As mentioned in various other places, we were staying at The Elizabeth Street Inn. So named because it is on – say it with me now – Elizabeth Street. What they lack in naming creativity, they make up for in room.

The hotel's architecture was interesting, in and of itself. They guarantee every room has an oceanside view, and they aren't lying. Because it's like somebody built a typical hotel, then cut it in half lengthwise and just kept the best part.
I'd like one slice of hotel, please.
It's not very deep, but it is quite long. As a consequence, one thing I noticed was a complete absence of odd-numbered rooms. It makes sense, as there's only the one side of the hotel left.

Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures of the room itself. By the time we remembered to do so, we'd already made a mess of it. Trust me though, it was nice. Pricey, but nice-y.

This may have been my favourite part though. Not the view, necessarily, but the warning stickers on the balcony door.

The one cautioning against smoking isn't really anything to wonder about, but the "Don't feed the seagulls" one is something very region specific. And done in the exact same style and size as the one below, so they're obviously custom jobs. It almost makes you want to run out and get your own DON'T signs made, doesn't it?

Opposite views as we walked down the steps to the beach. Sadly. I don't think that "down the steps" really does justice to the sheer magnitude of this undertaking. Oh, the going down part was easy enough, but sadly that meant we then had to come back up again. And that was after about two hours of exploring the beach. It's been along time since I walked on sand. Doing so has restrengthened my respect for the process.
Even more so when doing it in flip-flops.
Oo, yeah, forgot that part. Remind me to come back and tell of the 'flops.

You'll get a better perspective on this later, but we discovered that appearances are really quite deceiving. When you look out over the balcony it almost seems that you could just jump over the railing and be on the beach. Not so much. Or, well, you could, but I wouldn't fancy your chances with the 80+ foot drop.

So there were steps. Many of them. All very steep. But that was later. For now, we were simply abuzz with excitement. Beach time!

I last visited the Pacific Ocean when I was very, very young and still living in San Diego, some 1000 miles south. Mike had never seen it before. His last beach experience was the Atlantic Ocean in Florida. I tell you this so you can properly appreciate our ill-preparedness.

When I think "beach", I automatically think "Hawaii" or "California", which are also synonymous with "hot" and "bikinis" and "frolicking". Maybe not frolicking, but I was expecting a fun time of running along the beach, playing in the sand, and cavorting in the waves. (By the way, cavorting? So much less girly than frolicking.) So imagine our surprise when we got down to the beach, only to be immediately assaulted by 20 mph winds of temperatures approximately -132°. Don't get me wrong, it was nice, but a bit of a shock when you're still stuck on the "beach = Hawaii" formula.
After this experience, I think that all beaches should equal Hawaii. It should be a federal law.

Obviously cavorting was out, so we just walked down the beach, looking for little washed-up treasures. Unfortunately, we went down around 5pm or so, and any treasures had long since either been found, or eaten if you're a gull. Take for example the rather disturbing sequence, whereupon we were discovering little bits and pieces of something curious. "I think it's skin," I wondered aloud. But we weren't sure, so into our little treasure bag it went. A bit further down, we unearthed a claw and pincer with the same covering. Hey, check me out, I'm right. Though the morbidity sort of lessened my excitement.
We still thought that finding the claw and pincer was pretty cool, though.
We'd done a bit of reading about finding agates, which Mike was really excited about, but either this wasn't agate season, or they'd frozen and been blasted by the wind into tiny particles, because there was nary an agate to be found. No real shells either. Sort of a bust on the treasure hunt. Oh, but we did get nearly blinded by the sand!

Sadly these pictures, being still, can't demonstrate what you're really seeing here. Those whiteish streaks aren't just sand, it's sand being blasted down the beach. It was a constant stream, and actually very cool. It's like erosion in motion.
Not as cool when it gets in your eyes, though. If you think that sand is annoying in your clothes, imagine a particle being blown into your eye at 20 miles an hour. It gives me a new respect for those hurricane reporters.
Also sort of stupid was when I decided, "Hey, you know what'll make a really cool picture? Lying down flat on my stomach and snapping one off in the path of this mini-sandstorm!" We didn't post that one. Which means that all I got out of that experiment was a wet tummy and a camera that wouldn't close properly for about an hour.

I spotted this from a distance and thought that we had stumbled across a previously undiscovered treasure. Was it a mollusk? Was it an exotic sea creature? With dozens of small tentacles glistening with sea water, I was all excited. As it turns out, I think it's just a bird feather. But the momentary excitement was enough.
Given that it's a bird feather, I guess it sort of has to be.

Oh, but you haven't heard the best part yet.
Realizing that most of the beach had already been combed and remembering the joys of grabbing seashells and all manner of washed-up mollusk on the shore in my youth, we decided to venture out into the shoreline and dig up some buried goodies.
At least that was the plan. We boldly headed to the water's edge and watched the oncoming foamy waves with anticipation. An excitement that was about to fulfill all my ocean-based wishes.
Now, if my ocean-based wishes had been for polar gnomes to massage my feet with ice shards, then I would have congratulated the sea on fulfilling my desires. However, it was not, and I did not. What I (and Nikki) did do, however, was to beat a hasty retreat as soon as the positively frigid water rushed over our feet.
This was immediately after the screaming.
But the sea had lured us into its clutches. Our flip-flops stuck into the wet sand and pulled against the force of the water, and it was an agonizing half-minute before we managed to scramble to dry land.
For him, maybe. He's in better shape than I, you see, and I was left back in the clutches of the ocean for second, bitter helping of cold. Meanwhile Mike's on shore repeating, "That's COLD. My god, that's SO COLD," and I'm all, "Yes I KNOW it's cold, I'm still here in it!!" I swear I heard him shout "You're on your own, honey!" as he abandoned me to the icy depths.
I did not say that.
He did not say that. However the rest, all true.
I had to get onshore and conserve my strength so that I could mount a daring rescue if I had to!

I mentally shook an angry fist at the crashing waves; my real hand was already cold from the wind and only seemed mildly warm now in comparison to my frozen feet. To say this part of the trip was disappointing would be me evidencing doubt in my ability to convey it in the above paragraphs.
It may be the masochist in me, but I thought this was hilarious. You know, once my feet stopped hurting. (A pain which began in about 7 seconds of submersion.) I think I just loved the naivety of it all. As we're attempting to warm up in those -132° winds, I'm looking up and down the beach and saying, "So that's why there's nobody else in the water. And hey, check that out – no lifeguards." I guess if you're dumb enough to try to go swimming in this thing, they figure you deserve your cold, swift death.
Next year, boots. Water-proof boots.

On the next page, you'll find lots of pictures that I felt like taking. And, obviously, sharing. They aren't necessarily funny or interesting, and there may be very little commentary. So if you want to skip it, hop to page 9.