Lincoln City Holiday Weekend

I did promise a review didn't I?

Considering that much of the weather was absolutely dismal we had a great time. We stayed at the Looking Glass Inn. It's not directly overlooking the ocean like so many of the others. If you look at the photo there is a public parking lot and public access to the bay between the hotel and the water. You can certainly see the ocean from the room though. Given the weather that weekend not being as close turned out to be a plus! I think it would have been a little nerve racking given the high waves and wind gusts we experienced Sunday night.

The room itself was great, well appointed and roomy. Besides the usual amenities it included a balcony, fireplace, kitchenette, and Jacuzzi. If there was a power outage the gas fireplace could provide both heat and a little light. I should add that the staff made a point of bringing flashlights (requiring them to walk out in the cold, wind and rain) to all their customers. That's dedication!

The Jacuzzi was nice and certainly accommodated two people. I find the shape a bit odd, sort of an upside down heart. Which is kind of romantic but would have had more impact visually if it had been turned right side up.
So what to do on a rainy weekend at the beach? Well it wasn't all rainy, Saturday was beautiful and we drove down to Depoe Bay and watched for whales at the ranger lookout/museum/shop for a while. Some people claimed they'd seen a whale spout but either I missed it (again) or it was just surf. We wandered up and down the seawall and admired the waves. There is nothing like sea air to improve your breathing! Once you are tired of what nature has to offer, you can eat at one of the establishments, buy candy or Carmel corn, and wander in and out of the shops. Some shops are admittedly full of junk for tourists but there are some shops with nice things.

On Sunday we went to a place that lets you blow your own glass ball. Yep! They actually allow hands on (with gloves and safety glasses) experience of blowing glass. Even children! It's $65 per person and takes about half an hour. Once you've finished making your ball it's put in a kiln overnight to temper and cool. You'll need to plan on coming back the next day to pick up your ball. They are generous about family taking lots of photos and for an extra charge provide you a photo if you don't have a camera. If you've always been fascinated by glass blowing this is a must do. They also offer formal classes but they are priced beyond the casual tourist.







Food! Why is it all the librarians I know love food? Is it an occupational connection, a stress induced condition, or just coincidence?

There are several eateries to recommend, from the cheap to the fancy. For breakfast I can recommend both the Hilltop (a long local tradition) and the new Pig'n Pancake. The Hilltop on Sunday mornings seems to cater to an older set as they have an organ player playing Lawrence Welk type music. The Pig'n Pancake if usually pretty crowded so you'll have to wait longer. My recommendation is to alternate between them for variety since the food is good at both. We usually had pancakes, eggs, and bacon and both places excel at them.

Those with dust allergies might be advised to go to the Hilltop since they have a built in vacuum system that vents out through the roof. Because they have to plug in long tubes into the wall units they do use a standard vacuum when the restaurant is busy so you can't assume that its allergy proof. But I thought it was clever and considerate way of cleaning the restaurant.

Mo's gets good reviews for it's food and we certainly enjoyed ours. It's definitly not a fancy interior and the seating is essentially picnic table quality. But they offer alcoholic drinks and lots of good seafood. For weekenders who didn't want to pack extra clothes for dining it's perfect.

Another Lincoln City tradition is the Dory Cove. They serve a variety of food but we know them best for their seafood, especially clams. They are casual dress so a nice sweat shirt and jeans are not out of place but they are certainly a few steps up from Mo's for ambiance.

Right next to Dory Cove is a public beach called Land's End. It's certainly worth a look, on Sunday with the weather, the surf was pretty active. In fact the surf was so active the beach looked like someone had dumped a load of laundry detergent in.

Oregon Coast Storm

Had a great holiday weekend! We came to Lincoln City for some badly needed R&R and have enjoyed ourselves tremendously. The weather forecast had been for gloomy to dreadful, depending on the forecaster. But we came anyway and Saturday turned out to be glorious. It was sunny and mild, and since it was unexpected it was like a gift. Sunday night was closer to dire! The temperature dropped and the wind was very high with gust up to 85 mph. The flag shown here was in good condition before the storm started but it's looking pretty tattered today! I was actually surprised to see it there this morning. We watched that flag a lot last night, figuring when it was lost we'd know we were in trouble. At breakfast at the Pig'n Pancake we were told the power had gone out at 1 a.m. Fortunetly we were long asleep by then and didn't notice. In later posts I'll write about the hotel we stayed at and activities for a rainy weekend. As they say, "Any day at the beach is a great day!"

