Arrival in Astoria

The Broncos defeat the Seahawks

We have to give thanks to Razz, the lady that runs the IC Internet Cafe in the Lake Quinault/Amanda Park area. Not only did she let us pitch our tent in the rain outback on her hill next to her fire pit, she allowed us to stay for an additional night. So we spent the whole day of Saturday holed up in her establishment, downing another large pizza for breakfast! We found board games to play like Othelo and we watched College Football in the bar area. The place was huge and inviting and had these cozy grandma chairs by the fireplace and we were both busy working on our tech devices. I labored over chapter 2 of the Tao of Astrology. When you've been working on the same morphing ideas over ten years, and you've got four boxes of research and notes to pour over in digital format, it can get overwhelming to channel it all into comprehendible form. But the Cosmic Muse is guiding and presiding over the creation of this sacred work. I can't believe some of the things that are being inscribed in the blank digital space before me. By the end of the day, when they were closing, I managed to complete Chapter 2 entitled Flowing Chart Interpretation, and emailed it to my spiritual brother Peter for editing. Arian had a warm serene day of relaxation and was able to heal up well. We were going to wake up the next morning and watch the Broncos face the Seahawks, but then I found out that the game didn't start till 1 PM Pacific Time which would mean we had less than 4 hours to ride 42 miles to Aberdeen. As fate would have it, I was a little concerned of rolling into Aberdeen, a city, with nowhere to stay, so during the day I found a connection there online through a site called Couchsurfing.com. A guy named Stephan agreed to host us as long as we were okay with a second couple being hosted that night as well. The more the merrier, I emailed, and he said to come over to his house at 8 PM, when he returned home from his job as a wine expert at a restaurant. I was overjoyed at having a safe haven in Aberdeen with a very cultured host. He even taught music at the high school level for four years. Arian was excited to meet him!

So I decided that we would leave early on Sunday morning and try to reach Aberdeen before 1 PM so we could catch the game. Last week the Broncos were trounced by the Jaguars in Jacksonville, but this week they had the home field advantage and Denver has the best record in the NFL on home opener victories! So we got out of our rainy tent and packed things up as best we could. Arian was still coughing but only occasionally. The day and half of R&R did him well and he was looking vital and strong. But I could tell he was not into riding through the rain for 42 miles. We were both sick of the rain and ready for the sun to re-emerge. As luck would have it, Magellan's tire went flat just as we were about to get on the road. I pulled him into the gas station and examined the tire to find that my stem valve where you put the air in had been bent badly and was producing a slow leak! So I could either change the tire and miss the game or...Jupiter would bless us with fortune!

Arian and I were sitting there with Magellan on his side, and we both looked up to see a bus pull into the station with the bright letters ABERDEEN upon its forehead. We both looked at each other and smiled. He knew I didn't want to miss the game and I knew he needed some more time to heal, even though his leg soreness had faded. I told him to go ask when they leave and how much. He came back and said the bus was departing in ten minutes and only cost a dollar each! Arian said, "I'd gladly pay a dollar to go 42 miles!" We quickly stripped our bags and panniers off the bikes, loaded them on the front rack (which held exactly two bikes) and we piled everything in the very back 5 seats of the bus. We enjoyed the scenic views of the moss covered forest from the safety and warmth of that fortunate bus ride and it dropped us off in downtown Aberdeen.

Excited to have arrived in a city in the morning we quickly found an internet cafe so we could log onto our I-pad GPS's and locate the nearest sports bar. The cafe we found was called the Popcorn Place, specializing in the popping and mixing of rare popcorn recipes. We ordered a couple of chais and talked to the locals. A wise elder local businessman named Bud gave us advice about where to catch the game and welcomed us to town. The lady that ran the Popcorn cafe and a few of the locals were fascinated to hear about our journey. It was fun hanging out and telling the story to the locals who looked on and listened in amazement.

