When Marsha and I first began dreaming of moving to the Northwest, our original destination was Whidbey Island in the Puget Sound. I had hoped to transfer there in my capacity as an electronics tech working for the Department of the Navy. There are naval bases all over the Puget Sound, the work was sometimes satisfying, I had some seniority and the pay was pretty good -- we didn't expect to be long in getting there.

But nobody much likes Big Government, and (I'm reminded of Pogo's famous saying, "We have met the enemy, and he is us!") Federal budget cuts nixed any prospects of such a transfer. Any open positions were left unfilled and then simply eliminated.

We next set our sights on Boeing in Seattle, which was hiring 30,000 workers a year at the time. We networked and lobbied our way up their corporate chain with amazing partial success. The CEO's wife still sends us copies of the company newspaper from time to time, but we failed to join the other 29,998 lucky hires (well, people who have paydays, anyway).

Our quest ranged further afield. We broadened the search beyond Puget Sound, lowered our financial expectations, considered manufacturing jobs we wouldn't have looked at twenty years ago (I still draw the line short of Marsha working 12-hour night shifts), and generally spent four years using up lots of paper, stamps and self-esteem. No dice.

In the end, we just moved anyway. Surely, being "on the spot" would make all the difference. Portland appeared to present many opportunities (ipd not the least among them), but our dream had always been to move to Washington, not Oregon -- so we ended up in Vancouver, five minutes across the state line. To date, though, and in spite of record low unemployment, there seems to be no lack of "better suited" applicants for anything involving electronics, aviation, web design, quality assurance, editing, auto mechanics, desktop publishing, technical writing, graphic arts, teaching computer classes or being "sidewalk naturalists" at the Oregon Zoo.

Sniff. Thanks for listening.

Actually, the point I'd set out to make is simply that we have no really compelling reason to stay where we are (Vancouver properties may be half the price of those in southern California, but that does not qualify them as "cheap," in my book). Whenever we drive to other towns, therefore, there's always a "What if we lived here?" element to our visits.

Upon leaving Bay Center, therefore, we headed further afield to check out assorted small towns along the coast. We followed US 101 around the bottom of Willapa Bay on its way to the Pacific Ocean and the town of Long Beach, Washington.

Unlike Bay Center, Long Beach definitely is known for tourists. Downtown bears a striking resemblence to any California beach tourist trap: New England Fishing Village redux. There are shops filled with scallop-shell nightlights, salt-water taffy emporiums, T-shirt stores, sidewalks strewn with senseless posts wrapped in useless rope -- all overlaid with a carnival atmosphere and crowds of people dragging tired kids around by their arms. That's pretty much what we left behind down in SoCal; we hastened to leave it behind here, too.

Jutting northwards from Long Beach for twenty-eight miles (thereby forming the western side of Willapa Bay), is a narrow sand spit, over which SR 103 runs to connect the more picturesque towns of Ocean Park, Nahcotta and Oysterville. Also picturesque are the "Tsunami Evacuation Route" signs lining the road. I don't think I've seen that particular graphic anywhere else, but more striking was the fact that they didn't seem to point to anywhere much. The whole sand spit can't be more than a quarter mile wide, nor more than a few feet above sea level at any point. And twenty-eight miles of SR 103 is the only way out of the area. Hmmmm.

If a Tsunami warning were to be given (however that's done), I suppose the best course of action would be to run to one of the signs, charge over the sand dune in the direction indicated, hop into the back of the nearest available huge-tired pickup truck and hope fervently that the tires make it float.

In all fairness, the towns really are quite nice, and this may well be the cheapest beachfront property on the west coast. But I think we'll give it a pass, anyway.

At the extreme north end of the spit, SR 103 dead ends at Leadbetter Point State Park. There's a nice forested area and a large tidal flat with several miles of sandy beach to be walked (at least, when the tide's out). We walked some of it and picked up a few empty oyster shells for souvenirs before turning the Amazon around and driving back to Long Beach for fuel. Its several gas stations are the "only game for miles around," and priced for tourists. We bought five gallons and discovered a truism: Property may be cheap in remotely situated small towns, but nothing else is.

US 101 runs south from Long Beach through Ilwaco and Chinook (both attractive; both devoid of tourists and Tsunami signs) before crossing over the mouth of the Columbia on a dramatic, four mile long bridge to Astoria, Oregon. We opted not to cross it this time around, instead turning eastward on SR 401, where we shortly pulled into a rest stop offering a fine view of the bridge.

Since lunch, the OD had given no trouble the few times I'd used it. Still, something about the car was nagging at me -- some half-imagined sloppiness in the handling, perhaps; some slightly unusual sound on rough pavement. I'd been trying to ignore the feeling, writing it off partly as paranoia about the transmission; partly as being far from home in a car that had recently given us trouble on the road several times (following many years of the most faithful service, I must add). I gave it another good look underneath and a walkaround inspection. . .

And quickly spotted a place where a lug nut should be, but wasn't. I checked all the wheels -- I could turn half the nuts by hand, and any of them with a wrench.

"Never Let A Professional Touch The Car, Stupid." (Famous saying of my own, Example XXXIV.)

The wheels had last been put on by the shop that sold us a new set of Dunlop D60 A2 tires less than 2000 miles before. Somehow, I had never gotten around to double-checking their work beyond adjusting tire pressures. I know better (in spades), and so should you. Nothing disastrous happened this time, and some quick work with a breaker bar and socket would get us safely home (I don't generally carry a torque wrench in the car's everyday tool kit), but I kicked myself around a bit first. Also for not having a spare lug nut on hand.

SR 401 loops around to rejoin SR 4 at Naselle, and from there, we just retraced our outbound route back home without further incident. With a missing lug nut, I didn't charge nearly as hard, and the OD didn't get balky at all until right near the end of the trip. We were home by nightfall.

The next day, I put the car up on stands (it's too low to reach under, otherwise), and pumped a full pint of oil into the tranny before it reached the level of the filler hole. It's been perfect ever since -- even on long drives on some very hot days -- but it's about time to check it again. Maybe I just didn't get it full the previous time, or maybe there's a minor leak that only pumps oil out when the OD's engaged; it leaves no obvious spots in our drive.

Of course, I bought new lug nuts right away -- and spares for the toolbox.

A few annoyances apart, we'd had a really nice day trip. We didn't find the town of our dreams -- I don't think I'd make much of an oysterman, logger or roadside chainsaw statuary artist in any case -- but it's always nice to know what's out that way. In spite of a few glitches, the Amazon did bring us home safely once again, and all appears to be well with it. My confidence in it may soon return to pre-moving levels, I hope -- a year ago, I would have had few qualms about setting out for the other side of the continent in it.

By then, we should be ripe for another excursion. I'm thinking there may well be some killer chili burgers up on the Kitsap Peninsula. . .

I'll be sure to let you know how they score.