Back from the beach.
As I first rolled into town I stopped at the Safeway in Lincoln City to pick up some supplies… and managed to lock myself out of my car. I was using a FlexCar, since I don’t own my own car, and this particular one needed a keycard to open the doors; the ignition key only starts the car, it doesn’t open the doors. As a FlexCar member, I have a keycard, and I keep it in my wallet. As a male who is concerned about my butt becoming numb on long drives, I take my wallet out of my back pocket when driving. Combine those facts with my 4 mile run that morning before leaving for the beach, and a lack of a solid breakfast, and general crankiness from taking the wrong way to Lincoln City (I drove out the Sunset Highway, then turned off onto Highway 6, which adds about 25 miles to the trip as measured by Mapquest), and you have a very upset Brian. Luckily I had my cell phone with me and I had service. I called the 24-hour Emergency number for FlexCar, and found that, although it was technically possible to have them remotely unlock the car (yay!), the technology to do this was dependent on cell phone reception and whatever service they used was not the same as the service I used, so they had to call a local locksmith to open the car (boo!). That cost me about 2 hours. Luckily the locksmith they called had no problem getting me into the car. I won’t make that mistake (knowingly, at any rate) again.
Had the traditional first-night-dinner-at-Mo’s-Chowder-House on Saturday. Saw a very out-of-place large Goth girl there. C’mon, it’s a small coastal tourist town, and this girl comes in, dressed all in black satin, bat-wing clips holding up her dyed-black hair, all pale-faced with her spider-web stickers at the corners of her eyes, wearing tall black vinyl boots… to say she stood out like a sore thumb is to underestimate how much a sore thumb can stick out.
I also ran on the beach, my longest ever run: 5.5 miles. It felt good, even though I had to run into a headwind for the first half (I ran 2.75 miles north, then turned around and came back). I had sea salt on the left side of my face when I got back to the beach house! I should have taken a picture, dammit. But it felt good to have completed that distance.
I also read two books. I finished “Children of God” by Mary Doria Russell, a book loaned to me by a friend (hi, Anna!), and I completed “Slack Jaw” by Jim Knipfel. If I think of it I’ll post reviews later this week.
I had a good time, a relaxing time. Tried to watch for the Green Flash twice, and missed it twice. Oh, well, someday.