After the storytelling we departed and they wished us well on our journey. We found a restaurant/bar called Billy's which had large screen TV's for the game. I was able to catch half the early games before the Seahawks/Bronco game ensued. The place slowly started filling up with Seahawks fans clad in Hasselbeck jerseys (their faithful QB). I decided that I would try and contain my excitement when Denver did anything glorious but this failed badly. When Eddie Royal, my favorite receiver caught the first TD pass and literally rolled into the end zone untouched, I let out a loud exclamation of joy and ended up catching many insidious glares in the process. I stood up and took off my jacket to reveal my true colors, donned in my #27 (Knowshawn Moreno) white Bronco Jersey. The game started off in Seattle's favor and the whole bar erupted in praise and claps as they drove down the field. But after Champ Bailey's amazing interception, the entire game tuned against them and we ended up winning 31-14! When the game ended Arian and I still had 3-4 hours before we were supposed to show up at the Couchsurfing.com host's house, so we simply watched the Sunday night game too and enjoyed some crispy spicy fries and onion rings! LOL

Once the clock struck 8 PM we rode our bikes through the downtown streets and into the residential district to locate the apartment complex where this guy supposedly lived. I had never actually used Couchsurfing.com yet, but had heard amazing things about the site and experiences of Couchsurfers, especially in Europe where the site was started. People have been known to not pay for accommodations for up to six months while Couchsurfing in Europe! This fact was later verified by our two fellow Danish couchsurfers fresh from Denmark.

It turns out that we arrived first and our host, a tall fellow exactly my age (39), welcomed us and helped us park our bikes in his garage. We packed our bags up two flights of stairs into his immaculate apartment. He had four towels and washcloths set out in the bathroom and Arian jumped in the shower first to wash the grime and mud and rain from the last five days off. I told him to leave his clothes at the door and my host and I gathered all the dirty laundry and put a load in the communal washer on the level below. Fresh laundry and showers and a cultured host! We were in travel heaven. Then the wonderful Danish couple showed up named Irene and Rasmus, and they too got showered and cleaned. They were traveling America by car and had already been to New York, Boulder, Colorado (before the fires), California, Oregon, and were heading toward Seattle by the same route we had taken. They gifted Arian and I with a pack of this bizarre salted black licorice which was strange but delightful. We spent the evening talking and sharing stories and cultures and it was all very enlightening.

I love getting foreign perspectives on the world just because they are so pure and divorced from the American media-brainwashed version of things. The world seemed like a bright real place when described by the people that actually lived out there, rather than the dangerous not-to-be-trusted place the media portrayed. Rasmus was a computer scientist who worked on security for banking systems and Irene had been an exchange student to Kansas. To their credit, they spoke almost perfect English compared to our Danish, which was nonexistent. Irene was a talented mathematician and had been a tour guide. We had an amazing time playing card games like "Set" (which Irene dominated due to her warp speed pattern recognition skills) and "Racko" I was pretty skilled at Racko but terrible at catching onto Set. We laughed into the night until it was time to retire at about 11 PM! Irene and Rasmus took the air mattress in the guest room and Arian and I took the one in the living room.

During the night, I was awakened by the Cosmic Muse and my consciousness went instantly alert. I didn't like the air mattress we slept on in the living room and rolled onto the more comfy hard carpeted floor. The air mattress felt as if I was floating on an unstable sea of air and I could not get comfortable. I was used to sleeping on the hard ground with just my thin mat between us. After wrestling with angelic visions for an hour I finally acquiesced to their will. The Muse was calling me to go to the dining room table and write, that they had instructions and visions for chapter 3 of the Tao of Astrology. I told them telepathically that I needed to sleep, that I would be physically unable to ride south and would be susceptible to accidents and fatigue. They promised me they would boost my energy beyond my means. After ignoring them as long as I could I finally got up at 2 AM and started laying out Chapter 3 according to the visions and revelations given to me. It was amazing! They instructed me to call the Chapter "Anatomy of a Chart". The chapter was about the various parts of astrology, giving meaning and definition to the alphabets of the planets, signs, and houses. By 6 AM everyone started to stir and by 8 PM, we were all showered, fed a scrumptious breakfast of grapes, bananas and oameal, and heading on our divergent paths. And mysteriously, I had more energy than I would have if I would have slept all night! Thank you Cosmic Muse!

