so wednesday, kirsten and i drove up to the coast. in the second set of pictures, you can see the viewpoint where we stopped and snapped a few photos of the view of mount st. helens. it's so distant that it's really hard to see the mountain (it's the following photo without sand and water in it).

it was a picture perfect day to sit at the beach. it started out cloudy, but the marine layer burned off pretty quickly as we ate our picnic lunch. we explored tide pools and saw crabs, anenomes, and ONE starfish. last time mike and i saw the tide pools it was teeming with starfish, so i'm blaming their current absence on the dead zone (look it up). it was a good time--it always is at the beach, you know.

after indian beach, we headed to tolovana beach which has great views of haystack rock. the sand was warm, the sky was clear, and the terns (i think? someone name that bird for me) were chillin. all in all a relaxing day. we totally avoided rush hour in the suburbs and made it home in record time. we went straight to the produce market to pick up grillin veggies for the evenings festivities.