Yesterday was the start of the new session of yoga. Our regular instructor, Lisa, wasn't there, and Rainey was the substitute. (I knew that ahead of time, but I'd forgotten it until I walked into the studio.) I'd never had a class with her before - and that's because she teaches only a few weekday mornings. It was a good session, although the class was abnormally small - only seven or eight students.

Lisa has commented, on several occasions, that our Friday evening class tends to have a low energy level. (We're ending our week, rather than starting our day.) Rainey seemed surprised by that - maybe "surprised" isn't the right word. Maybe it was closer to culture shock. At the very start of class, after we'd all been sitting quietly, Rainey joked that she almost hated to disturb our rest. "Maybe we should spend the next hour and a half in an extended savasana," she added.

I liked Rainey's style of teaching. I learned later that she does professional voice work, and that really came out in the soothing quality of her instructing us through the asanas.

I came home after class and started watching "Professor Fred's Movie Marvels" on Seattle Community College Television. He was featuring Teenage Zombies, which I'd never seen before. It was quite entertaining, but I couldn't stay awake. After dozing off on the couch a few times, I finally went to be at a little past 8:30, and slept through the night.

I guessed that returning to work today would most likely produce one of two reactions: "I wish I was still on the beach, instead of riding the 60 to First Hill. Oh no, I must be burned out." - or - "Man, the beach was fun, but it's going to be good to get back into the routine of my job again." It was the second reaction today, thankfully.

I thought I had heard every excuse for missing a clinic appointment (traffic, parking, arrest, lost appointment reminder, etc.) but I did hear a new one this afternoon. Patient asks me if I could find out who's been accessing his hospital account. I reply that I'm sure it's possible, but I don't have the ability to find that out. Patient then explains that he suspects that someone's been using his hospital ID number to make appointments without his knowledge - and that's why he's been missing so many appointments that he doesn't remember making.

In 2003, we stayed in Cabin 9 - the "angel cabin." In 2005, we stayed in Cabin 7 - the "eagle cabin." It was in 2005 that Phillip had the idea to contribute something to the cabin's decor. We bought an eagle magnet at Marsh's Free Museum, in Long Beach, and left it on the cabin's refrigerator. This year, we were told that we'd be staying in Cabin 7 again. We meant to buy an eagle before we left, but somehow kept forgetting to do so.

On our way Friday, we stopped into a convenience store in Montesano, and two gift stores in Raymond, but could find no eagles. It became a theme: "May I help you?" "Yes. We're looking for something with an eagle on it." We looked in Jack's General Store, in Ocean Park. We looked in Funland, in Long Beach. No one had any eagles. We stopped into a gift store in Chinook, and found a photograph of an eagle, but it cost more than we wanted to spend.

Then, finally, Phillip found a card in the Astoria Column gift shop, with two eagles in a tree. Then, in that crazy marble store in downtown Astoria, I found a marble with an eagle painted on it. The marble guy gave me a free marble stand to go with it. The card went over the living room window, and the marble went in the bathroom window.

Driving around on the peninsula this past weekend, Phillip and I had that conversation again: "What would it be like to live here?" We decided that we'd be renting movies from Netflix, having books delivered by FedEx, and be using a shopping cart when we buy groceries. We wondered what people did when they needed a hospital. (That question was answered when we passed the hospital in Ilwaco.) We tried to figure out the political climate of the area. We had guessed that with the fishing and logging industries in the area, the climate would be conservative, but we drove past as many Democratic campaign signs as Republican. We also figured that there must be some amount of left-wing politics in the area for Shakti Cove to exist.

One of the other things we meant to do this weekend, but didn't, was vote. We took our ballots with us, but brought them home unopened. It was something to do while waiting out the storms, but we had no storms.

If it's true that a successful vacation is one that leaves you wanting to do more on your next return, then this was a successful weekend. As we drove away from Shakti Cove this morning, I was hit with an overwhelming sense of sadness. The weekend went by far too quickly. Neither one of us are the type of vacationer who needs every moment planned with an activity, but there was so much more we could have done. We drove for a long time this morning, toward home and away from Shakti Cove, before either of us said anything.

We hadn't planned on watching the sun set over the ocean, but we got to watch it on Friday. We'd planned on taking a walk along the beach under the stars last night, but I wasn't feeling up to it. (Something I ate didn't agree with me. Maybe it was the Bosnian coffee in Astoria, or maybe it was the chicken teriyaki burger at Big Kahuna in Seaside. Or maybe, as Phillip suggested today, it was all the fried food we both ate this weekend.) I wanted to take an early morning walk through Ocean Park, before Phillip woke up, like I did last year, but I just didn't find the motivation. We didn't get any big storms this year - but we had no control over that.

