The Oregon Coast

Last week we went camping on the Oregon coast with some family. We started at Silver Falls near Salem and moved south, finishing at Sunset Bay and had a splendid time. We went to the beach a few times spending a total of about fifteen minutes building sand castles, keeping the kids from getting swept out to sea in the powerful waves, and trying to avoid getting sand blown in our eyes. We biked on the beautiful oregon coast bikeway-- beautiful even though Scott and I missed the bikeway signs that led to the best part. We spend time with our fun and funny family. Susanna's cousin Ben won her (and me) over by riding by on his new training-wheel-free bicycle every twenty minutes that we were in camp, just to say hi to her; and probably Susanna's favorite part of the trip was listening to her cousins indulge her by singing her favorite song-- Raffi's "Baby Beluga"-- while Scott and I fished through some nearby thornbushes with a piece of Brad and Sue's tent trailer, hoping to find a piece of our tent Scott somehow inadvertantly flung there (I think we gave up and used a stick for the night but found the real piece the next morning-- did I mention the original search was performed by headlamp?). And I can't skip over the tidepools: a beautiful surf, starfish and anenome everywhere, and lots of space to run and splash.