My neighbor Gwen read my previous blog The Solstice Zone, which ended with the teaser to stayed tuned for part two. She wrote me “I look forward to your next post to find out What Actually Happened at the Ocean.”

This alarmed me because nothing actually Happened at the Ocean. I thought about 1) making a bunch of stuff up 2) elaborating outrageously on what little happened 3) not writing a follow-up post.

I have chosen door number #2.

Kay and I were almost to the beach, decidedly punchy after being on the road for 4 hours longer than we expected to be, when, for some reason, we got to talking about gin. Odd because Kay drinks vodka and I drink Scotch.

Kay said, “What are those things?”

“You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Those little pickled round things that you put on salads.”

“Capers?”

“Yeah, capers. Aren’t those Juniper berries?”

“No, capers are— well I used to know what capers are. They’re some kind of plant. Which I guess Juniper berries are, too.”

“I think capers are Juniper berries.”

“They’re not.”

“I’m going to text Lisa and ask her if capers are Juniper berries.”

Lisa who is Kay’s daughter, came through with the laconic “pickled flower buds.”

“What flower?” Kay texted

“Capparis spinose.”

This got us no closer.

“I’ll ask my guy, Eric,” Kay said. “He knows everything.”

“Just ask him if capers are the same as Juniper berries,” I said.

Meantime, I took the correct turn off 101. There was an arrow pointing west that said “Ocean Beaches.” So, hard to miss. I didn’t tell Kay but now I had to negotiate the spot where I got lost with Nina when I was here once before. Did I or did I not turn left at Humptulips and what exactly did I do at Copalis Crossing? And is that what I wanted to do this time?

I had time to get my bearings at Copalis Crossing because that’s where the goats were. See reason #4 for why this two hour trip took six: The Solstice Zone.

“Tell me another Violet story,” I said.

Violet is someone we both know. She’s a world class whiner. I think she has a microphone in her nose; the whine stands behind it and bleats: my back is bothering me, I have this pinched nerve, I have all these papers to grade, I’m terribly busy, I have family staying with me. She hasn’t a single excuse that all the rest of couldn’t easily employ except we don’t. We either don’t volunteer to do stuff or we get on with it and make it work.

So she’s not fun in a meeting but she was great fun to have along on our weekend getaway.  We invoked her continually as in,

“Kay, will you reach over and turn on the blinker for me? I have a pinched nerve and it hurts to move my hand.”

“Of course, Violet. Let me just get this arm out of its sling so I can reach across the car to accommodate you more easily.”

We got to The Sandpiper whining like Violet. At reception we were given one key by Heather who was in her Eighth hour of Day One on the job as the new manager.

“Can we get two keys?”

“There’s only one,” she said.

This was odd since our cabin (Cabin A better known as the A-frame and my favorite place at the resort) could easily sleep eight people.

I looked at Kay. “Are you planning to go anywhere?”

“Nope.”

I turned back to Heather. “We’re good.”

It was all moot, however, because the key didn’t work. Violet and I tromped back to reception while Violet and Kay lugged things out of the car to the bottom of the twelve steep steps required to get into the cabin.

Heather came back with me and we jiggled and pulled with the correct combination of huff and puff until we the got the door open. She said she would send someone over to fix the lock.

I’ve never traveled with Kay. In fact, the six hour car ride was the longest amount of time I’ve spent with her at one time. So it was delightful to find out that she wears well and, when we got to the cabin, she is as much a nester as I am. We fell all over ourselves getting everything tidied away.

Kay urgently needed to know what meal and what day we would have the little steaks she had brought. We mapped out our meals as we assembled all the food we had brought: we had enough to feed the entire resort. We were sitting down with mango Cosmopolitans when the answer came through from Eric that capers are not Juniper berries.

“I used to think capers were fish roe,” I said.

We did not have the little steaks that night. We had potato chips, chocolate and vodka. Wait, I seem to remember something healthy in there. Avocado slices? Some cheese? Yes, I think so. But principally Cosmopolitans and chips.

I prefer whisky for many reasons, one of which being it’s not sweet. Sweet plus alcohol and I feel dizzy and nauseated almost immediately. I knew this when I started in on the Cosmopolitans. I was already tired from lack of sleep for three nights. Add the alcohol and the Violet factor and I was in bed by 9:00. Kay was no doubt glad to see my whiny butt ascend up the steep stairs of the A-frame to my favorite room overlooking the ocean.

At 10:30 the next morning I finally felt like I entered back into my own body. I had slept til 7:00. Kay and I had already had one session of what we had come here to do: watercolors. I had gone for a walk on the beach and was settling back down to paint until lunchtime. A little bell went off. Ding! Here I am!

A rap at the door. Lupe and Luis. Lupe wanted to know did we need towels and Luis was here to fix the lock. I found out their names because I asked but in a fit of white privilege, it didn’t occur to me to introduce myself. I rectified that when I walked after painting session #2.

“Luis. Me llama Elena.”

Luis looked confused. Then he smiled uneasily.

I pointed upstairs. “Se llama? Te llama? Elle llama? Kay”

Now he looked alarmed. I guess he thought I was trying to quiz him as to who was upstairs whereas I was trying to say I didn’t know how to conjugate Spanish verbs, which didn’t need to be explained.

He backed away. “Sí, sí. Kay.” He pointed to me. “Elena. Gracias.” He started up the twelve steps to the A-frame.

After a few seconds to think, I said “de nada.” I didn’t think it was appropriate to repeat the one Spanish phrase I remember from grade school Spanish. “Pablo está bien, pero Luisa tiene catarro.” Who the hell cares? Luisa has had that damn cold for 55 years.

I told Kay.

“How did he take it?” she asked.

“I think he was just trying to get away from me.”

She nodded as though to say, “I would, too.”

The painting day was lovely. The sun was bright and warm though the wind was cold. The sea was bathwater warm. I walked three times, barefoot, in the surf in between our painting sessions.

I discovered another thing Kay and I have in common: the day we go home, we are like horses pointed toward the barn. We had the car packed in record time and were on our way.

The evening before we consumed everything we could manage so as not to have to lug it down those stairs—at least not in a box held in our arms. We had done our best with the flat of strawberries Kay had bought at the Farmer’s Market in Hoquiam and the two bags of lettuce I had picked from my garden the morning we left. All the avocados. Four bars of chocolate. (I bought more in the gift shop when we checked out.) We never did get to the little steaks.

We broke out the lunch: hard-boiled eggs, Cheetos, mango and peach nectar when we stopped for gas. We both needed to pee.

“You go first,” Kay said. “And bring back some paper towels.”

A woman who looked like a prison warden watched me go into the rest room and come back with wet hands. I held them out to her, palms up.

“Do you have a paper towel?” I asked.

She handed me a napkin from behind the counter. The kind that disintegrate upon contact.

“They have a condom dispenser and a needle disposal but no paper towels,” I reported to Kay. “And keep your hands in plain sight around the woman at the counter.”

Kay came back with four little lottery pencils, new and sharpened. White, brown, green and red. “Here,” she said. “Pick two.”

“How’d you get these past the warden?”

“I stole them while I was waiting in line.”

That was when I realized why this trip had been the most fun I’d had since I could remember. Fun in a child in the 1960s kind of way if you had still been of pre-consciousness-raising age. It was like a road trip with my Aunt Frances.

“We have to do this again,” I said as we got on the buzz-kill that is I-5. “Let’s rent a Winnebago and go somewhere for a week.”

“We’ll stuff it full of food,” Kay said.

Maybe we’ll have those little steaks.