Phillip had wanted to play Neopets on his birthday (Saturday). He did get an hour on a computer at the library in Ocean Park, but the computer froze ten minutes into his session, and he lost his time. We tried to find a library in Long Beach, but discovered that the biggest town on the peninsula doesn't have a library. We found a library in Ilwaco, but it was closed when we got there. I know that Phillip was disappointed by that.

I made up a list of geocaches to find this weekend. Six were on the peninsula (new ones that weren't there last October), and four were in Astoria (our first geocache attempts in Oregon). Phillip agreed with my choices, and asked me not to be disappointed if he decided not to do them all. I accepted that easily - which, I realized, was a reflection of my changing enthusiasm for geocaching. Then, on Thursday evening, Phillip asked me to add some along our way to the peninsula. So, I added two more.

We'd planned on leaving for the coast on Friday, and coming back on Monday (today), but I took Thursday and tomorrow off, as well - just to take them off. I spent a majority of Thursday doing some solo geocaching. Two of them were previous Did Not Finds, and another one was a cache we hadn't tried before. I found one of the DNFs, still didn't find the other one, and found the new one. Two out of three.

Of the two caches we looked for on the way Friday, we logged a DNF on the first one, and found the other one (which was a virtual cache - which means that a geocache isn't actually hidden there. What you're looking for is a piece of information to prove that you've been to the location).

Of the six peninsula caches we looked for on Saturday, the first two were DNFs. (In between those two was the frozen computer at the library.) My spirit for the game was broken at that point, but we kept going. We found the next three, and decided to not go after the sixth one.

Of the four geocaches in Astoria on Sunday, we found the first, third (which were virtual caches) and fourth, and couldn't find the second one. After we found the fourth Astoria cache, Phillip asked me which cache was next, and seemed surprised (or maybe disappointed) that I had nothing left on our list.

On our vacation this weekend, we logged Finds on seven caches and logged four DNFs. I was thinking that we'd done a lot more geocaching last year, but after that last sentence, I looked at our list for last year's trip to the ocean. We'd logged just one DNF last year, but we'd logged only eight finds.

I've been focusing on the negative so far, but that's only because I'm still experiencing that post-vacation funk, and I needed to get the negativity out of the way. It doesn't mean our trip was ruined - far from it.

One of the things I wrote in the cabin's journal this weekend was that every year that we come to the peninsula, we try to discover something new. In 2003, everything was new, but we also discovered the Cranberry Museum. In 2005, we discovered Oysterville and one of the two lighthouses. This year, we discovered Astoria and Seaside.

It was last year, when we were in Ilwaco, and I noticed a sign pointing toward Astoria, that I had the idea to see what was in Astoria on our next visit. This year, we put it on our itinerary. We're glad we did. It is a wonderful town. When we crossed the bridge over the Columbia River, Phillip noticed a sign directing us to the left for Astoria, and to the right for Seaside. After exploring Astoria, Phillip requested a trip to Seaside. So, we made a spur-of-the-moment drive to Seaside, and we're glad we did. When we were almost to Seaside, I saw a sign directing us to the "City Center," so we made the turn, only to discover that we weren't quite to Seaside yet, and the city center was the center of the city of Gearhart, Oregon. So, we visited downtown Gearhart - which consisted of one intersection. The grocery store we stopped into, at that intersection, sold post cards that said "Welcome To Downtown Gearhart" - and featured a photograph of the intersection. I wondered if it was supposed to be a joke, but I thought it best not to ask.

Our first stop in Astoria was the famous Astoria Column. It's also listed as a virtual geocache. I wanted to visit it, despite my fear of heights, and despite Phillip's dislike of stairs (there are 164 of them). When we got to the column, Phillip decided that he wanted to try it, but he wanted me to wait on the ground, so I could take a photograph of him looking down. He made it all the way to the top, and he later bought a "I made it to the top" magnet at the gift shop. I followed after him, but when I got to the top, I just couldn't venture out onto the platform.

The thing about acrophobia is it's really more about the conditions than it is the height. For me, the platform was too narrow - it felt like it was impossible to step back from the railing - and there was nothing on the wall behind me to hold onto. I wrote in our log for the virtual cache that Phillip ended up doing a better job of it than I did. It was a great view from the doorway, though.

I bought an Astoria Column hat and a pin from the gift store, at which point I became a tourist rather than a traveler.

We spent a couple of afternoons playing games at Funland, in downtown Long Beach. There was a girl that worked there, who we both enjoyed talking to. She'd moved to Long Beach this summer, and she was disappointed that there was no library in town. She had a great sense of humor.

When we were wandering around Astoria, after our list of geocaches had been exhausted, we happened upon a marble store. We met the owner. He was crazy, in a good way. He loved marbles, and he loved telling stories - about marbles and everything else. He gave us each a "lucky marble" just for stopping in. When I bought a marble, he gave me three more marbles for free. He taught us how to play "nuclear war" and challenged us to a game. He challenged Phillip to a game of Chinese Checkers and they played an entire game. The whole time, we were the only customers.

(To be continued...)