Arian and I decided to roll back down to the Popcorn Place to look a the GPS maps and plan the next camp site. Arian felt great after another night of warm rest. We saw all our favorite characters there drinking coffee and enjoying the morning. They were dismayed by the Seahawks loss but happy to hear more stories about our quest. A few other locals joined in the storytelling and the lady who owned the place gave us these amazing vegan bars that she had made with trail mix and mangos and they were sensational. We decided to save them for the trail ahead. We rode south across the bridge and got back onto the 101 heading south up a large hill. By the top of the hill, we broke out one of those goodies and it gave us super energy. Thank you Popcorn cafe angels!

We rode hard to try and reach a campsite at Bruceport Park where we hoped to set up camp, but along the ay we came to a town called Raymond, where my good friend Peter went to Elementary School back in the day. We stopped at the Corner Cafe and had some lunch with a fellow cyclist named Don (in his fifties and a friendly experienced cyclist), who was from Lakewood Colorado. He was taking two weeks off from work to cycle from Seattle to Bandon Oregon. He left first and we told him we hoped to camp with him at Bruceport Park along the coast.

Ten minutes after Don left, another cyclist from San Diego showed up named Devin (25) from San Diego, who had flown into Seattle, ridden up to Vancouver and was heading all the way home to Southern California. Like us, he was tired of being drenched and we laughed and joked about Gang Green setting in on our wet feet. It wasn't really that bad, but it felt like it. We were all longing for Sun badly. He said there was a troupe of three Canadian girls in their late 20's who were doing the whole 101 down into Mexico's Baja peninsula. It seemed like we were going to have a glorious camp with lots of interesting characters that night! Arian was excited to be finally interacting with fellow cyclists.

We visited the grocery store on our way out of town and stocked up on fresh veggies for a stir fry as well as some spicy lime-laced chips and hummus. Then we road hard the last ten miles, going about 35 total that day. The ride was good and the rains had subsided for the day as we rode through a town called South Bend along the coast and made our way up the last treacherous hill into the campground. We found Don who had paid ten bucks to camp there and Devin and I split it with him paying three each to him. It's always cheaper with a gypsy caravan of cyclists sharing the cost. We surrounded our table and all went about cooking delicious meals. In addition there was another camper who was a Canadian backpacker named Jordan who was walking to Mexico down the 101. (WalkingtoMexico.com) Jordan was a young bearded, experienced backpacker and traveler who was also a master of the frisbee! He had been to India to train kids in villages the fine art of frisbee tossing and excelled at the Ultimate Frisbee sport. He taught Arian to throw an amazing frisbee in ten minutes. He seemed like a very cool guy and I felt some deep archetypal similarities between myself and him. I demonstrated my skill with the Devil Sticks and he loved it. Then I told him about my true calling as a Magi and he yearned to hear about his chart. But at that moment, everything was interrupted by the appearance of the three wild Canadian women!

We all gazed toward the entrance of the park where these three beautiful cyclists rolled down the road singing and cheering and basically making a lot of happy noise. Arian turned to me and said, "Yakimashii" in Japanese and we both laughed at the inside joke. Turns out that the Japanese character for woman was "Onna" To make more advanced concepts the Japanese combine basic characters (called radicals). For instance, the symbol for tree is "Ki", but two symbols for tree side by side are Hayashi (bushes) and three trees bunched together means forest (pronounced Mori). Well three woman symbols bunched together means noisy and is pronounced Yakamishii. I guess the creators of the original language had been men!

