On Tuesday, we attended our Boy Scout Council Coordinated meeting where I received an award, the Presidential Leadership Award. It came in the form of a new council patch listing the award and a new neckerchief with a patch award on it. It's an award our council has created to recognize different volunteers. Two weeks before receiving this award I had received a phone message from the D.E. (professional scouter) in charge of day camp stating that he needed to talk to me. I called him back but had to leave a message. Before he could call me back, I left on vacation. I went on vacation wondering why he called and worried that someone was complaining about something that happened at day camp or that someone got hurt at camp and was now suing the council, or that I needed to take the day camp posts on my blog down, something bad like that. Part way through our vacation to Winthrop, he sent me an email that they wanted to give me some kind of award. Big sigh of relief!
Duane Rhodes, Scout Executive, Scott Suchan, Council President, me
Dode wanted to go with me to get the award so he, the littles and I went to the meeting. I felt like a real dork walking into a meeting that I didn't belong at to receive an unknown award. The night started with a dinner. I wondered if there would be a vegetarian option but it turned out just fine. Cold dried out spaghetti with marinara sauce, yum! After a bunch of announcements by different committee heads, it was time for the award. At this point I still didn't know what or why I was receiving an award. The council president, the highest ranking volunteer, began by explaining how he created the award to recognize volunteers who don't just have great ideas, but that get things done. Then called me up. He explained that he'd visited my day camp and found it to be a "well run machine". So, for my 10 years of running camp, I was receiving an award. I've been involved in scouting for 12 years and hope to be involved long enough to earn my Silver Beaver, the highest award a council volunteer can receive for "outstanding longtime service to youth". You have to be nominated to receive the award. Maybe someday?!
Quick date to the beach
Dode is involved in a GIS tribal user group which gets together quarterly to discuss what they are working on in their departments and to receive training. They take turns hosting the event and this time it was hosted by the Quinault tribe. Their reservation is located on the Washington coast at the northernmost end of Hwy 109, a town called Taholah. It was a four hour drive to get there. The meeting took place on Friday. Since it was such a long drive, the Tulalip Tribes paid for Dode to spend the night before coming home on Saturday. I'm always game for a trip to the beach so after arranging a bunch of logistics with the children, I tagged along with Dode. We left the house at 5:30 am in order to give us some wiggle room in case we encountered traffic. I dropped Dode off at the meeting at 10:00 am and decided to head to the beach. I headed down to Moclips where I could drive onto the beach and rolled down the windows a bit so I could enjoy the sound of the waves and the salty air while I read a book. On the beach it was a densely foggy day where I couldn't see 100 feet away from me in any direction. After a while, I put on my coat and warm hat and set off on a walk down the beach. I walked from Moclips to Pacific Beach, a distance of about two miles that took me about an hour. There weren't many people on the beach, just a few individuals walking their dogs in the fog. I told myself that on the way down to Pacific Beach, I would just enjoy looking at the water and watching the shore birds and on the way back I'd check out the houses along the beach. I also guesstimated at which beach access point was for the hotel we were going to stay at and left a love note for Dode in the sand near it. I went back to the car and planned to visit the tiny Museum of the North Beach. Unfortunately, when I got there I found they had closed early due to illness so I headed back to the beach where I did some more reading before driving back to pick up Dode. We forgot the camera so all the photos had to come from Dode's phone once I saw him again.
Once I picked up Dode, we checked into our hotel. We stayed at the Ocean Crest in Moclips. We knew the tribes hadn't reserved the best room in the hotel and were kind of surprised when we found the door to our room. It seemed to be backing up right to the ocean. We walked in and the big reveal was underwhelming. There was barely room to walk around the double bed and the one window in the room (about 3 feet beyond the foot of the bed) looked out into the hallway several rooms used. The first thing we did was close the curtains so weren't 100% on display. When Dode checked out the next morning they said, "Oh, you stayed in our closet!" It definitely felt that way!
Our "closet".
The description for the room said, "This comfortable room is perfect for the couple (or individual) on the go. It offers all the comforts necessary to be a wonderful nights sleep at the end of a long day of seeing all that the area has to offer."
I think they were trying to say, "this room is best for people who only want to use it to sleep." We were fine with it once we adjusted our expectations down a bit.
The wonderful view!
After exploring our fancy room, we headed down to the town of Pacific Beach where we ate at Paddy's Perch. It's a little mom and pop restaurant. While waiting for our food, Dode noticed his favorite type of wall art, a survey map, which he enjoyed studying. They're famous for their pies and I really wanted a chocolate one but they were sold out. I settled for pear custard, OK but not worth the calories. Arriving back at the hotel with full tummies, we headed down to the beach where I casually walked near where I'd left my sandy love note and sure enough, he saw it, read it, smiled, and told me I was a silly girl. For some reason he thought, "I love you Dode" was intended for him and not some other fellow!
This is the stairway that went from the hotel down to the beach. We're about half way to the hotel in this photo.
We'd planned to spend the entire day Saturday enjoying our time together before heading home but late the night before we left I'd gotten a phone call that one of the children in my primary (Sunday school) class was being baptised on Saturday and they wanted me to give a talk. So, instead of spending a lazy day at the beach, we ate a late picnic breakfast overlooking the ocean and headed towards home. It was a beautiful day, so we made a quick stop at Vance Creek Park near Elma, WA to walk around the ponds there. I've seen it on my way to and from the ocean many times but have never been able to convince the children that stopping would be a good idea. Dode was perfect company for the walk.
We could see the never used cooling towers for nuclear reactors in the distance from the WPPS project (nicknamed Whoops by many who grew up in Washington). These are monstrous concrete towers hundreds of feet tall. Dode has all kinds of ideas for how he could turn those unused cooling towers into a high adventure facility, with zip lines between the towers, climbing holds up the sides of them, a huge fan for indoor skydiving, you get the idea!
And it is even for lease!
The tasty soup I got.
After lunch, it was time for the vacation to be over and the work to begin again. Someone had been in charge of produce that morning so I had baskets of produce to put away, a baptism talk to finalize, and assorted parenting issues to deal with. Dode took off to pick up William, and returned home again for just a couple of minutes before leaving again with Elizabeth to take her to the library. It sure didn't take long to transition back to real life! I'm feeling pretty lucky because Dode is going to Portland for four days in a week and I'm tagging along again!
Tribal Perk
One of the perks we get from time to time due to Dode's employment is free seafood. An email went out during the week that there was free wild salmon to be had at the marina. Dode headed right down. They have an ice machine right next to the dock so it was easy to fill up a garbage bag with ice, add the fish, and keep it fresh until he got home. We had tasty salmon for dinner and had enough to put in the freezer for at least four more meals.
Picking up salmon on the dock.
Dode's boss digging into the ice machine.
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