One of the best gigs a freelancer can get is travel writing. You get paid to go on vacation. It beats the heck out of digging ditches or milking cows for a living (ain't that right, Lillian?)

Here's one of my favorite vacation locales in Delta Sky Magazine:

http://www.delta-sky.com/2007_12/offthebeatenpath/ 

This is the way the beach usually looks when I go to visit Sister Tater and Uncle Bubba. These dunes are just a 3 minute walk from their home in Westport, Washington. But they don't look like this now.

We are under a state of emergency in Oregon & Washington. There's no electricity at Westport. No way for me to talk with Sister Tater or Mama. The phones are dead at home, at church, and the roads are closed between Aberdeen & Westport. I tried all of them -- the cells, the homes, the work numbers. None are working.

I finally got ahold of my brother, who is home sick with the flu. His wife, Janet, told me Frank talked briefly with Mama yesterday. I'd spoken to her the night before, the night the storm was brewing. I have no idea how Mama is fairing, with no electricity. And food, well, there's only one grocery store along the beach. I imagine they are out of most everything by now -- milk, bread, the essentials. Mama normally keeps her cupboard stocked so she's fine. Uncle Bubba keeps the freezer full of fish, but with no electricity, I have no idea how he and Sister Tater are making out. They aren't your sushi types.

Uncle Bubba runs the city shop, so I imagine he doesn't have time to eat. He's probably had crews running 24/7 tending to the flooding, the streets, the downed trees and the backed up sewers. Sister Tater runs the preschool at South Beach Christian Center but without any electricity, I suspect they are closed.

If Mama gets too cold she can head over to Sister Tater's home, three blocks away. Tater's got a wood stove. But heat shouldn't be too much of a problem. Warming temperatures are partly to blame for all this flooding.

Interstate 5 is shut down between Portland and Seattle. It's a good thing I got home from the valley on Friday, otherwise, I might have been stuck there. I came just ahead of a snow & ice storm, that was followed by the flooding when temperatures went from the low 30s to the mid-50s. Wind gust have been up to 45-mph around here. For those of you Desperate Housewives fans, if you saw this week show with the tornado, then you have some idea of the way the sky's been looking. Winds not much of a problem, though, since sagebrush is the native tree in town.

Frank's home is built on a slope in Seattle area, but they haven't had any problems with slippage. And he had the roof replaced this summer so there's no leakage either.

Overall, the coastal area has been hit the hardest. That and some regions of the valley. We have flood warnings in effect for our area today but it's typically so dry here and the Columbia River is capable of holding a lot of water and it's only 10 minutes from the house, so I'm not really worried. I'm just glad I don't live at the beach.