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This is the sea wall, or rather, the edge of the beach. The rough seas have gouged it out pretty good. This is also part of the stern, or the back of the wrecked ship. We shall check up on it later on to see if there is anything new revealed.
Sometimes, the people at the boat, are every bit as interesting as the boat itself.
Just a little bathroom break so to speak, a hiatus from pictures of ships and flowers. A brief PAUSE. A bit of Eye Candy. Check out that bejewel-like igloo. When I was little, my beloved cousin was going to build an igloo for him and I. An igloo with which we could escape the adult world (we were in trouble. again.). A little underground home made of ice. Furniture. All ice. Only there was no ice. Just dirt. And though we tried hard. All we managed to do was to dig up the old dead cat. And then we were in trouble. Again.
I'll stop now.
See that brave gentleman holding up the mast? HE'S A PATRIOT.
This picture seems rather sad. Reminiscent of the Titanic. I typed that word with my pinky extended. Watch me do it again. Reminiscent.
It seems that the newly discovered wreck has a name after all. It is the George L. Olsen. Supposedly you can see part of the name on the hull, but I have yet to personally determine that. It ran aground in 1944, and then basically they just stripped it and hauled it out to sea and dumped it. Some of the lumber that was salvaged from the ship's cargo was used to build the Baptist Church in Charleston. Which my husband's uncle helped to build. He was a missionary. That was his position. *Ahem*.
See those two funny looking high school kids walking on the beach? Well that tall, lanky looking one is mine. The one wearing his nice white school shoes in the wet sand. That looks like a baby deer just learning to walk.
This is the port side of the bow of the mystery ship. The called it the port side so everyone would know which side of the boat to break the wine bottle on. I could be lying.
Another picture of the bow. Get out to see it while you can. This area will be closed in March because it is a snowy plover sanctuary. And though the sand is being eaten away during the winter, it will be redeposited in the summer, when weather conditions and current directions change. OR it could rot away.
Oh yes, I left you a couple of big pictures behind the cut. Just click on the little pics.
The recent winter storms and surf unearthed this fine old wreck awhile ago. The local paper said over 1400 people had gone to see it last weekend. So we played tourist in our own home town today and drove out to behold this ancient relic. We drove out to the north spit and joined a few other people traveling in their 4-wheel drive pickups in the trek out to the beach. Safety in numbers you know. It was like an expedition.
The ride alone is spectacular, passing old abandoned docks that look like dinosaur skeletons, then through the beach woodland and out past the old coast guard bunkers. I was too excited, and I was hanging on tightly through the twisty and bumpy journey so I did not take advantage of all of the many photographic opportunities. But I got a few. Oh yeah.
This is looking inside the bow of the ship. See the mast sticking up there? Mr. Wyrd says that the mast is quite far towards the front of the boat, indicating that it was an old schooner, with the house more in the back of the boat. It is an amazing site. When I got home I looked at the old pictures of the ship on some of the news sites online, and realized that even more of the wood is showing now, especially inside, which was previously filled with sand. We are hoping to go out again perhaps next weekend, to chronologically record this fine art piece as it is dug out more and / or destroyed more. The latter being quite a sad possibility.
Another beautiful, sunny day on the coast. There were moments of blasting cold March wind though. Brrrrr! I froze my fingers a little just to give you a flower. Love me.
For Mr. Sam and not-so-little Derek, a nice dinner was made. Scorchy prime rib eye steaks. A pan of carmelized onions. A pile of fresh, sliced mushrooms cooked after the steaks. And my special creamy fattening mashed potatoes. And a salad.
I was going to make a nice dessert, but there was enough candy flowing through this place to give all of China diabetes.
Mr. Wyrd sent me this most precious arrangement today. My favorite part is the card. "I love you forever and always" it says.
I have dried and saved every flower he has ever given me. Nine years of Valentines days for us!
Yeah, I know, Ebay rates are exorbitantly high, but before you jump on the boycott bandwagon, RETHINK. I was just talking to my Dad a little birdie who was telling me that the REAL reason the sellers want to boycott Ebay is because their unfair feedback tactics were being put to a stop. My Dad, I mean, the little birdie says that sellers will blatantly post their blackmailing tactics, i.e. "I will give you good feedback when you leave good feedback for me". Leaving no true recourse for bad conduct on the sellers part. I know this is true because I have stumbled across several like sellers.
And just as I was talking to Dad little birdie, I found this drunken bastard on the web.
This little camo beauty would go well in my bug-out bag. You shake it for 30 seconds for 5 minutes of lovely LED light. No changing the battery OR the light bulb. Ever. Plus the outside is just a one piece construction kinda thing = waterproof.
