Treasures, memories collected on coastal trips
Although there is evidence to the contrary, the calendar says spring arrived last week. That means it’s time for spring break – time for families to spend some time together doing something fun. Time to make some memories.
For many years my family headed for the Oregon/Washington coast every spring break. We would fire up whatever old truck we had, hook up our 1972 Prowler trailer and hit the road. We never spent much money on these trips, but the family memories we made are treasured.
Memories of playing on the beach are my favorites. We would play for hours – searching for shells, building sand castles or writing our names in the cold sand with our toes. We flew kites, dug for clams, hunted for driftwood and ran until we were exhausted. We were freezing most of the time, but it didn’t matter – the sounds, the smells and the beauty of the ocean made the cold seem unimportant.
One year we traveled out on the Olympic Peninsula, ending up in Neah Bay. We were a little disappointed – there wasn’t much out there, but the beauty of the rain forest made the trip one of our favorites. We were always exploring, traveling hundreds of miles on slow, winding roads, always searching for a glimpse of the ocean or the excitement of a dead seal washed up along the shoreline – I had three sons, you see.
Some trips we spent every night at a different place, trying to cover as much of the coastline as we could. Other years we stayed in one place, often at Fort Stevens or Fort Canby, both near Long Beach, one of our favorite beaches for beachcombing.
There were trips to Cannon Beach, Seaside, Newport, the Tillamook cheese factory and the sea lion caves. We searched for agates on Agate Beach, picked up hundreds of sand dollars on Long Beach and spent many hours exploring Astoria, one of my favorite places on this earth. We visited museums and antique shops, admired the beautiful turn-of-the-century houses and climbed the Astor Column. One year we even toured Astoria’s Sunkist Tuna Factory – an interesting, but smelly, experience that the kids enjoyed more than the adults.
Spring break is a great time to visit the Pacific Coast because of all the stuff the storms leave on the beaches during high tide. Throughout the years, we witnessed some awesome storms, sitting in our little camper, rocking in the wind, listening to the waves pummel the shoreline.
One time, after an especially ferocious night, I got up before it was light to go beachcombing – I had always wanted to find one of those glass Japanese floats. Two of the boys jumped up to go with me and we set out in nearly gale force winds with our yearning for adventure and our “possibility” bags – bags we always carried because it was “possible” we would find something we wanted to pick up.
We found dozens of Styrofoam and plastic floats, bottles and light bulbs of all shapes and sizes – but no glass floats. We walked and searched for more than three hours, finally turning toward camp. We were dreading the freezing walk back when my husband arrived in the pickup with hot chocolate and a great heater. Just as we were jumping in, he said, “Hey, what’s that?” There, on a cresting wave, still a ways out, was the biggest Japanese float I had ever seen. I jumped out of the truck with a scream, rushed out into the waves and plucked up the most exciting find of my life.
About three years ago, one of my sons began taking his family to the coast during spring break. Last year we were invited to go along. We camped at Fort Stevens, making short forays to the surrounding area, spending most of our time riding bicycles, flying kites, digging clams, beachcombing and trying to keep out of the rain. We changed clothes endlessly, tramped a ton of sand into the camper and put the same puzzle together a dozen times while waiting for the sunshine to return so we could go out and play. We had a blast.