast.

It was downright chilly in Long Beach, our closest coastal town at only about an hour and a half away. A roadside digital display registered only 60 Fahrenheit degrees! We bee-lined for the beach on arrival and had a great walk there. Moxie ran around exuberantly, carrying empty crab shells and dried seaweed as she went.

The heat had been appetite-stifling back in Kelso, but in Long Beach I was suddenly starving. Driving the town's main drag, there were lots of restaurants to choose from. (Long Beach looks like it draws lots of beach vacationers, perhaps later in the summer.) "Surfer Sands" looked just right, but I pulled in just as the gentleman running the place was, literally, walking out the door. He insisted it would be no trouble to make me a sandwich before leaving, and I'm so glad he did! The "Goofy Foot" (provolone cheese, cream cheese, raisins, cashews, pineapple, onion, apple, & mixed greens on French bread) really hit the spot.

It seems worth noting that Moxie has now frolicked in more of this country's seas than I had until recently. She's splashed in the Atlantic, the Pacific, and Great Lakes Erie, Michigan, and Huron.