Another glorious sunny day in Coos! On Saturday morning, we walked the dogs then headed over the Empire area – a good five minutes away – to attend the annual Clamboree! It was held outdoors, of course, at a small park near where we rented a house when we first moved here. There were booths selling all kinds of interesting things as well as food stalls. The local culinary institute had a booth with freshly-made chowder, clam Po Boys, fried clams – all kinds of neat stuff. We wandered and enjoyed looking at the people as well as the displays. There was live entertainment – a woman strumming the guitar and singing. Mom always said it you can’t say something nice….so I’ll stop there. At one booth a big old boy covered in tattoos and was selling all kinds of calls – moose, duck, crow (?), bear – you name it. Well, Den did. He said we need a good call for dogs. We wandered into a booth with all kinds of beautiful blown glass items. Dennis bought me a lovely pendant with ….are you ready? Can you guess? Really? A frog! Surprising, I know.
Part of the Clamboree was held down by the water where there’s going to be a boat building facility. There were several boats, canoes and kayaks displayed that men had built by hand. Very interesting but COLD! The temperate was warm – about 66 degrees, but the wind! Oy. If I haven’t mentioned it yet, Coos Bay in the summer is WINDY! I’m not talking a stiff breeze here. Nope, the wind here will blow an elephant off the deck, no problem. But I digress. Full of food, empty of cash and chilly, we headed for home to get ready for the BIG OPEN HOUSE!
When we moved to our little loop on Telegraph Hill I knew right away I wanted to have an open house to meet all the neighbors. I sent an invitation to every house and a few to others I’ve met since we arrived – about 24 people in all. I did put down RSVP but well, you know how it goes. I only had two replies by last Wednesday and was thinking we’d have to start drinking all that wine – soon! We put out glasses and food relegated our dogs to the patio and…the clock had barely struck four when the doorbell rang and it didn’t stop ringing for an hour. Yup we had about 20 people here. The first couple had been to a wedding in Mingus Park. If you haven’t already – Goodle it. Mingus is one of the most beautiful parks I’ve even seen. We walk the dogs there most dogs and I can barely make it back up the hill in tennis shoes. Our first guest walked it in HEELS! Amazing
Everyone brought something – more wine, a plant (poor plant) candy, fruit, fresh baked bread. It was wonderful. Best of all we found we have a great bunch of people living around us! We all drank, nibbled and exchanged restaurant reviews, volunteer opportunities and other fun gossip. By seven, everyone had started to leave. They all thanked us for doing the open house and letting them SEE the inside of our house. No one had been in here before! So, a good time was had by all.
End of the adventure? Nope. Today was another fabulous sunny day so we took the pups to the dunes for a good run today then started off to do a couple of chores. Well, we found more places to explore, like the Cash and Carry store – just like Costco but smaller, WAY smaller. Went back to the True Value Hardware store (they have a fresh popcorn machine so the customers can munch while they shop) – Den’s new passion since there’s no Home Depot here. As we were heading alone the bay toward home we spotted the sign for fresh fish and FISH TACOS!!! Yes, a new little place opened under the boardwalk about a week ago. They sell not only fresh caught fish but also some cooked goodies. The place is literally a small houseboat on the water in the marina! (Don’t laugh – we have about 20 boats in our marina!!!) The place was packed with folks waiting for their orders! We each got a couple of fish tacos and sat on the boardwalk to eat them. DELICIOUS! Unfortunately I forgot – again – to bring a sweater and damn near froze my butt off. One of these days I’ll get it.
Till next time…. Don’t forget to check out one of my books! I’ve written something for everyone.