KevinPittman.com

As you have no doubt already read from everyone’s various blogs, I went on a short vacation to Cannon Beach, Oregon this last weekend. Yeah, I know it’s already Thursday and I got back on Monday… so I extended my vacation a little… wanna fight about it?

This type of trip was actually a first for me. I’ve never been on vacation with so many friends. In the past it has mostly been vacations with family and relatives, and more recently with Ash and one or two friends. Let’s just say that hoteling it with 11 of your closest iFriends certainly had its ups and downs.

After driving for what seemed like forever through what seemed like and endless forest we arrived in Cannon Beach. We then proceeded to drive back and forth through the town looking for the damned hotel; I think we finally found it after about 5 passes back and forth and then driving to the other side of town. Lessons learned:

• tired driving = retarded driving
• driving at night = missing street signs
• trusting directions from Google Maps while it’s still Beta = bad

In any event, I think everyone in our car (me, Kat, and Darrin) was super happy to finally see people we recognized. In some ways I was a little bummed the drive was over because honestly it was pretty fun. I always end up laughing my ass off when I hang out with those two. In hindsight, the drive down was probably one of the better parts of the entire trip.

By the time we got there not much was going on. Everyone seemed pretty dead, especially in the other room, and after a quick trip down to see the ocean everyone went to sleep. There is something very awe-inspiring about seeing the ocean at night like that. I don’t think I’ve ever been on one where it was so dark; for some reason it seems much larger and intense at night. It reminded me of scenes from Cast Away.

Saturday was a pretty eventful day to say the least. Breakfast at Pigs ‘n Pancakes was great. Hurray for endless coffee! The shops around Cannon Beach are interesting to browse around, although most of them are full of useless crap. The artwork in one place was pretty cool though. I was particularly fond of some photography that reminded me of Salvador Dali pieces.

Going to Seaside was fun too. Again the shops are all pretty useless but the carnival type stuff was fun. Going into an ice-cream/toffee shop took us all back to the 1950’s and was a bit trippy. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone so happy to be selling candy. Probably the most fun were the bumper cars. Kat insisted that we go on them, and although I didn’t really want to go at first, it ended up being the highlight of Seaside. Something about watching a bunch of little kids go on them beforehand made me feel foolish and childish about participating. I must have tagged Kat insanely hard because she almost flew out of the car and later was bruised all over her arm. I win.

Back at the hotel Kat surprised both Darrin and I with a small gift. They were little shot glasses that looked like beer mugs with “KDK” stamped onto them; pretty awesome if you ask me. Funny how something so small can mean so much. Darrin and I decided we would have to put our efforts together and get her something amazing in return.



Going down to the beach during a wind storm proved pretty amazing as well. I tried to take some photos but the sandblasting was pretty relentless. I was able to get a series of Kat being blown away while David watched helplessly (actually he just stood there and was lazy).

Even though Saturday night was the main party night for the trip, it was also a day filled with drama. It seemed to come from every angle and we just couldn’t escape it, some of us more than others. Needless to say, I was a little disappointed it turned out that way. I think David’s comparison to MTV’s Real World shows is pretty accurate, except they always have a hot tub and a pool table! This isn’t to say that Saturday wasn’t fun, I had a blast. I just wish everyone could have had one with me.

I really enjoyed a long, drunken photography/camera discussion with Sean. I’ve been into photography for a while, although I suck at it, and it’s great to find someone with similar interests. We made plans to go shooting sometime, hopefully we follow through on them.

That night I had some serious trouble sleeping. I ended up chilling in the room all night, waiting for everyone to wake up. Around 3:30 am I started going crazy and feeling claustrophobic; I guess everyone’s sleeping sounds plus the stuffy air was getting to me. I decided to get some air, some privacy, and exercise; I took a walk down to the ocean in the middle of a storm. I had hoped it would be as majestic as it was the first night, but it ended up being rather miserable and cold.

Sunday I was pretty bummed that Darrin had to leave. I tried my hardest to get him to stay and throw responsibility to the wind, but he declined. I seriously contemplated going back with him, but ended up staying by rationalizing that I had already paid for the hotel for three nights. I didn’t really want him to have to drive back alone and splitting up the KDK group didn’t feel right. I was also sick of the various bullshit going around and thought maybe I’d just cut my losses.

Monday signaled the end of our time at Cannon Beach. Trevor drove me, Kat, and David to the Outlet malls for some tax free shopping and then back to Seattle afterwards. The entire drive back I felt slightly car sick and pretty tired, so it wasn’t all that exciting… it wasn’t that bad though.

All in all I had a pretty good time. I hope that there are more trips/vacations/events in the future, although I think more rooms would be needed if I were to go again. I have some great memories of the trip and there seems to be an endless supply of photos around for when those memories need a jogging.

Until iVacation 2006… “wo00oo Cancun!” … or something like that…

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 24th, 2005 at 1:21 pm and is filed under Events, iSchool. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.