Waiting for the UPS Man & Kite Festival

Waiting on My Porch

It’s a foggy morning here on my porch at the coast. The temperatures in the Portland area are to be in the 100s this week which always means fog for the Long Beach Peninsula at least in the morning and sometimes all day. Monday it burned off by afternoon and was quite nice with a sunset that was almost good except that the sun disappeared behind the next day’s fog off on the horizon. I have told my friends and relations who will be subject to the heat in Portland this week that they can escape here if they like.

This certainly has been a funny summer here. All summer, even on the days that are sunny, the accompanying wind has had the edge of autumn in it which usually doesn’t begin to whisper to us until the end of August. The blackberries are nowhere near ripe and my tomato plant, while looking hale and hearty, has only a few flowers on it and no hint that they will become fruit before the end of summer.

I am confined to the porch today waiting for the UPS man. We ordered a mattress from Costco for my daughter who stays in the little cottage on our property and it must be signed for so I am forced to wait on the porch which is no great punishment.

Downtown Long Beach is getting ready for the onslaught of tourists for Kite Festival which begins next Monday. Many of them will begin arriving tomorrow to have some time to settle in before the beginning of the weeklong festival. During Kite Festival it is better to ride one’s bike to Long Beach than attempt to take the car in that direction. I will have to be sure to organize my pantry in such a way that there is no need for trips to Sid’s Grocery next week. Better to head over to Astoria to Safeway or Fred Meyer than brave the congestion of highway 103 and the parking lot at Sid’s, even with the price of gas which is much cheaper over there anyway.

Last year the crowds seemed less than years past and one might expect the same this year because of the cost of gas, but I believe that there has been more people here on just a normal weekend precisely because they do not want to spend money to go farther afield. Trips to Hawaii and Mexico may have gone by the boards in favor of vacationing closer to home. It will be interesting to see how the economy affects the Kite Festival and the End of the World Rod Run. Tourism is the lifeblood of the Long Beach Peninsula and although the locals are not fond of the noise and congestion that accompanies the arrival of the tourists, without them the little towns that dot this finger of land would suffer greatly.