Pacific Coast

This weekend we took our very first trip to the Pacific Coast to help Melissa celebrate her birthday. I was completely unprepared for the impact and don't really have the words to do it justice. Starting with the hour-long ride through the mountains and down the other side, continuing with unthinkably majestic views, monstrous trees draped with moss, cliff overhangs, waves as tall as me several times over, miles of driftwood, and finishing with a whole colony of seals right in front of us, it was an amazing trip that I will truly never forget. If I needed one more reason to fall in love with my adopted state, I've found it. This is a *long* post, because I just couldn't stop taking pictures. A lot of the beginning ones are from the car, so excuse the poor quality and my dusty windshield.  :)  I hope you catch from these photos even a tiny bit of the amazement we all felt this weekend....

First sight of the mountains, way off in the distance.  Right away, the kids dubbed it "Snowy Mountain". This is the Coastal Range, to the west of McMinnville, and pales in comparison to the Cascades to the east (which we haven't seen yet, but I'll be sure we do now!), making up the two sides of the Willamette Valley. 

As you can see, although we can *see* the mountains, we're still driving through the flat, flat farmland surrounding McMinnville. 

Getting closer.  

More trees, more rolling hills, starting to feel like we've left home behind. I realized on the ride back that this is just as you're passing the exit to The Delphian School (the boarding school I went to for high school) and so it makes sense that my internal distance-monitor clicked on right here as leaving familiar behind us. 

Abandoned railroad cars at the edge of the road.

Getting even closer....also starting to rain. Of course. :P

I was captivated by the tunnel the trees made with the road cutting straight through the middle. These trees are TALL and stand straight in the air. I finally understand the allure of authors describing them as "silent sentinels" in books I've read, which had always bothered me before. I guess in this case I had to see it to truly understand!

And all of a sudden we realized WE were on Snowy Mountain our ownselves! Had I known where the road was taking us, I would have realized we had been driving up hill and round curves for quite some time. I was so captivated by the scenery I didn't realize we were on the mountains ourselves until we saw the snow. 

We made it! Looking out Melissa & Alex's window at the waves. 

We probably could have stood there for hours and just stared. 

Persian castle on the walk to the beach. Rebecca was ready to walk right up, ring the doorbell, and ask the princess for a tour. She just *knew* a princess lives in there!

I really liked this house. Reminded me of home, and places I've seen in Maine & New Hampshire.  There's really no way to compare the two coasts, they are so different from each other, and there are things I truly love about each. It was very striking for me to see a house that could fit in completely on either side. 

There is such a sense of SPACE no matter where you look out here. The clouds tower overhead, the trees seem too big to be possible, and I am continually amazed by how far into the distance you can see. This goes for the Valley too, not just the Coast. Take a second to really look at this tree and the house it sits next to...

Down on the beach looking from a sunny spot where we are standing to clouds rolling in from the distance. You can actually see the sheets of rain coming down. I think the only other place I've ever seen this is Arizona.

I finally realized I hadn't taken any pictures of the kids yet!

View from the restaurant....I had a killer clam chowder bread bowl!

And now there's hail....

They brought a serrated knife with the bread bowl and he just HAD to use it! At least he waited until I was all done before shredding my meal.   :)

Running to the pier. 

I am framing this photo and putting it up in the apartment. I cannot explain how magical this picture is to me. I was aiming for the pier and just as I snapped the shot, he came wandering in from the side and stopped to examine the water on the boards, wondering if he could see through to the water underneath. 

There is driftwood EVERYWHERE. There is a whole strip of driftwood along the entire length of the beach from trees that have fallen in the ocean along the coast and been washed to shore. I probably can't get this in words the right way, but this was one of the striking differences that hit me between Pacific and Atlantic coasts. You would never see something this violent on such a massive scale on the beaches of the East Coast. I'm talking about entire trees ripped up by their roots, stripped of their bark, washed smooth, and tossed back to shore. The whole area vibrates with energy, motion, sound, and a vastness of space. It can't even really be compared to the encompassing comfort, soft roundness, coves and silences of a New England beach. I feel like a comparison isn't possible. They may both be coasts, but they don't belong in the same category. 

