July allowed for an adventure, which I’m beyond thankful for. My sister had a conference in Portland, and so we decided to head over to the Oregon coast for a last minute camping trip. As much as I love camping, it may be a shock to learn, that I’m not certain I’ve been camping since 2009 when I went with my parents to Colorado. Needless to say I felt a little rusty, but thankfully it seems to be like riding a bike and I did enough of this as a child that it came back in waves.
Despite the fact that inland PNW has been roasting in typical July fashion, the cost was cool and calm and foggy and perfect. And as it turned out, two and a half seemed to be the perfect age for Cub to enjoy his first camping experience.
After all this time it still felt good to sleep in my good old backpacking tent. I had forgotten how to get it up and soon figured out that my return to camping would require the assistance of my sister. When I got back home and set it up to dry and clean it, I practiced it again. I finally triumphed in setting it up, unassisted, in my own room. This is evidence that my first solo camping trip is a possibility, and it might be happening this year…if possible.
We spent the first morning walking the beach. The pacific ocean never ceases to amaze. I am at heart a mountain girl and it is my awe of preference, but the ocean matches it in every level of vastness and making me feel small. The beach stretched on and on covered in a thick pea-soup fog, I couldn’t help feeling at home in that because honestly it looks a lot like my life right now actually. I walked onward trying to see where it might lead. And I figured out? It led to more beach. I hope that’s not the metaphor of my whole life. I walk onward into fog only to find exactly the same thing over and over again… let’s not take this too literally. At any rate, the best part was watching Cub experience the ocean, the beach, and sand, for the first time. At first he didn’t like said, it was ‘not his favorite’ but once we got going, he warmed right up to it.
We found lots of shell carnage along our way too…mostly beat up by the endless tide. But occasionally you find the gem that contains part of a whole shell…or in my case half a sand dollar.
During the afternoon we went farther down the coast to some less beachy and more rocky cliffs. When I think of the PNW coast this is actually usually what I think about.
Despite the cold weather we still managed to squeeze in a more classic beach activity.
And then it was back to good food.
It was hard to say goodbye the next day. The beach was just what I needed.
~Elle