We're back! Refreshed (mostly), recharged (at least partially), and still dry (rela- tively). More about our vacation in the Comments.THANK YOU to NTodd and Grand Moff Texan for keeping the site going, and to you readers who kept coming back. I hope at least some of you have bookmarked Moment of Triumph and Dohiyi Mir... one of the great things about the blogosphere is that we keep introducing each other to new friends.
As to the Senate Dems who stayed away from the censure hearing Friday... what, they couldn't abstain from the filibuster vote on Alito, but they could abstain from a chance to challenge this President when he shreds the Constitution?
There's a germ of good news in what happened (or didn't happen) Friday, and there's action we can take to help water and fertilize that seed. I'll do a separate post on that a little later. For now, I just want to say:
Thank you for sticking with VichyDems while my family and I took a much-needed break.
Thank you for still being here upon our return.
Thank you to the good people who kept things going while we were gone, to whom I now owe a tremendous debt of gratitude.
Now I can't wait to get back to work and save the world.
BACK TO VICHYDEMS HOME
3 comments:
The countryside around Vichy -- er, I mean, the Oregon Coast -- was beautiful, as always. We got a late start (as we always do on camping trips) and arrived at our campground at dusk in a downpour that was torrential even by Oregon standards. Our campsite was covered with puddles, which would have immediately soaked our tent floors as soon as they were set up, so being sissies we said "the heck with it" and rented a small room in a nearby motel for the first night. Which turned out to be wonderful: two parents, two little girls, one big dog in one small room with two double beds, a big box of M&M cookies and American Idol on TV (yes! Fox! It was Fox! I said I was letting down my guard for a few days!).
The next morning, the girls and dog explored a huge backyard and stairs down to a great, wide, almost unpopulated beach; a little later, my 10 year old and I drove the two minutes to our campground and set up a dry camp, which was a great home for the next few days notwithstanding the intermittently wet weather.
Our campsite was too close to Highway One for my tastes (but then I'd rather backpack or climb than car-camp anyway), but it was only about fifteen steps under gnarled trees my girls named "Snow White Land" and through a patch of salal to the beach. The girls and dog (Aubrey, after the Patrick O'Brian character) spent hours there, exploring and playing in the surf (imagine: 55 degrees, Pacific Northwest ocean temps, overcast or drizzly skies, and they're in swimsuits in the ocean). The dog did show one disturbingly Republican trait: despite 500 unsuccessful attempts, he persists in his faith-based belief that he can catch a seagull if only he runs fast enough or, after they lift off, pursues their lazy circles long enough. He spent hours running and never seemed to tire.
My wife was glad to be away from school, where she spends far too many hours in the same building studying landscape architecture, and it did me good to stop obsessing on politics for a while. Like at home, I got to do most of the cooking, but I really enjoy that when camping (I learned to cook on a wood stove). Mostly I loved just talking with my family; I don't get enough of my wife's company on ordinary days, and my children are becoming charming and intelligent and creative adults right before our eyes.
Of course, it was over too soon -- but there's always summer.
P.S. The motel we stayed at for one night, which I highly recommend to anyone wanting simple, inexpensive lodging run by ridiculously nice people on the Central Oregon coast, is Soma, near Waldport.
(They were nice to us, so I give them a plug.)
Just back from 2 weeks with family, and looking forward to catching up.
When I was your girls' age, and then as a parent of a son their age, I loved our family's riverbank canoe camps.
None of us will forget.
Good job, Thersites.
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