But indeed these three happy, adventurous women were making a lot of good noise, and it filled the camp with waves of giddiness and exultation. The women set about to cooking, Arian was playing frisbee with Jordan, and the male cyclists were also cooking. Turns out Jordan completely lost interest in any talk of astrology when he was en-spelled by the beauty of the tall blonde Canadian. I had to admit that she was gorgeous with amazing athletic legs and a face that could launch a thousand ships. The others were brunettes and they were gorgeous in their own ways. The menfolk tried to stay focused on cooking and wood gathering, etc, but the occasional glance went in the direction of the female camp. I could tell that Jordan was entranced and that he was showing off his athletic prowess with the frisbee. He cooked a quick meal and went over to join the womenfolk moving right in for the kill. He was a sexy Scorpio with Mars the planet of desire in fiery Sagittarius like myself. I decided then and there after my break up with Christina and my experience with Alisha that I needed a sabbatical from romance/love and that I would inwardly concentrate on my union with my muse, my anima, the inner feminine lover. I needed to channel all my libido into creating this work of astrology. The sun set glorious over the ocean and everyone rushed to take pictures through the trees over the cliff side. I lamented the death of the Droid, but accepted the way of loss, unattached to my possession.

Don, the elder cyclist among us located a great stash of damp firewood, and we stacked it into a large fire pit and poured gasoline on it and lit the match. The wood burst into flames but it was short lived. If we were truly going to enjoy a fire we needed to start small and get some kindling going and gradually dry out the wood. The damp wood sizzled when it burned. Where was Alex the Oriental master fire starter when you needed him? Probably attending graphics art design class at Evergreen College in Olympia or making dinner with Iris. Eventually, with the aid of everyone involved we got a great campfire going, and the womenfolk joined us in dancing about the flames as Arian played his clarinet. Everyone marveled at his musical skill and delighted in the sweet, deep sound of the instrument. All in all it was a great night of celebration as the Full Moon waxed toward its opposition to the sun in a few days time. I pointed out Jupiter on the ascending horizon and told stories about the planets and the equinox, sharing the gift of the Magi with them. We all told our sad stories about being drenched by rains for the last week and how intense it was and we laughed but hoped for sun. The fire gave us hope for the days to come.

The next morning we awoke to a busy and sunny camp. The rains had gone and everyone was dry for a change to start the day. The ladies were the most efficient and were already serving breakfast and we all went over to eat together. In a matter of an hour they were packed up and heading down the road leaving us men to slowly pack our camps. Jordan was saddened that we were all speeding down the road. On foot, he could go about 20 miles per day, whereas we could cover 60 or more. I sat down and offered to do his chart, a mini reading and went on for about 30 minutes blowing his heart wide open with astrology. He indeed enjoyed the interpretation and gave me a huge hug with shining enlightened eyes afterward. It was amazing to watch the power of the Cosmic Muse seep from my words into his soul and cause revelation, meaning, and inspiration. I noticed Devin and Don glancing quizzically over at me as I talked, watching the dramatic performance ensue. I could tell they were curious about this strange lost art.

Don broke camp first and rode ahead of us and we never saw him again, even though we all agreed to head toward Cape Disappointment and share the camping fee once again. He must have gotten inspired to go his own way and continue on to Astoria. Either that or all this talk of heavenly influences freaked him out, LOL. Maybe he wasn't keen on traveling with a bunch of wild youngsters? Devin was moving at our speed and we rode out together at about 10 AM and had a delightful ride down the 101 in euphoric bliss because the sun had come out again and we were dry and warm and enjoying those simple pleasures. Devin kept stopping to take pictures and enjoy snacks with us and we all went about the same pace, so we just ended up traveling together. Turns out he was a Sagittarius Sun sign and was into surfing. We rode down the Long Beach peninsula about 50 miles total and found the campground called Canby. It was huge and it was grand and it was positioned by the beach. We hoped to camp with the ladies if we found them to share the costs, but when we found them, they said they had friends coming form Canada by car and that it would be too crowded, so we ended up paying for a site nearby, number 166, closer to the beach, but still nearby the enigmatic rocks and trails. After setting camp, we all went off exploring on our own. I grabbed my tech bag and headed toward the beach with a bottle of Lime-aid that I found at the grocery store in the last town of Ilwaco. Arian ran off into the hills to explore the trails and rocks. Devin stayed at camp and got cleaned up at the local bathrooms.

