A little down time is a good thing

We went to the beach. It was rainy and stormy and wet and really quite wonderful. Felt so good to just skip town and not worry about anything. I thought this was what being retired would be like. It isn't usually, but it was for a couple of days.

Beth and Ed picked us up on Friday afternoon and we headed for their beach house. We watched the ocean boil and crash from the warmth of their cozy bungalow and settled in with a fire in the fireplace and a drink and munchies.

The ocean is out there.

We played cards and Mexican Train and Apples to Apples and ate and read and talked and laughed. I brought my sketchbook and curled up on the sofa and drew one of Beth's pretty chairs. The storm raged outside.

Ed said he had read that the first of the debris from the Japanese sunami was due to start hitting the Oregon coast this month. This morning we donned our rain gear and took a long walk along the beach.

The ocean was wild and the tide was coming in. The beach was littered with all kinds of debris, but it was hard to tell if any of it had come from Japan. Lots of bottles and plastic bottle lids and other bits of brightly colored plastic amongst the bramble of driftwood and lumber. I saw some lengths of sodden bamboo and quite a few dead birds.

This sandal looked like it had been in the water for awhile. Could have come from Japan, I suppose, or maybe just left at that very beach and battered around in the tide. I'm not sure why I thought the stuff from Japan would be easy to recognize.