(And the Sublime style is still straight from Long Beach)
i knew that when my wife returned, i was going to want a weekend with her alone, and i knew she would prefer to have that weekend alone somewhere along the coast.
so, before i even knew exactly what day she would be returning home, i picked a safe weekend on the calendar, did my best puppy-dog eyes at my mom (convincing her to watch the boys for an entire weekend is fraught with danger), and booked a hotel.
and friday, when i brought no. 1 home from school, we loaded up the car, and headed for long beach (washington, not california--driving to long beach, ca for the weekend would be kinda like trying to fit a month into a week).
the drive down 101 was pretty, jaunting merrily between weyerhauser fields (some wooded, some logged), and small burgs advertising oysters and crab and antiques ("why are there always an overabundance of book stores, antique stores, and ice-cream parlors along the coast?") until we pulled into long beach, and found the hotel where we would be staying.
the room had a kitchenette, a "view" of the ocean ("see that brown ribbon along the horizon? that is the ocean. since we are seeing that from our window, i would imagine that counts as a 'view'."), a balcony, and wonderfully large windows that allowed in maximum sun, or in the case of this weekend, cloud-filtered light.
friday night, we had a wonderful meal at a little bistro we found in nearby seaview, then back to our room for some "relaxing".
saturday morning, we had appointments for massages and facials at a local day spa. i have never had a facial before, and it was actually very nice, and i was informed that i had a wonderful complexion (i always thought of my complexion as iffy at best) and great skin (again, never imagined myself as one that a professional might refer to as someone with "great skin").
my wife and i are huge fans of oyster shooters, and after our spa visit, along with walking on the beach and checking out the local shops, we made it our goal to find a place that had oyster shooters.
it was, i believe, easier for candide to find his way into el dorado than for us to find oyster shooters in long beach.
now, here's the thing. this is the coast. god alone knows how many mountains of cast-off oyster shells we passed on the way to long beach. as i said to my wife while we sauntered down the main street trying to find anyfuckingwhere that carried oyster shooters, "they should be chucking them out into the street. we should be walking past the entrance of a place and literally get hit in the face, followed by 'oh i'm really sorry, it's just that we have so many damn raw oysters that we have to dump them into the gutter.' we should overhear homeless fellas complaining, 'not fucking oysters on a half-shell again! i keep hoping someone will toss out a steak or a salad or a damn hunk of bread, but it is always fucking oysters on the half shell.'"
(i am extremely witty in my own head.)
we finally settled for a restaurant, out of sheer exhaustion and starvation, that had, at best, mediocre seafood. one does not come to the coast for steak. or salad. or mediocre fucking seafood! one comes to the coast for fucking oysters on the half shell, and dungeness crab (well, in our neck of the woods, anyhow. i imagine at other coasts it may be lobster, or king crab (i ate my sides out with king crab in alaska once. damn, that was fun), or some other thing, but along the oregon and washington coast, it is oysters, goeducks, and dungeness crab).
we vowed to do better at dinner, and headed for the beach.
after a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo(whew, i almost need a break from typing how long the walk was, which reminds me of the huge break i needed after completing the long walk)ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong walk along the water, the waves attempting to crawl up and entrap our feet, the gulls mean-mugging us, thinking we were there to steal their beached fish and kelp and baby jellyfish.
at dinner, we went to a restaurant we hadn't made it to previously, and that was named, appropriately, the crab pot. after a bit of a wait, and a more-than-largish gin and tonic, we found ourselves replete with oyster shooters and enough dungeness crab to choke a dozen donkeys.
sunday, we woke up sluggishly, dressed slowly, showered languidly, and checked out of our room. we drove lazily home, and found, much to our surprise, that grammy hadn't killed herself or ripped all her hair out, the kids were happy and not overly sugared-up, and the house was not only still standing, but relatively clean as well.
a wonderful time was had by all.
darth sardonic
so, before i even knew exactly what day she would be returning home, i picked a safe weekend on the calendar, did my best puppy-dog eyes at my mom (convincing her to watch the boys for an entire weekend is fraught with danger), and booked a hotel.
and friday, when i brought no. 1 home from school, we loaded up the car, and headed for long beach (washington, not california--driving to long beach, ca for the weekend would be kinda like trying to fit a month into a week).
