The Nehalem Experience (Part 5) Saturday, April 26, 2008

[left] Sunday morning, Pierce Henley was back in the kitchen again. [below] Joe and Kate Mitchoff enjoy breakfast in the sunshine.














On the way home, Ben, Todd and I stopped at Oswald West State Park (right), just up the coast from Manzanita. It's another nice place to camp (more primitive than Nehalem) and the beach is popular with surfers.

I don't know why the "west" is in the name—there isn't any "Oswald East State Park."

And we were back in town around 3, just in time for Ben and Todd to head off to Footy training.

The Nehalem Experience (Part 4)

Back to the Nehalem saga (see also parts 1, 2, and 3):

After dinner on Saturday night, many of us headed down to the beach to see the sunset. The weather was relatively good (i.e. neither snowing nor raining) but the sunset was pretty blah. Nevertheless, it did seem to put people in a contemplative mood ...


















And then it was back to the meeting hall where a couple of the DJs in the group kept the tunes pumping well into the night.

The Nehalem Experience (Part 3)—Paella! Friday, April 25, 2008

Pierce and Kate sautee onions and tomatoes for Saturday night's paella.

The highlight of the weekend was undoubtedly Saturday night's paella feed. As they do every year, Pierce Henley and Kate Mitchoff cooked up a huge amount of rice, shrimp, scallops, crab legs, vegetables and—new for 2008—chicken and sausage, into a gargantuan feast for everybody. There were about 24 of us at the table, but food enough for 50!

[right] Pierce demonstrates how not to add the rice.

With the precision, coordination, and urgency of a cardio-thoracic surgical team—and a little help from a couple of sous-chefs—Pierce and Kate sauteed, steamed, boiled and baked the concoction to perfection in a pair of garbage can-sized paella pans. The heat was provided by a pair of Pierce's homemade grills.


[right] The chef tests his product. [below] Pierce and Kate check for "socarrat," the caramelization of the bottom layer of rice that is indicative of a perfectly cooked paella.














[left] Monique pulls steaming crab legs out of the pot. [below] Kate and Pierce show off the final product (the crab was added to each plate).











Sorry, no pictures of the crowd enjoying the results—my hands were full of crab!

The Nehalem Experience (Part 2) Wednesday, April 23, 2008

[left] The early risers—Erin, Kate, Paul, Pierce and Jocelyn—chat in the meeting hall Saturday morning. [below] Saturday morning's agenda included a trip into town for brioche from the Bread and Ocean bakery and deli ... and not much else.








The brioche is highly recommended. They make it with cinnamon (which I had), chocolate, almond-poppyseed, brie, and sometimes brie with ham or bacon. But they only make it on Saturdays, and they go fast!


[right] There was a short sunny break around noon on Saturday, and I had a group of about four ready to go for a walk on the beach. But one person had to finish a Scrabble game first, so we waited. Then another had to pick up something at the yurt. Then a couple others wanted to join, as soon as they cleaned up their lunch stuff. And then the original three decided not to go at all. About 90 minutes after the idea was proposed, the revised group—Ben, Todd and I—started the quarter-mile trek to the beach. Then Todd stopped at the bathroom, so Ben and I waited. Then it started snowing again. We went to the beach anyway. We only stayed about five minutes.

[right] While others look on from the warmth of the meeting hall, Ben makes a graupel-man on the picnic table. [below] The rest of the afternoon consisted of playing cards, Scrabble, Connect 4, reading, and drinking beer.

The Nehalem Experience (Part 1)

Camping gear sits outside Ben Cyphery's car Apr. 18, waiting to be loaded for a trip to Nehalem Bay State Park.

Every year, a group of my friends celebrates Joe Mitchoff's birthday by camping at Nehalem Bay State Park. The park is on the Oregon coast by Manzanita, about two hours' drive from Portland. After missing the chance to join them the last couple of years, I finally got to go last weekend.

It's pretty cushy camping, really—yurts with beds, lights, and heat; a group meeting hall with more of the same (no beds); hot showers and flush toilets. But this year, at least, we were all glad for the comforts because the weather was awful.

Ben and Todd take in Cannon Beach from a highway lookout en route to Nehalem Bay State Park.

As we drove out to the coast, there was snow in the air over the David Douglas Summit (about 1600 feet). Saturday—on the coast—was marked at various times by mist, rain, snow, thunder, graupel, wind, and a couple of brief sunny breaks. Sunday morning was sunny but cold, and it rained again later in the day. The temperature never got above 50F.

I rode out there with Ben and Todd. We arrived at about 6:30, with just enough time for a quick beer before heading into Manzanita for pizza.