This picture was actually taken around Newport, earlier this year. I wanted to share with you the drizzly cold of today. Just look at this picture and think, colder, darker, drearier. And you have today on the Oregon coast.
I can't resist those eyes. And that sweet little face. She is an angel. Nevermind about the bird-plunking-at-my-feet thing. Or, the hundreds of crickets lined up from door to door every spring morning. Or the tens of thousands of snakes she catches and lets loose in my home... alive. I could go on. Btw, Derek took this picture. She only looks this sweetly at him.
It finally got me. Some headachey, sore throat, feel like crap ickiness. I think the kitty is sick too. She is sneezing and snotting and sad.
She could only be encouraged to eat by the tastiest of kitty treats. Which were pieces of the chicken breast I had for dinner. Some lovingly sauteed frozen tuna that I had stashed away. Some kibbley bits that were filet mignon flavored. I. Shit. You. Not.
She was so happy. She thanked me by plunking a big dead sparrow at my feet.
Gee.
Thanks kitty.
HARD. I have barely begun to dabble in my new Windows Vista, so there is much for me to discover. My new computer is so much better than any of the other ones that everything just seems all crispy and snaptastically fantabulous. Until I try to install something or FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TRY TO MOVE A FILE. Then the real pain reveals itself.
However. As I touch my Vista I also have commenced upon trying out a few OTHER programs. Like Open Office. Which of course is free. It makes my tummy all gushy and leaves me wondering why I EVER paid for Microsoft Office in the first place. Yes. I would make Open Office breakfast in bed.
My new computer is a Dell XPS 420. That makes my children giggle. I like my new play toy just fine. Though I wasn't real thrilled about ordering from Dell, I must say that truly, I have been very happy with them. For the most part. The only time I have not been happy with them is when I have been outsourced to India for customer assistance. Those crazy Indian people are aloof, cold, and could have cared less. They pissed me off. So I kept calling until I could discuss this phenomena with an AMERICAN TECH. My GOD I hate outsourcing.
Lately, I've been thinking alot about my some-times-neighbor-girl Debbie. I miss her. I miss the warm summer days when she last visited from her homeland, California. I miss having tea at her house and getting to choose what kind I wanted out of her big fishbowl of tea bags on the table, and eating most of her soft peppermints while we made big girl talk. Talk about our families and their welfare. Talk of our community involvements, and politics. Making fun of our guys, and ourselves. How to wax floors and grow lavendar.
She was my neighbor years before I ever spoke to her. I would watch her pull up to the house next door, and eye her suspiciously. These silly southwest people always rented to the most unfit-for-neighbors people in the world. They had the house up for sale for two years and no one bit. What were they doing here NOW?
I didn't know about this Debbie chick. She seemed aloof. She talked funny. Damn California People.
Finally, two years ago, she and her husband pulled up with a big moving truck. Full of construction supplies and a crew of workmen. Mexican workmen. Rumors whispered through the neighborhood. She was mexican and all of those guys were her family.
After a few years of paying a local rental agency to manage their three rentals on this street, they had decided to take over the job themselves. It seems they were being bilked, big time, for services either rendered crappily, or entirely not at all. Rendered by 15 year old relatives of someone who WORKED at the rental agency. Instead of the certified plumber they THOUGHT they had forked out for.
One day, and I do not know who started it... probably Debbie because she is much more thoughtful than I... decided to make nice and brief small talk. This continued as we saw each other a couple of more times that year.
I still wasn't sure about her though. Miss goopy sweet perfect neighborgirl. Spotless house, always polite, always charitable. What could I possibly have in common with this lunatic.
Then it happened. Suddenly we were hanging over the fence, talking about our gardens, our children, the area. Our visits slowly migrated to the porch, where shared tea, or if in the evening, a glass or two of wine. Debbie was almost perfect. But she had a good streak of evil running through the middle of all that perfect that made her really interesting.
By the next year, which was last year, we were running and yelling and hugging each other when she came home. We had teas and dinners and neighborhood picnics. We watched movies and birds, and we would yell back and forth from our porches as we gazed down at the fields and the horses and drank tea. I admired her genuine kindness to others. Then I ruined her and taught her to cuss like a fisherman. It takes her months after she goes home to shake the bad words off.
We talked on the phone this weekend. She said she hopes to be here next week. She just needs to decide whether to drive or fly. Someday soon, she will just show up.
Til then, I will just look over at her little lonely chair on her lonely porch, and miss her like crazy.
