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Day #2 overall was pretty damn good if I do say so myself. I described most of the morning and early afternoon in my post titled Seaside Day #1 so go check that out if you’re curious about my mental breakdown and how I handled it (which, admittedly, wasn’t well).

To recap, my dad played golf in the morning while Diego, mom, and I sat around the hotel and ate breakfast. When dad returned after his nine holes, we made a game plan that we each gotta do something we wanted to do. Dad wanted to picnic at a state park that overlooked all of Cannon Beach, Diego and I both wanted to go to Nike in town to check out their outlet mall, mom wanted to fly kites since we ended up not going on day 1, and I wanted to go swimming since my parents didn’t want us going to a blueberry U-pick.

We first went to Nike outlet mall and my dad got a University of Oregon shirt on clearance for a good price, but Diego and I saw nothing that we *really* wanted.

After that, Diego had the idea to hit up downtown Seaside before it got too busy with other tourists. We got front row parking in front of a candy store. So mom bought peanut brittle, and dad and I picked out our respective bags of salt water taffy. Dad got a pound of his flavors, but I was like a little kid in a candy shop; my eyes were glazed over and I was hurrying around on a sugar high and adrenaline rush picking out more and more flavors as I went. The store wrapped around and had over 160 different flavors. I thought I had picked 1.5 pounds at most, but mine was 2.78 pounds which was just under $20 total. It’s not like I could put it back since I touched it, but I felt bad since my mom was paying for me. Oops. We got ice cream and took a potty break. Diego saw a Mexican specialty store so he got something, I forge the Spanish name for it, but it’s a cup of exotic or more uncommon fruit with Chile powder and a sauce on top which you eat with a fork. It looks really pretty, but it’s usually too spicy for me personally. He bought me a red bull spritzer so I was content.

Next up was the picnic. It took about twenty minutes to get to the state park and then another 5-10 minutes of this super curvy road to get to the parking lot. It nearly made me sick and I had no anti-nausea meds with me in the car. But we parked and brought our little cooler to a nearby table and we all ate our respective sandwiches, potato chips, and drank water and split a Coca-Cola. After we ate, we took photos and a park visitor offered to use my phone so we could all have a photo together, which was sweet.

The original plan was to go and walk on Cannon Beach and then go to the Tillamook factory for second lunch, but we all decided around 1:30pm that I would rather do the pool since it was starting to creep up in temperature and mom still wanted to fly kites, eat dinner, take naps, and chill out. We get back to the car and I call the hotel to see if we could make a pool reservation. There was a hour slot at 3pm which gave us enough time for mom and Diego to buy their cooked crab from the store and have time to relax and change for the pool. And that’s what we did.

Mom spent $60 on a pound of salad shrimp and 2 HUGE cooked crabs that you had to crack yourself. Mom stayed back at the hotel while dad, Diego, and I went into the pool. Dad cannonballed into the pool and did a lap and spent the rest of the hour asleep and getting sun burnt. I kept telling him to cover up because his tummy and face were super red, but he told me he had been “tanning” for 65 years and that he “knew what he was doing”. I said okay boomer, that’s why your generation gets skin cancer and then I jumped into the pool with Diego. We swam and played for about thirty minutes and then I took a vape break and never got back in. I didn’t feel sunburnt at all because I was doing stuff. Dad made me bring a light sweater cover up because I am prone to burning bad. Since I know this simple fact, I kept asking mom and dad before and during the trip to buy sunscreen because I needed it, but my mom doesn’t believe in sun screen and thinks it doesn’t help.

So after a hour in direct sunlight, now mind you I am wearing a lot cut long and flowy swimsuit top and regular bikini bottoms, but I was starting to feel the back of my shoulders burn along with my forearms, chest, and face. I do admit though, swimming was the highlight of my day because my foot was hurting pretty bad after walking 4k steps at that point, and the swimming stretched out all the muscles and tendons in my surgery-ride foot with low impact. It made me want to start up my YMCA membership again so I could use the pool on a more regular basis. But the Y is expensive and I gotta wait for an ideal time to sign up to avoid the joining fee and try to reduce the amount of the monthly membership with a student discount.

We gathered our stuff and went back to the hotel room. Diego and I showered and dad went down for a nap. I felt pretty sunburnt in the shower with the high pressure water beating down on my back. Good thing I brought lotion for this! I continued to look at gym memberships that were more affordable then the Y. I know at my old job when I worked for the mental health place, we got access to a gym, but I forget which one and it may or may not have a pool.