First things first, get those shoes off everyone! Sadly, Caiden's shoe never made it home! I had them all in my purse while we trudged though what felt like miles of sand dunes on our way to a "shortcut" back up to their room. It was a blast! But the shoe jumped ship (or purse) somewhere along the way. Uncle Alex even trudged his way ALL the way back to where we started from, but it never showed up. Who knows! 

Jack getting a Mommy-back ride over the driftwood down to the sand.

Another one for my wall. 

Trying to get them to pose for a picture....all they wanted to do was throw sand.   :)

Cheese!!

Evie was in heaven, moving from log to log just pleased as punch someone had filled the beach with chairs for her to sit on.

I climbed up on that massive stump from a few pictures back, intending to stand on it and have Melissa get a picture, only to find out it had been hollowed and used for a fire pit!  There are remnants of driftwood fires ALL over the beach. Seems like people must just pile it up and have a blast. There are driftwood lean-to's, teepees, and a lot of other structures all over.

Playing hide-and-seek in the logs.  Melissa and I couldn't find them. I don't know about you.   :P

I couldn't decide if this naturally happened that way, or was deliberately carved. Reminds me of all sorts of animals, but mostly beaver/groundhog.   :)

Yet another photo for my wall. Some day I'm going to have a beach house and decorate it with all sorts of magical photos of my kids through various ages playing at the Coast. 

Didn't take him too long to find a sword. 

I can't imagine how big this tree must have been around before it was burned out. 

Also going on the wall. 

I thought this sign was hilarious. My internal monologue was cracking jokes about the likelihood of running into a stray seal or sea lion on the freaking beach. I had no idea....

I thought it was pretty awesome how the burnt out portion of the log framed the house so far in the distance. 

Wall.

This is her *very* disbelieving face as Mommy jumps up and down whisper-shouting and giggling about SEALS! REAL LIVE SEALS! RIGHT OVER THERE!!!!

You can't see them in the pictures, which was SO disappointing! You could see them clear as day in real life. Hundreds of seals, all hanging out on the other side of the inlet. We watched them flop in and out of the water for quite a while. Yet another experience in polar opposites. I was blown away, awed, amazed and captivated. Also at war with the tiny voice inside my head saying, "Wow. When they come out of the water like that....all sleek and shiny....and flop across the sand....they kind of look like slimy maggot-inchworms blown up about 100x, huh?"

Super-camera-zoom. Still doesn't really show you what we were seeing, but at least you can make them out!

Bye seals!

I stepped on this rock as I made my way over some wood, and it cracked right in half. I was *astonished* to find shells INSIDE the rock! 

Once I knew what I was looking for, we started finding these rocks everywhere. Some of them still had shells embedded at the end of the passages through the rock. Some were just swiss cheese, with no shells to be seen. I'm definitely going to have to research this and find out how it happens! 

I was trying to capture the waves. Just like with the seals, you can't really see it in a picture. These waves *towered* me. Sincerely, they must have been at LEAST 15 - 20 feet high and loud as anything! Between the crashing waves and the rushing wind, I could barely hear a thing right down by the edge. Next time, I'm bringing my mud-stomping boots. The mud right at the edge is just like quicksand! I saw some people clamming with their boots on, and it gave me the idea to come back solo some day and spend hours just exploring the rocks & shells and who-knows-what-else all along the edge. 

Just gorgeous. 

Momma! I found treasure!

She's not actually upset at all, this is an "effort" face as she climbs a challenging stump face-in to the wind. 

This is the stump they were climbing. They wanted to stand on top of the "bridge".

Crumbling cliff face. Suddenly I understood what Alex was talking about earlier in the day when he said whole houses had been known to fall right in. Another drastic comparison between East and West. Back home the houses fell into the ocean too....in super slo-mo as the waves ate away at the coastline over years. 

From the top of the stairs looking back over the water. 

Um, excuse me?

Last shot of the seals. 

Heading back home. 

All tuckered out! Rebecca wasn't....she talked a mile a minute the entire ride home about everything she had seen and done. It was a very successful trip!