A harrowing night

Our room at Cannon Beach had a private porch and a stairway leading down to the beach with a fabulous view of Haystack Rock. Tuesday night the moonlight woke us up at 2 a.m., casting sharp moon shadows across the room. We decided to get up, make a cup of tea, and watch the light on the water, glimmering like phosphorescence. We put a kettle of water on the stove and stepped outside to look at the moon. One of us shut the door and heard, with a chill, the lock click solidly in the door.

Locked out. One of us in pajamas, the other in a nightgown. It was 27 degrees F/ -2C. The pot of water was just coming to a boil on the stove.

Our cell phones were in the room, along with the car keys, our shoes, our jackets....

We laughed and hugged each other, because the other one of us had done exactly the same thing at Yachats last month when we stepped outside to look at the moon. That time we were saved by the key Sue keeps hidden for such moments.

But all laughter stopped when we saw, through the double-paned door, steam pouring out of the kettle on the stove. In half an hour or less the water would be gone, the pot would start to burn and melt, and the kitchen would catch fire.

One of us tiptoed gingerly down the stairs and across the icy gravel to the office, but it was locked and empty. There were four emergency numbers on the door, but we had no way to call them. Back together, trembling with cold and fear, we threw ourselves at the door. Solid. We searched for a wire, a hairpin, anything to jimmy the lock. Nothing. We brainstormed.

Off-season. Most of the rooms in the motel were empty. Steam from the kettle was fogging the window.

One of us set out to knock on doors till we could find someone who would (a) open the door to frantic knocking shortly after 2 a.m. and (b) lend his or her cell phone to the hysterical half-frozen woman so she could call the emergency number on the office door.

This plan worked. A generous young man let one of us use his cell phone; the third of four numbers actually reached a sleepy person; he instructed us where to find a master key; and before the kettle had completely boiled dry, one got in, turned off the stove, let the other one in off the porch, and we both collapsed in hysterics on the moonlit couch.

Four hours later this was the view from the porch where we’d spent that half-hour of hell.