Buckets Of Rain

Entry 1    10:33 a.m.

The running water went out at the campground last night around 10, and it's yet to be restored.  For those of us in bondage to the coffee bean, this was no bueno.
Entry 2    5:13 p.m

The girls and I just returned from Goodwill in Florence. It was close to a religious experience.  We dropped 50 bucks and got much good stuff.  Jenny was back at the yurt, relaxing and, one supposes, chatting with Eric el pinché. 

This morning we went on a beautiful hike in the Oregon Dunes, sans Abby. We saw bear, cougar, and elk tracks, but they weren't fresh, I don't think. The hike reminded me
a lot of hiking up near Lake Quinalt, with lots of evergreens, moss, lichen, small, dark pools of water, and the sound of the ocean never far away.

The hiking trail was beautiful and the hike heart-wrenching. We had an option of doing a 1.5 mile loop or a 2.5 mile loop. Jenny chose the 2.5 mile loop, but we took the shorter trail in error.  It is a good thing.  Jenny must have stopped 7-8 times on a what was a largely flat and very non-technical hike. Her rest breaks got  progressively longer each time we stopped.  I ached for her.
Leiney, who at 19 was charging well ahead at the beginning, stayed nearby the clearer it became that Jenny was too ill to hike quickly, and maybe too ill to do so at all without our help. When we were finished, Leiney drove us back to the yurt, while Jenny laid down in the back of the car.

Jenny rested for an hour or so when we got home, sleeping a lot of that time. 
This afternoon, we checked off an item on Jenny's bucket list, driving a dune buggy in the Oregon dunes.  It was raining. We all humored Jenny, but none of us was quite that into it.  We paid $250 for one hour of sand time in a four seater.  

After signing our lives away in triplicate, watching a six minute instructional video with so much information you couldn't digest it in an hour, it felt like everything was designed to avoid liability. That made me feel fabulous.  We got the requisite helmets ⛑️ and goggles, and climbed in the vehicle and headed off to the rainy dunes.  

The rain was more of a thick mist that made the sand heavy on top, and also very easy to get stuck in, as we did for a bit. 
We were rescued, and then Jenny moon-doggied the sand for the rest of the time. It was treacherous. There must have been 40 ATVs and 10 dune buggies out on the sand. Kids as young as 11 driving 4-wheelers.

It.   .   . was.  .   . sweet that she enjoyed it so much. It made us appreciate it despite the redneck hell it was. I rewarded the kids' patience and being good sports by taking them thrifting.





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