Zen

I wound up getting the last hotel room for the next 40 miles west towards Astoria on the coast (according to the guy at the hotel). I returned to the monastery at the anointed time of 10 am. Not that the time was written anywhere (I asked) it just had to be the time. What happens at 10? Service! Wouldn't ya know I'd get roped into that. I was looking for a change of pace and I sure found one! But me in a religious ceremony is mostly comical. I suppose it was fitting that I ran out of clean shorts, so I decide to wear black jeans and a black shirt. I look presentable, at least as presentable as I get. (Send smart ass comments to /dev/null, you know who you are!)

After mass, I received a class on "Introduction to Meditation," which had exactly one student--me. Then back to more service. Followed by lunch. Now that's what I'm talking about. The experience was very nice and refreshing. I got some info about places in Mt View and San Francisco. Who knows what I'll do.

I've been here for two weeks now and I haven't done anything. Big surprise, but there's so many other things to do. It will take another few weeks until I've really settled in more I think.

All this and I just wanted a quick tour. :-) It was funny when I first arrived they asked if I knew where I was going. I'm not sure if I looked lost or if I looked like I was gonna try and rob the place. I really think they were just being nice. It was a very nice group of people I met there. And I'm not just saying that because they may be reading this blog. :-)

I finally had ripe blackberries. There were so many blackberries on the Olympic Peninsula, but they were never quite done. Same at my friends place in Eastern Washington. Lunch at the monastery was good and so were the blackberries. Now onto the coast, only about 3 days left.

I finally started making my way down the coast for the final leg of my journey (this part). I looked on the map and it appears I've effectively gone about 70 miles down the coast from South Bend, Washington to Barview, Oregon over the last 5 days. I think I could have walked that far, that's only 12 miles per day. Of course, I actually travelled a lot further, but that was East, then back West. I hit a bunch of beaches down the Oregon coast, including Del Ray, Cannon, and a few others before stopping for the evening. I just missed the sunset. Only caught the last glimpse of the sun before it dropped below the horizon. Still very pretty and the night is looking quite nice, though cold. It's already about 58 F at 9.30 pm. The moon looks like Pac-Man eating one of the planets.

What started with lots of time has dwindled down to just a few days. I barely have enough time to make it down the coast at a comfortable pace. (Ha! read on.) It looks like I've got at least 700 miles to go (8+ degrees of latitude). I suppose that's good. What should have been a 300 mile trip has turned into a 6000+ mile trip and counting.