Seeing the Pacific Ocean for the first time was ineffable, which means that I can’t describe it in words, so I use this word, ineffable, to explain that I can’t explain it in words, which must mean that it was so *something* that it took my breath away or I was lost for words, which I could have just said in the first place. Thank you, Glenda’s vocabulary lesson on the way to Mount Hood, for giving me the wordiest way to say I was at a loss for words.
In any case, it was a remarkable experience, which I will remark on further. At first, I was angry with my parents for withholding this opportunity from me, but similarly to the Lost Lake conundrum, I couldn’t stay mad because I was just too overcome with wonder. We have poets for these things, and anyone who has even been on the coast knows what I’m talking about, so it’s pointless for me to attempt to explain anyway, so I don’t know why I’m still trying.
We drove straight from Lost Lake five hours to Lincoln City on the coast. We headed straight for the water, and this was my first vista of the Pacific Ocean:
My first look at the lovely Pacific Ocean
The whole trip was anxious, restless, and nonstop. The nicest thing about traveling in an RV, according to George, is that you don’t have to stop for bathroom or food breaks, and he took this to heart. We all sat in silence, Mom pacing up and down the 20-inch-wide hallway and Ray cross-referencing the map with the odometer every five minutes while I rocked in place with my face glued to the window for four straight hours until I fell asleep and woke up alone at an overlook. George had parked the Falcon 2.0 so that the window where I was perched framed perfectly the tide pool all the way to the horizon. Not that I could see the horizon. Oregon has a knack for haze, but the effect was all the same to me. I think that may be the nicest thing George has ever done for me.
We checked into an RV resort right on the water and spent the day flying kites on the beach and skimming in the tide pools. You’d think that in the summer the ocean would be warm, and you’d be wrong. Ray and I rented full-body wetsuits, and my teeth were still chattering the whole time we were on the beach. The groundskeeper at the resort told us that in the fall and spring you can see pods of gray whales migrating off the cliffs of the park. Unfortunately, we would miss their trek, but Mom said it’s just an excuse to come back later. I’m excited that this trip is inspiring her to want to travel more (granted, it is early in the haul so far). For dinner, we ate scallops, salmon, prawns, clams, mussels, and Dungeness crab, which is a Pacific Northwest specialty, and I fell asleep watching a light house spin round and round and listening to the surf.
A huge rock in the middle of the Pacific blanketed by haze
We stayed another day and night at the RV resort and cruised up the coast the following day, stopping at every scenic overlook and natural attraction. We stopped in Pacific City for a quick surfing lesson. After getting totally beat, I retreated to the shore to rest and warm up. As I sat, staring at the surfers disappear into the haze, a large, dark figure began to emerge about 100 feet out into the water. It took a good five minutes for the fog to slowly dissipate until I realized that a giant rock stood before me. I pointed for Ray and George to look behind them in the water, and Mom snapped this picture. I couldn’t believe that it had been there all along as I surfed, or pretended to surf, and swam just in front of it.
We continued north up the coast, stopping in Cape Lookout State Park and Tillamook, Land of Cheese, Trees, and Ocean Breeze! Trees and ocean breeze are easy to come by in these parts, but the cheese was a welcome novelty. Of course, the Tillamook Cheese Factory being the most popular tourist attraction on the Oregon coast, we had to stop. Because, after all, we are tourists. We made a lunch out of the plentiful, various cheese samples and wrapped the meal up with some dessert of their ice cream samples. They had 38 creamy, delicious flavors to choose from, my favorite being the cake batter!
Cape Meares
We then headed over to Cape Meares to check out the Three Arch Rocks National Wildlife Refuge where two-thirds of the seabirds in Oregon nest, including the largest breeding colony of puffins. One flew over our heads as we stood at a lookout over the cliff nests of the common murres. Glenda had out a bird book and her binoculars, which has to be the dorkiest thing I’ve ever seen, and was identifying every bird, its nesting and gestation periods, when it migrates, and all this stuff I won’t remember. The rocks off the peninsula were like those out of The Goonies when the boys use the metal amulet or whatever to line up the arches in the distance.
We stayed the night in Oceanside, where the shore houses rose along the cliffs like LEGOs, which looked like a little Greek town, but hazier. Now that I feel like an official resident of the entire state of Oregon, I mostly see why Mom would say that everything we need is in Sweet Home. But the fact that there are so many amazing places mere hours from my house makes the promise of farther places all the more enticing. Off to Washington, the Land of Vampires!
This is so cool! I never considered the possibility of traveling to Oregon (let alone the entire United States) but I really want to go now.