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July 31, 2009

IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

There's been a lot going on down at the coast this week in the Bell household.

Friday night, we steamed up and - along with Leanna - went out to greet the steam locomotive when it brought the tourist train to town. While we were out, our boat developed a steam leak, but we held on long enough to greet the train and had a little bit of "Dueling Whistles" before we had to run for the dock. It was fun, but Dave spent most of the next day getting the boat repaired. I guess that's the way steamboating goes. One hour of boating - two hours of maintenance!

On Saturday, Dave's nephew and his wife (Dean and Brenda) with two of their four sons, arrived from Colorado for the week to surprise Dean's mother, Leanna who lives next door to us. Boy was she surprised! They have been here all week getting some much needed sprucing up of her place. I have also been helping by doing the cooking and washing clothes while they have been here. They stayed with us because we have more room, but have spent most of the time at her place.

We also had other guests. Stan and Terrie Boyd spent Saturday night with us. They had planned several weeks ago to come down so we had a real nice visit with them too. We took them for a steamboat ride that evening and waited for the dinner train from Garibaldi to show up so we could challenge them to another whistle-blowing contest. The train was late and when it finally did show up, it wasn't the steam locomotive, but a diesel. It was disappointing because that thing didn't have near enough horn to compete with our whistle! It's always fun to do this because not only the train guys, but also the passengers get a big kick out of us! Anyway, we had a good time steaming around the bay that evening.

I guess the talk around here has been the HOT weather we have been having. The Portland area missed breaking the all time high of 107 degrees by 1 degree on Tuesday and Wednesday. Needless to say, everyone flocked to the beach for relief. It was bumper to bumper on Highway 101 in Seaside. The only problem is that when it is hot in Portland, we get fogged in at the coast most of the time. We did have one really hot day when the temperature reached in the 80's, but other than that it stayed around 70 to 75 degrees for most of the week. I love living at the coast! Our daughter, Leslie called us on Wednesday to say that the temperature read 110 degrees at her house that day. They've been living in their pool! People were even standing in line for two hours to buy fans to keep cool as not everyone has air conditioning. We saw a Facebook post from one of our friends who lives in Portland and jokingly said he saw cactus growing in his front yard and had sighted an armadillo! At least they could joke about the situation. It's supposed to cool off to the 80's by the weekend. That means upper 60's and lower 70's here.

We had a Keanu Reeves sighting the other day. Someone saw him eating lunch at Wanda's in Nehalem. He must be around making a movie or something. Several years ago, he was in a movie (Point Break) that had a few scenes filmed in Wheeler. I guess he liked the area and comes back often. We see celebs down here every once in a while because the location is so beautiful.

On Sunday afternoon, the community of Wheeler had a potluck in Waterfront Park that was sponsored by the Park Committee. The mayor gave a speech and we dedicated the new Coast Guard Life Jacket Station that the Coast Guard Auxiliary and local volunteers built. It was made to loan life jackets to people when they go out on the river. We like it because a lot of people used to let their kids run on the dock with no life jacket. That was really scary, because with the current and the tide, the water can move pretty fast by here. Now, we see a lot more children with life jackets on the dock, because they can just grab one from the Coast Guard stand when they go by. Anyway, we had live music and lots of food at the picnic. After we ate, Dave gave rides on the steamboat to anyone that wanted one. We had about 75 people show up, and the weather was just perfect.

We've just been working the rest of this week, helping Leanna's family and helping Des Kahrs rebuild part of the dock where the boat is moored. Dave helps out with dock maintenance every year. It helps reimburse them for allowing us to moor the boat at their place. We had a lot of photo opportunities, but the camera always seemed to be somewhere else when we needed it.