After dad woke up, we decided it was time to eat, so Diego and mom gut their crab and each of them gave me a ready to eat piece of crab without any of the shell work. I had shrimp salad minus the shrimp because I didn’t know if the shellfish would bother my allergies or not. Dad made tacos last night so he and I ate left over tacos and that was good.

Once dinner was over, we cleaned up a bit and Diego decided to go to the arcade. When we were halfway there, Diego wanted to stop at the weed store for an edible because he left his weed pen back in the room. So we picked out his edibles for $17 and a $3 joint for an even $20. It’s weird because we live in Washington State, which is the second state in the US to legalize recreational marijuana. I think California legalized it before Oregon, but Oregon has more conservative values and politicians so the amount you can have on your person and the milligrams, concentration, amount, and type of cannabis you have is half of what you can have in Washington. I thought that was fascinating to find out and the bud tender was telling us all about it.

I think the ratio between total milligrams in Washington Is 100mg:10mg, which is 100mg per package and 10mg per candy. However, Oregon being more conservation the ratio drops to 50mg:5mg. So we go to the arcade and Diego is still sober at this time because I can’t parallel park for shit. We bought and loaded $20 each for the arcade cards. The lights, sounds, and screams made it seem like a casino which made me doe eyed and go into hypomanic frenzy trying to win a lot of points. We ended up scoring an Oregon shot glass, which Diego collects and a tiny plastic lizard which the worker behind the counter named Fred.

After that we got elephant ears across the street. Those were awesome and then I drove to the bowling alley / pizza place because we both had a hankering for just a slice. Diego took two edibles so he would consume his normal dose back at home. There were no slices when we got there so we ordered a small pizza to share.

By the time I drove back to the hotel with Diego, he apparently (I say apparently because I didn’t see him do it; he told me later) took a third edible. At this time, it’s 8pm. We didn’t go fly kites even though we brought them. Mom wanted to, but when I said I couldn’t walk the beach path due to my foot, she blew the whole thing off. I felt bad I wanted her to enjoy her activity, but she will not go by herself. Plus, Diego told my mom the joke that kites are just like stringed balloons; once you hold a balloon in the air and see it move and sway, then you’ve seen and done it all. Now, mind you, my mom loves to fly kites! It is literally the only reason she would ever step out on to sand. However, if she feels like she’s not fitting in or fitting a certain mold or expectation, she will convert and conform to whoever or whatever it is. So in this case, Mom was embarrassed to fly her kites and wanted to appear cool in front of the rest of us, so she said screw kite flying.

We ended up all eating the pizza, watching tv and chilling. Mom and dad went to bed relatively early and Diego and I talked for a while but he was pretty stoned. We vibe and think similarly when he is using cannabis and I am sober. I think this is because I think slowly. I am not stupid, it just takes me longer to process and situate my surroundings and make sense of it all. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I can be a talking Tina all day long, but I tend to listen more than I speak so I don’t make a complete ass out of myself. And when Diego is even a little buzzed, he thinks slower and he’s more empathetic.

He went to bed after tucking me in and then I went to bed til about 11:30pm for the bathroom and and then at 1:30 and here I am, two hours later still writing, revising, and editing this. I sit here with my sweatshirt on with chills and sweats due to my sunburn. I am drinking a lot of water which I will regret later on because once I go back to sleep, I will have tot wake up 6 more times to pee.

This morning, we have 10am check out so dad is going to use his waffle iron that he brought with us and make Belgian waffles, the really big ones. After that, it’s time to wrap it up and pack everything. Overall it was a good little trip. I will leave you all with my peaks and pitfalls of this trip and then I will sign off.

Pitfalls

-Diego and I’s fight on day #1

-Sunburn. I wish I would have remembered sunblock…

-Fully submerging my nearly brand new FitBit Versa 3 into the water, 8 feet under. I forgot it was even on my wrist, but I think it’s semi waterproof and it put it in direct sunlight for an hour to dry it out. But I freaked out for sure when I realized what I had done. It still works, thank God.

Peaks

-Swimming. I love swimming, I am not a strong swimmer but it made my foot feel amazing

-The state park. Got some cool photos and those are priceless.

-Mini golf. I think I failed to mention this early but all four of us played 10 holes of mini golf downtown and I lost but everyone played pretty good

-Going to the candy store because I likeeeeeee caaaaaaaannnndddddyyyyyyyy

much love to you all. keep fighting the good fight ❤

Dani