Part 1 is here.

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For a holiday weekend the Sunset Highway is unusually dead. This is a typically sign that storm clouds are hanging over the coast or that something else nasty is waiting on the other side of the Coastal Mountain range. It's July 4th, 12:30 PM. I ignore these suspicions and cheerfully assume that anyone who's heading west this weekend is already there.

My assumptions are always wrong.

As you cascade down from the range on US-26, about fifteen miles from the 101 turn-off, there is an old restaurant called Oney's. Outside, there's a tall, plywood lumberjack. I don't know how this family tradition started but every time we pass Oney's cheerful face everyone shouts "OH-NAAAAAAAYS!!" I've seen this sign at least once every summer for my entire lifetime. I have never eaten there.

Shanna manages a quick, tiny "onay" before going back to her GBA. If she's psyched for this Big Fun Super-Duper Family Weekend she's hiding it well. It's only now that I realize that we've been mispronouncing the name of the restaurant all this time. It's probably "Oh-knees."

We descend into Cannon Beach. Legend has it that an undead logger, wrapped in bloody gauze, roams this stretch of highway. Locals call him the Bandage Man and, with the use of his magical goul powers, he likes to jump in trunk beds and backseats. In an open convertible we're a prime target for a ghost attack. We get into town without incident. Maybe he took the afternoon off.

Thousands of people are sitting on the sidewalks and we don't know why. Some of their faces are covered in star-spangled face paint and they all have sacks of candy. Two minutes later, our front bumper is a foot from the back end of a rubber raft. Two teenage lifeguards are throwing breath mints at the heads of spectators. Up ahead, the siren of an ambulance delights the crowd. Jesus Jumping Christ on Trampoline Pogo Stick! We are now in a big ol' 4th of July parade.

And There Is No Escape.

Most of them are convinced that we're the big finale. 1st graders scream for bite-size Butterfingers but we have only a single mint, tossed into the backseat by one of the lifeguards. Small-towners cheer us and mock our laziness. The cars up ahead are decked out in glitter and American flags. Their drivers are cheerful, waving clowns. They even have Dachshunds in cute little hot dog outfits. We have no Dachshunds. We have nothing. We are decadent hippies, Michael Moore enthusiasts, suspected communists - lowlifes to be ridiculed. A woman in a comical Uncle Sam hat shakes her head at me.

To hell with all these shinny, happy nationalists. I want to fire back with flashbulbs, a Super Soaker, shucks, even the candy they're pinning for. My arm searches blindly in the back seat for something, anything. If only we had known in advance! I would have 6 grocery bags of goodies to launch at these howling jingoists. Condoms! Bottle rockets! Fried chicken! Plutonium! Motor oil! Maxim! Balloon animals! Tiny plastic bottles of rum! Industrial-strength Depends Undergarments! In my 5 MPH daydream I am a Super Patriot teaching these people the true meaning of Independence Day.

There is the $114 cache of fireworks but they deserve any of it. They've hurt my feelings.

Worse yet, everyone has digital camcorders. Slowly we are becoming the final scene in dozens of cherished family memories. What I wouldn't give for a single, inappropriate thing to toss. Or the gall to put on the emergency brake, stand on the seat and drop my pants. With Shanna screaming bloody murder at my bare butt, we would be the top story on every affiliate on the west coast. "Strange, donkey-like 20-something moons crowd at small town parade. More at 11."

Out of contempt, or possibly pity, they start throwing candy at us. Most of it bounces off the doors. Where is that shiftless Bandage Man when you need him?

"Shanna, we're under heavy fire and these people want our blood," I declare. "The least you can do is get off the car, go to the trunk and get the camera."

"Uh, no."

Shanna has lowered herself all the way down her seat with her eyes just above the top of the door. She stares at the laughing, mocking crowd like it's a boring Midwest landscape but she's not taking any chances.

A small blonde-headed kid jumps in front of us. I slam on the brakes. He rushes back but the car has crushed whatever he was going for. The boy shoots me a blast of disdain. Many of these kids, most of them overweight, have a fraction of the candy that their smaller, quicker counterparts are now totting like trophies. I toss one, slumped in a lawn chair, a sympathy mint. He glares back.

I implore Shanna to do something- to wave, or least make eye contact. She calls her boyfriend instead. At one point, with it held high, the crowd shouts and blows kazoos at his voice mail. "You're car is great," a drunk man shouts. "I love the phone effect." Judging by his voice he must have started drinking at dawn.

Then she does something foolish. Now making an effort, she's halfway in the backseat, searching the floorboards for candy to give all the sad little fat kids in the crowd. What Shanna has failed to remember is that she's wearing a pair of tiny Gap shorts. I gasp and struggle for breath. For me, la butt-a de mi hermana is like sunshine on Dracula. I struggle to speak but I feel like I'm melting. The camcorders have turned away from the lifeguard girls to her Made in Oregon booty, now proudly, boldly, bravely held high in the air like Lady Liberty's torch.

"SHANNAFORALLTHATISSACREDANDHOLYINTHIS
WORLDSITDOWNRIGHTNOW!!!"

"Why? You don't need this candy."

How many wives have slapped their husband's faces in the past few days for using their 16x Circuit City lenses to zoom in?

After a 30 minute delay, the lifeguards roll down a side street and we are free. We wind through hairpin turns and into the Tolovana parking lot. At the front desk there is a stack of white paper. At the top there are three clipart fireworks with a slash over them. Close by are the following words:

WHY ARE FIREWORKS PROHIBITED ON THE OCEAN SHORE IN THE CITY OF CANNON BEACH?

It begins.

To be continued...

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As mentioned above, I couldn't get to my camera. WIth the exception of the shot of the sign, the rest of these have been "borrowed" from cannonbeach.net. I am bad.