Eww! You reek man!

If one more person says I must have the easiest job in the world I'm going to,to...

Let's face it, all jobs are work. If it was easy and fun all the time people wouldn't have to be paid to do it and it wouldn't be work then, it'd be a hobby. And we wouldn't need a masters degree from a university to get an entry level position!

No, librarians don't get to read books all day. It's like being a diabetic in a candy store. We see them go by but we don't have time to look. What we get to read are book reviews, no, actually we skim book reviews, who has time to read the things anymore? So we try to pick books, keeping in mind reduced budgets, what people really want to read, what everyone thinks "ought" to be in libraries, the quality of the publishers' past offerings, the reputation of the authors, and what needs to be available in order to offer a balanced collection that meets your community's needs. Which implies you have a good understanding of your community. Oh, and bearing in mind that the community you serve is constantly changing. All this and more, but with a budget that is small. Really, really small. Did I mention it will be even smaller next year?

Then there's the people. Lot's and lots of people of unknown and uncertain temperament. You want stress, try dealing with a hundred people in a single day who think you have an easy job and have a chip on their shoulder. But you don't know that until they start on you, and they then try to ruin your day any number of ways. Let me mention just three I've had.

There's the "ask the really esoteric and difficult question patron," who then gives the librarian exactly two (count them) two minutes to answer it. Heck, sometimes not even that much, after all, Google comes up faster! Plus during your miserly two minutes they make every annoying noise and body gesture there is to indicate impatience. If the question is important enough to ask, isn't the answer worth waiting patiently for? Librarians are not computers, we don't regurgitate answers in 10 nanoseconds. Heck, it takes two minutes sometimes to get the library catalog to "wake up" enough so that one can type in a request. We're good, but we still need to work with our tools and that's going to take more than 2 minutes. Here's the kicker, it might take us ten whole minutes to get an answer that the library patron couldn't find in four hours on their own.

Then there's the Internet users. Sigh. Many of them wouldn't darken the doors of a library if it wasn't for the Internet access. Free access, let's say it again, free access, and guess who complains the most? It's too slow, my site won't come up, why do you have all these restrictions, what do you need network security for, why is my site a bandwidth hog, why do I have to pay for printing, why are your computers so old, why do I have to wait my turn, why can't I be on longer, why can't I annoy the other computer users, why don't you have [insert latest technology here] on these, and why don't you have more computers so we don't have to wait? On and on and on. What happened to beggers can't be choosey and they ought to be grateful? If their needs are that great they need to save up for their own computer. It's not like they couldn't use our wireless hotspot.

Then there's the poorly socialized and cleanliness challenged. I discovered recently that my allergies have NOT wiped out my sense of smell. Not one iota. Did you know if someone reeks badly enough your eyes will water? This one was so dirty I actually worried he might have fleas that would jump on me. That's not something I've ever contemplated before. But while that was bad enough, there was more! This one (yes, there have been others) was a bit of a pervert too. Female library users were running from the library. Sigh, if only I could flee too. Have no fear, he will be banned. We do try to run a safe library. But it means documenting the incident, getting the names of witnesses, and letting all the rest of the staff know that he's on the banned list...you get the drift. Oh, did I mention the time spent between other customers to wash and sterilize the surfaces he touched before another patron entered the space?

Eww! They don't pay me enough to deal with this!!

Ah! Winter has set in on the Oregon Coast

Well there was certainly frost on the pumpkins before Halloween! I actually had to scrape the car windows before leaving for work a couple of mornings. But after a touch of frost to remind the flora and fauna that winter has arrived, the rains have returned!

No, I'm not a masochist! The rain brought warmer temperatures, and I'll take rain over cold any day. Plus we've had very little rain all summer and it's almost a novelty to have it again. Perhaps the lawn will return, I'm really tired of dead grass.