the drive down 101 was pretty, jaunting merrily between weyerhauser fields (some wooded, some logged), and small burgs advertising oysters and crab and antiques ("why are there always an overabundance of book stores, antique stores, and ice-cream parlors along the coast?") until we pulled into long beach, and found the hotel where we would be staying.
the room had a kitchenette, a "view" of the ocean ("see that brown ribbon along the horizon? that is the ocean. since we are seeing that from our window, i would imagine that counts as a 'view'."), a balcony, and wonderfully large windows that allowed in maximum sun, or in the case of this weekend, cloud-filtered light.
friday night, we had a wonderful meal at a little bistro we found in nearby seaview, then back to our room for some "relaxing".
saturday morning, we had appointments for massages and facials at a local day spa. i have never had a facial before, and it was actually very nice, and i was informed that i had a wonderful complexion (i always thought of my complexion as iffy at best) and great skin (again, never imagined myself as one that a professional might refer to as someone with "great skin").
my wife and i are huge fans of oyster shooters, and after our spa visit, along with walking on the beach and checking out the local shops, we made it our goal to find a place that had oyster shooters.
it was, i believe, easier for candide to find his way into el dorado than for us to find oyster shooters in long beach.
now, here's the thing. this is the coast. god alone knows how many mountains of cast-off oyster shells we passed on the way to long beach. as i said to my wife while we sauntered down the main street trying to find anyfuckingwhere that carried oyster shooters, "they should be chucking them out into the street. we should be walking past the entrance of a place and literally get hit in the face, followed by 'oh i'm really sorry, it's just that we have so many damn raw oysters that we have to dump them into the gutter.' we should overhear homeless fellas complaining, 'not fucking oysters on a half-shell again! i keep hoping someone will toss out a steak or a salad or a damn hunk of bread, but it is always fucking oysters on the half shell.'"
(i am extremely witty in my own head.)
we finally settled for a restaurant, out of sheer exhaustion and starvation, that had, at best, mediocre seafood. one does not come to the coast for steak. or salad. or mediocre fucking seafood! one comes to the coast for fucking oysters on the half shell, and dungeness crab (well, in our neck of the woods, anyhow. i imagine at other coasts it may be lobster, or king crab (i ate my sides out with king crab in alaska once. damn, that was fun), or some other thing, but along the oregon and washington coast, it is oysters, goeducks, and dungeness crab).
we vowed to do better at dinner, and headed for the beach.
after a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo(whew, i almost need a break from typing how long the walk was, which reminds me of the huge break i needed after completing the long walk)ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong walk along the water, the waves attempting to crawl up and entrap our feet, the gulls mean-mugging us, thinking we were there to steal their beached fish and kelp and baby jellyfish.
at dinner, we went to a restaurant we hadn't made it to previously, and that was named, appropriately, the crab pot. after a bit of a wait, and a more-than-largish gin and tonic, we found ourselves replete with oyster shooters and enough dungeness crab to choke a dozen donkeys.
sunday, we woke up sluggishly, dressed slowly, showered languidly, and checked out of our room. we drove lazily home, and found, much to our surprise, that grammy hadn't killed herself or ripped all her hair out, the kids were happy and not overly sugared-up, and the house was not only still standing, but relatively clean as well.
a wonderful time was had by all.
darth sardonic
Labels: long beach, sublime, the coast
posted by darth sardonic at 1:52 PM
5 Comments:
Sounds like a nice weekend. I've never had oysters and have eaten at Red Lobster a couple of times. Living in the mountains, seafood is somewhat dangerous at times and always an adventure.
Round here, we'd find a hot springs and look for a good steakhouse. Or my favorite, Margaritas and Fajitas.
God that sounds amazing and I don't even EAT seafood. Man, you sound happy. Great post too.
I seriously adore oysters with nothing but a squeeze of lemon juice and a cold glass of champagne to wash them down... bliss.... so going to the cupboard... oh look there's half a pack of stale biscuits!!!
pxx
Oh, I haven't had an oyster shooter in AGES! In Florida oyster season is any month with an "r" in it, or is it the other way around? The best oysters used to come from Apalachicola on the northwest coast but I think pollution and hurricanes might have put a stop to it. Just a suggestion in case you do move to Florida.
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