Saturday at Sea-Pac

Saturday was the critical day around which our nominal reason for coming to Seaside was built: the Sea-Pac amateur radio convention.

( Scenes from a hamfest )

By my pedometer, it's about 500 steps from the convention center to the condo, which isn't too bad, but we racked up lots of steps this week. The morning overcast laid in quite a while on Saturday, not lifting until after about 2 PM when we went back to the convention center.

( Afternoon Session )

We had set aside some stuff with one dealer and then went back to the condo to rest for a while, but by the time we came back, the doors had closed for the day at 5 PM. I walked to Safeway to get a couple of things and headed back in, planning to collect stuff from the vendor in the morning.

Extreme Cold Front?

Seaside can be pretty chilly, especially when the fog doesn't lift until late in the afternoon. The electronic sign near the convention center was showing 56°F (13°C) when we came over there on Saturday morning. By the time we left, however, it was a completely different story..

( Liquid Nitrogen Front Moving Through )

Whatever is troubling the convention center's thermometer, it happened again on Sunday. What was that? The Last Dangerous Visions is finally on bookstore shelves?

Fore!

Saturday evening, Lisa and I engaged in one of our Seaside traditions: mini golf and bumper cars.

( 427 inches, par 3, dogleg left and beware of the rotating turret hazard )

It turns out that not every place in Seaside closes at 8 PM. Sam's Seaside Cafe is open until midnight every day, and serves a nice salmon burger.

After dinner it was getting plenty dark, but we decided to take a walk on the beach anyway. It was still light enough (partially with the lights from the Seaside beachfront properties) that we could see the ocean. It was low tide and we walked to the waterline. I was wearing my beach shoes that I got while in Australia, so I could even let my feet get wet.

( Mysterious Beach Pipe )

With about 17K steps on the pedometer by the time we got back to the condo and got the sand washed out of my shoes with the hoses near the entry gate helpfully provided by the management (and dire warnings about extra fees for tracking sand into the units), we had no problem getting to sleep, other than complaining about sore feet and calf muscles.