As I wandered down the trail toward the vibrant sound of the ocean the most amazing sight was revealed of the beach stretching forth about two football fields to the sea with large waves crashing over each other onto the sand. To my right the beach rose to towering sea-carved brownish rocks where a great lighthouse guided ships in their passages. To my left the beach ran down the coast with tourists walking along beside huge husks of trees or flying kites. Many bone-colored large pieces of driftwood covered the beach near the undergrowth leading back to camp and someone had crafted interesting log forts out of them. I made my way to the center of the beach where someone had left sand castle structure of a stone henge and parked myself beside it to sit and meditate and just soak up the beauty. Later, Arian showed up and he began exploring the surrounding log forts and climbing on the rocks. I looked over to see him waving atop the rock formations below the lighthouse and waved back. He was true Capricorn Rock Lord like the planet Saturn that governed his character. His Saturn was in Pisces sign of the Sea, and he must have felt truly at home and alive on the rocks overlooking the sea. I would remember the bliss of this moment forever.

In time, Devin showed up and he and Arian explored the beach while I was content to just sit there and rest my legs and enjoy the sounds of the surf and the scenes of gloriousness as the sun made its mystical descent toward the western horizon. Arian offered to guide us all back to camp via a secret trail that he had discovered among the rocks and Devin and I followed him. Turns out the trail was laden with tricky logs and rocks and I slipped on one while carrying my heavy tech bag and cracked my right ankle. It hurt really bad but I couldn't afford to be injured stuck in the middle of nowhere and the middle of our journey south by bike, so I called upon some healing power after stumbling back to camp, and made sure the wound was treated. Luckily, by morning, my ankle felt great and I was ready to ride! We cooked an amazing stir fry with Thai Noodles, Mongolian Fire oil, mushrooms, broccoli, squash, zucchini, and onions while Devin cooked a noodle dish with a delicious Italian pesto sauce with veggies. He asked me to do his chart and I said that I would when we got to Astoria as my brain was tired from the intense day of riding.

That night I heard some strange sounds outside my tent and both Devin and I got up to investigate and found a tribe of grey striped raccoons digging into the food pouch on the back of my bike, chomping down on some Teriyaki chips! We scared the heck out of them and they went running into the woods, but they kept coming back. I grabbed my longest Devil Stick and Devin grabbed his large frying pan. We were ready to do battle. Instead, I decided to make a diplomatic gesture to the wild animals, and went over to them and spread the rest of the chips on the ground. They went to work devouring them with me standing right there over them. I told them, "Look, I understand your hunger, but I'm giving you this as a peace offering and I'm taking the rest of my food into my tent, so after this meal, you are not to disturb our rest." After that we went back to bed and they kept their distance.

After that, I slipped back into the realm of dreams, and I was visited by my anima, the feminine force of consciousness inside me for a romantic adventure. We both arrived at a strange rock cathedral to attend a wedding and some people orchestrating the wedding were rushing us into this back entrance to get us outfitted in the proper garb. They told us to hurry, and get out of our clothes and change. So here I was in my dream standing there with this beautiful, elven maiden with thick lips and gorgeous curves. I was entranced, and I said to her, "Do you know who is getting married?" And she looked at me quizzically and said, "No, do you?" I shook my head and put up my arms in the "I have no idea" gesture. Then she came closer to me. She and I were standing there in the shadows naked and she came over to me and looked deep into my eyes and smiled. I felt the heat of passion burning up through me and as she slowly turned I opened my eyes to find that it was morning. I had to pack up the camp and get going quick because I had agreed to meet with a new female client for an online astrological mentoring session who lived in Maryland. I wanted nothing more than to go back into that dream, but I thanked the anima for her loving visit. Maybe we were being married at a deeper level...

