Siletz Bay retreat

I'm just south of Lincoln City, in Siletz Bay. Its around midnight. My room is lovely, I'm on the 3rd floor in the corner, facing west-southwest, so I look right at the ocean. I have the windows open and I can hear the surf, which I find very soothing. I spent a lot of time at the beach today because it was so sunny and warm--I even napped on the sand. There were a lot of people out enjoying the weather. Lots of people with their children and their dogs, many many kites in the air. This is June weather, not February weather.

I've been reading Thoughts Without A Thinker for much of the day, and I'm getting a lot of insight on buddhist thought and Western psychology and the integration of the two. If anything, it is underscoring for me the necessity of mindful meditation, and I am grateful to my therapist for recommending that I return to the practice of it. I think that once I have finished absoring the content, this book will have a profound effect upon me. We'll see.

Lunch was a bowl of chowder, very good. Dinner, a half-dozen oysters on the half-shell accompanied by a double-chocolate stout and a coctail sauce spicy enough to make my eyes wate.

I walked around a bit in the little town here...it has the usual craft galleries, ice cream parlours, and little hole-in-the wall places serving chowder and fish and chips made from halibut, cod, or salmon.

I am heading home tomorrow.... I think I will drive back up north along 101 instead of going directly inland...I love driving with the sun-roof open and the heat on full-blast so I don't get cold...I get to smell the sea and enjoy focussing on navigating some of those interesting curves that the Pacific Coast Highway is famous for.

Well, I'm beat. I think I'll got to sleep. Maybe I'll make another entry sometime tomorrow.