A Day in the LIfe by Paty Jager

This time the post is about a weekend spent with other writers.

This past weekend, I attended a Halloween luncheon on Thursday with my writer friends in Bend Oregon.

Friday morning a Bend writer friend and two writer friends from Eastern Oregon headed to the Oregon Coast. Rockaway Beach to be exact.  First we checked the trip cams and saw there was about 5 inches of snow on the pass we'd planned to take. We discovered going by way of Portland there was no snow. I texted my husband, an ex-truck driver, and asked what he suggested for missing Portland. He sent his recommendations, and we took off.

The drive was a bit longer than we'd hoped, but we talked writing the whole way. We arrived in Tillamook early and checked out the Cheese Factory, which is under construction but they had a small building with cheese tasting, their restaurant, and how the cheese is made as well as the gift shop and ice cream. So we didn't miss out on too much. We purchased food for the weekend at the local Fred Meyer and headed to the house we'd rented.

It is a log house that was built in the early 1900's. We each found our room and beds, wrote for an hour and a half and then went out to dinner at a local restaurant on the beach. It was delicious food and a great view of the stormy weather.

view from the restaurant

Back at the house we wrote until everyone slowly headed to their beds. The wind was wild all night long and the rain pelted the windows. When we'd arrived there was a bucket in the main room where the roof had dripped. There was so much rain by morning that we had to find a pot and a bowl to capture rain from two more leaks. 

After writing a bit and seeing the weather wasn't going to let up, Kathy and I headed out for a walk on the beach. We were sand blasted from the wind blowing the sand and soaked clear through by the time we walked nearly a  mile and back to the house. But it was good to get out and give our brains more oxygen and talk through things we were stuck on.

blowing sand

 
We spent the rest of the morning writing and the afternoon working on keywords for advertising, until Kathy said there was a candy shop with fresh made truffles... We decided even thought it was pouring rain, we'd get truffles and go to dinner.

Trying to find a parking spot close to the candy store because were we trying to avoid getting too wet before going to the restaurant, we ran into a road so full of water we had to turn around. Finally, we parked and made a run for it, getting soaked. We purchased some very tasty truffles which we had when we returned to the house after dinner. We all also purchased candy for our husbands. It was fun to discover all of our husbands aren't fond of the coast and are more than happy to let us go on retreats and get our fill of the ocean.

We went on down to Pirate's Cove at Garibaldi for dinner. It is a bit pricey but the food is excellent. After that we went back to the house and everyone wrote for a while before we dived into the truffles. The weather started calming down that night.

Kathys taking a photo out the restaurant window.

Sunday morning Kathy and I were able to walk without rain and a bit of sunshine. We wrote until noon, cleaned up the house, and headed home.  We were detoured around Tillamook because the downtown streets were flooded from all the rain. After finding Highway 101, the plan was to have lunch in Lincoln City but somehow we ended up on the road to Hebo. So we continued on to Salem and had a quick lunch there before heading over Santiam Pass which was back to just rain and barely any sign that it had snowed on Friday.

The trip was short, but I managed to get my new project well on it's way toward the end and had a good time talking writing with my writer friends. I"m looking forward to April with we'll rend the house for a week.