I woke Arian up and we had Chai tea with Devin and we all packed up our tents and camping supplies and rode out together. We split the cost of the site and paid the guards at the gate. Devin wanted to stay behind and explore but we had to hasten down to the great scary Astoria bridge to cross over to the Mediterranean looking and sounding city. I could see it across the sea as we rode our bikes back up the peninsula. We had 20 or so miles to go in two hours so I told Arian we needed to keep a brisk pace. We reached the bridge and pedaled hard across the four mile structure. Luckily they were doing construction and the crew stopped the traffic. So once they let us through, and the wave of RVs and cars went by, it was clear sailing for a mile before the next wave of vehicles screamed by. People were generally very respectful and gave us a wide berth. Looking ahead to the final mile, the bridge rose to an incredible height to allow ships to pass underneath. We pedaled as hard as we could but had to stop gassed about 3/4 the way up. After a brief respite, we waited for the next wave of cars to flow by and then we mounted a final effort toward the apex and rolled down and around the great bridge (seen in the photo above) into the bright city of Astoria.

We stopped at the first cafe called Three Cups on the right, the Columbia Roasters, and I went in and ordered chai and opened my lap top to find that I had 6 minutes to spare before the teaching session began! Whew! That was cutting it close. Fortunately my new student gave me 15 minutes to call her back so I could drink my chai in peace. We then had a wonderful connection for our first session that went on for three hours. I showed her the flow chart for analyzing astrological charts and guided her into this unique method. We looked at her chart and her capacities and her seasons of the soul to understand what new dimensions were opening in her path to begin studying astrology. After our session I bid her farewell, and she offered to help me by becoming my assistant, but I told her I didn't know what she could actually do, that I would think about it. I usually did all my own typing and scheduling and web design, and creativity. It would be nice to have an assistant! But I couldn't imagine what she would do!

After that, we rolled across town and I enjoyed seeing Astoria. It was a cool little ocean town that had been transformed from a fishing and logging settlement into an artist colony. I was excited to get to the post office to receive our food package from my friend Steve, my computer discs from Alisha, and possibly a digital camera from an online friend. I was deeply dismayed to find that Mercury Retrograde had struck again. I got the computer discs from Alisha, over $3000 in back up software and computer games that Arian and I enjoyed playing. But the food from the Whole Foods Pharmacy that Steve sent was sent back to him because UPS said they don't do General Delivery. This was horrible because my finances were dwindling, we didn't know where we were staying in Astoria and the Sun was heading to the sea, and we had depleted our food stores in anticipation of stocking up when we got to the post office.

Devin showed up and wanted to go have pizza together. But I found a cheap Thai restaurant called Oceans of Thai instead. I had had enough pizza in Lake Quinault and Arian pouted about it. Sometimes kids will be kids no matter how wise they were. Down to my last hundred bucks, not knowing where we'd stay that night, and a disrespectful tone from the kid, I felt frustrated. I decided to pop into a cafe and check on Couchsurfing.com to see if any of the emails I had sent had been answered. It turned out that a young lady named Eva (19) had responded and said that we could stay with her if she was in town. All she had was a floor in a very tiny studio space with a shared bathroom with other studio artist types. She might not be in town though because she was going to possibly go to a concert in Portland Oregon. So I used Devin's phone to give her a call and left her a message. Devin said that he had secured a common room at the hostel for $20 but now they were full. You had to rent individual rooms now for $72 and that was not happening. So we marched into the Thai place and sat down to eat. I had told Eva in my message that we would be eating there. If she showed up we'd get to enjoy Astoria. If not we would ride like wild furies across the bridge to camp at the State Park on the peninsula.

Luckily, Eva showed up just as we were ordering and offered a place to stay on her floor. She was 19 and this was her first pad away from home and she looked just like an old girlfriend of mine named Laena. She had short blonde hair like a baby angel with blue dreamy astral eyes, and she dressed in clashing colors that revealed her artistic bent. Even Arian thought so, and I asked her about her chart. She was fascinated with astrology and knew her sun, moon and rising sign. Laena had been a Leo Sun with Pisces Moon, and Virgo Rising. Eva was a Leo Sun, with Virgo Moon, and Pisces Rising. Bizarre! She was deeply shy you could tell with her Piscean Ascendant and very spacey and mystical. But you could tell she was happy to see us and after we ate, she took us on a tour of her little town and down to the bookstore cafe where her other friend wanted to meet us. Her other friend bought us a soy chai and we looked at books and talked with the locals.

