I cannot go back to Seaside until the pandemic is over.
It was a beautiful day, and despite that it was relatively (for Seaside) uncrowded.
I saw too many people without masks, or wearing masks pulled down, so definitely noses but also sometimes mouths out too.
I tried to think whether I was the problem. Usually when I am out, it is for grocery shopping, and inside the store everyone is masked. Outside, maybe it was reasonable. Except there were still so many people! And when we were walking around in Oregon City, even outside everyone seemed capable of keeping their masks on.
And, clearly support for compliance was grudging, at least for some people. One woman was going off on a restaurant employee for the one way entrance and exits, except since her party was using the bathrooms - which were near the exit - it would have actually been more of a walk for them to go back to where they came in. Great.
It definitely could have been worse. Employees were acting appropriately and there was outdoor dining. (We went to Mo's.)
But still, as beautiful as it is, and as fun as things are to explore, maybe that is the problem. Perhaps a beach area breeds complacency.
As careful as we tried to be, even we messed up.
We went into the arcade (a weakness for us), and decided it wasn't safe. Then we saw a claw machine with one of the prizes stuck. Well, by the time we got a playing card it was gone, but then we had the credit, so we did play.
Great, we won some, but then in the excitement of that, even though there were signs that you could ask an employee to clean a machine before playing, we didn't. We should have sanitized our hands right after; we didn't. It's been more than two weeks now and we are fine, but cases are spiking and wherever you go, there are going to be more infected people around, and more danger.
And Seaside doesn't seem to be a place where the danger gets taken seriously. It doesn't have to be malicious to be a problem.
I'm glad a vaccine is coming. Someday we will go back.
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