Damen Corridor Community Meal: Special West Coast Unit

A week ago Sunday after church, we headed down to Seal Rock to spend a mini-sabbatical on the coast with Jon and Megan, good friends from Chicago who are on a real (3-month-long) sabbatical. It was wonderful to relax and step into the rhythms of their sabbath and just be together for a day and a half. We fit in many of the elements of a normal week for them:

Hiking. We made our way up to the Cape Perpetua outlook, just a few miles south of Seal Rock and one of the highest points in the area. It was a gorgeous day and the views were incredible!

Hanging out by the water. We sat next to Devil's Churn and enjoyed our lunch (including Newman-Os for dessert). Devil's Churn is a narrow inlet where the water gets pretty rowdy when the tide is high. Watching the waves build up, then crash in against the rocks then back against themselves was pretty awesome and kept us captive for a long time.


Walking on the beach. We wandered by the tide pools with the sun setting and the tide low and saw lots of anemones, star fish and a beautiful bird that we think was a heron.

Cooking and eating good food. Megan and Jon had gotten some amazing veggies at the nearby farmers market and made some amazing African groundnut stew.

It was perfect timing. We got to know Megan and Jon through a long-standing Community Meal group in Chicago that meets at someone different's house every Monday. Folks live in several different neighborhoods in the city, but we realized last year that all the active participants lived within a couple of blocks from Damen (a north-south street running all the way through the city) even though the far-north and far-south folks were 15 miles apart. Anyway, it was fun that we just happened to be with these lovely CM friends, eating this amazing home-cooking meal on a Monday evening. If it hadn't been so late in Chicago, we would have called our Chicago CMers gathering that same evening!

And the next day, after we returned home, another Community Meal friend came to visit! Mark was out from Chicago for a conference in Seattle and drove down with his mom (who lives there) to stay a night with us. It was fun to show them around and, of course, enjoy delicious food together.

How great to have Community Meal here in Oregon! We miss you all!