I struck up a deep conversation with a Double Gemini elder who had started radio stations back in the 60's in Sacramento and San Fran, and he seemed to know all the artistic movers and shakers in town and gave me the lay of the land. Fascinating stories just poured out of his mouth and I could barely get a word in edgewise, so I just listened and soaked up all that he had to offer. The bookstore was really cool and had scrabble racks with glued on Scrabble tiles to indicate sections like fantasy and astrology. So there I was standing there looking at the Scrabble letters glued to a Scrabble tile holders that said ASTROLOGY and FANTASY and SCI-FI, and I was smiling hard. The wise elder owned a guitar shop and told me that Jimmy Paige and Robert Plant often hid out in the hills here and came into this very coffee shop/bookstore regularly. Turns out they all loved to throw down with some intense Scrabble. I was in cafe heaven!

Eventually Eva guided us to her building which had this great mauve door that she opened with a key that she wore on a necklace because she said she kept losing it. We pushed our bikes into one of the oldest buildings in town that had not burned to the ground in one of the disaster fires that had struck the town. Her apartment was indeed small, a one room wonder with a sink in the corner full of art supplies, strange abstract paintings on the walls, and bags of clothes stacked around the walls with a few lonely pieces of furniture that she had mostly found. Astoria had caught fire often as the oldest caucasian-settled town west of the Mississippi, founded in 1811. Eva had a medium futon against the far wall and their was just enough space for Arian and I on the floor. There were books everywhere too and you could tell she was an avid reader of fascinating subjects like Egyptian Legends and Myths. After getting settled, we decided to take a walk down to a local Safeway to get Arian's favorite meal: Chips, hummus and salsa. Eva guided us down the oceanfront walking path and pointed out features of the town including the Maritime Museum and a large column of light that loomed large on the hillside overlooking the harbor.

You could see the red lights of the great bridge flashing in the distance behind us. Jupiter and the Moon rose over the hill in front of us to the right and a great cloud shaped like a giant whale filled the sky as we walked until the Moon was aligned perfectly with the whale so that it looked like a great eye. We stopped in awe and just stared at it. I said to Eva, "You should paint that." And she said, "I just might." Arian made references to the whale in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Eva made reference to the pot of flowers in the same which got me talking about dolphins. We walked a long long way and my arms were tired of carrying my heavy tech bag that I refused to let out of my site no matter what. Eventually we got our goods and went back to her studio to sit and eat together. Then we all went into reading land and I picked up the book of Egyptian Myths and got about three chapters into it before crashing.

The next morning we had showers after more reading in bed and Eva guided us to the bakery/cafe where she worked and we bought almond milk chais and settled into a cozy corner. I had this blog to write and some charts and internet work I needed to do. Arian broke out his I-pad and downloaded a new space exploration trading game and also talked to his distant other family in Dauphin Island Alabama and told them about our crazy adventures. We later bought a large round loaf of whole wheat sour dough bread and dipped it into a strange mixture of honey, agave, cayenne, cinnamon, nutmeg, fresh cracked pepper and chipotle hot sauce.

We planned on staying one more night with Eva and then heading south to tackle the Oregon coast. With hardly any money and my astrology online business in a serious lull we had to trust in the Universe to provide. Maybe that was the point. Out of nothing comes something. The Universe had not failed to manifest chart orders or work yet, but we were getting very close to the bottom of the barrel. I wanted to stop and work on the book, but felt pressured to keep going, to move on down the coast. Astoria seemed like a very cool town, but a little too small for my taste. I would love to spend a month here writing and creating, but the journey was calling us onward to keep exploring the unknown. If you're reading this and you're heart feels compelled to help us complete this quest to San Francisco, maybe you'll donate 5 or ten bucks to the cause. Every little bit helps this blog stay alive, keeps my web server operating so we can even get orders, and generally helps us endure knowing we have friends who care. Until next time!

Donations accepted at Traveling Magi

Chart Orders accepted at: Divine Inspiration Astrology