Up early and on the road south to Portland to meet up with Kirk and Rachel. I’m not really here. It is as though I am still in slow-wave sleep, one of the deepest stages of sleep. Or maybe I am in sleep inertia, the state just after being woken from a deep sleep when mental performance is yet impaired. In any case, I feel as though I’m drifting out of Washington and into Portland without plan, reason, or cause, and from the looks of the multitude of homeless people in downtown Portland, they, too, are hereby mysterious circumstances.

How about lunch? Sure, you guys name it; I don’t know this part of town. Hell, I don’t know any part of this town, nor do I know why I agreed to come here. I want to be at the ocean. I have gone on vacation to get away from it all, and now I’m in the middle of it all. How about this place? Yeah, give me a fork. I might at other times feel that my distance could be interpreted as rude detachment, but I’m working at convincing myself that I am moving into the abyss of old age and hope that those around me can accept and understand why so little of me is presently here and thus allow me to feel better about my funk.

Kirk and I were in competition for who could visit the buffet more times than the other. It was a draw, not that this meal would weigh too heavily upon us, as most of the dishes were vegetarian. Finished with our feast and being in the Pacific Northwest there is an unspoken demand that you stop every 20 minutes for coffee, else why the crazy proliferation of coffee shops? Rachel recommended a shop around the corner for the four of us to imbibe some hot black liquid energy. Wicked strong and well suited to take the pallor off an otherwise gray day.

Our mobile larder needed stocking, so shopping at something akin to Whole Foods was on order; we were delivered to New Seasons in the Seven Corners area of Portland. With plans to do some serious vegetarian cooking over an open fire, I piled the veggies into our shopping cart. Fortuitous this stop proved to be as we had bought a block of Beecher’s Flagship cheese that we fell in love with and would be surprised later in the trip upon visiting Pike’s Place in Seattle to stumble into their factory.

Our tour of Portland took us to Washington Park, which sits next to the much larger Forest Park. My spirits perk up; I am near nature. Vacation must be close at hand; the imagination is awakening. Not long after our encounter with the natural world, plans are made to return for some hiking in these parks with Kirk and Rachel. In minutes, we are delivered back to our dash animations and soon find ourselves gliding silently out of Portland on our way to the Pacific Ocean. We agreed to meet Kirk and Rachel for dinner in Astoria before our day’s journey ends in Ft. Stevens State Park, where a yurt awaits us.

A little Italian place is chosen where we have the chance to meet Rachel’s children, Cassidy and Ian. Ian made a great impression by first being listless, lethargic, and generally grumpy due to a cold or allergies until after dinner when, with great aplomb, he hurled what little dinner he had eaten upon the sidewalk. Kirk, not having a dog-pooh picker-upper bag with him, had to abandon the cheesy pile for the next dog to walk by – you just know a dog wouldn’t be able to help itself to that little midnight snack.

I felt for Rachel this evening; not only did she have to comfort her barfing boy, but earlier in the day, she voiced concern for her daughter Cassidy, who, as she described it, “is getting a little too hormonal.” It must be tough on a mother to think her kid is about to go succubus. Caroline and I failed to pick up this side of her daughter’s precocious nature as we were preoccupied with wolfing down dinner so we could make our way to the coziness of our yurt. We actually thought both children were pleasantly well-behaved. Kirk, Rachel, and the kids took off for their nearby hotel; we retired to our yurt, falling asleep to the sound of the ocean in the distance.

Note: I, too, wonder why there were no photos from this day, not even bad ones.