SKS Postcards: Natural History Museum and Book Postcard

These first two postcards came from the Natural History Museum. Though they are part of diorama-ramas, which I love, these particular figures creep me out.

Especially this one. Sara reports that she’s been busily checking things off her list, with her big deadline days being 2/28 and 3/1.

This is a book promo postcard that she has not read. (I haven’t, either.)  She also talks of weather and the inevitable Minnesota snow.
Thanks, Sara, for the postcard update!

Coming home from the beach

We completed the Gearheart page of our passport (and I finished one more activity on my old passport that got me a $20 gift card) and chose our prizes. Matt went for the silicone cup, I went for the key ring/bottle opener, because I believe it’s good to have a back stock of key rings.

On the way home we stopped in Astoria to do some Job Spotting. I enjoyed the humor in this sad sign.

Here are a bunch of container ships, lined up along the horizon. It was hard to tell if they were coming or going.

Timer photo!

While Seaside was chock full of hiring signs, Astoria didn’t have very many at all. My theory is that families come to Seaside for Spring Break, so they start their hiring earlier than other costal towns.

We also did some experimenting with how best to divide the hiring signs we saw. Job Spotter quickly caught on that we were together and despite switching up a lot of variables, we ended up deciding the best method would be to trade off. Even with the many rejected duplicates, we made more than $20 in Amazon credit between the two of us. In two days!

An overnight at the beach

We spent our final Cosmic Tripster hotel stay at McMenamin’s Gearhart Hotel.  But on our way there we stopped in Seaside for lunch and to maybe do some Job Spotting. (Matt has been introduced and also enjoys Job Spotting.)

This Inverted Room is a fun new tourist attraction.  You pay $6.00 per person and you can take photos of you in inverted scenes.  I find this concept rather brilliant, as it requires nothing more than the invention of inverted scenes, the rental of a storefront, and someone to take people’s money.

Here’s an example of one of the inverted scenes. We did not go in because it was not open.  The hazards of a mid-week early-spring visit to the Beach.

The name of our room.  This is a hotel with an 18-hole public golf course, so all the rooms have a golf theme.

Here is the quote that inspired our room.

Our self-portrait in front of the hotel.

A walk on the beach.  (And why I love the beach in winter.)

Driftwood

The Gearheart Hotel was built long ago, and had some hard times before its revival as a McMenamins property. In the meantime, other properties were built between the hotel and the ocean.  But if you squint…

…you can see we had an ocean view.

This was a very quiet McMenamins property which I think would benefit tremendously from the addition of a soaking pool.  They are adding more guestrooms which will open this summer, but they will not be adding a soaking pool. Alas.