A day at the Coast

On Saturday we decided to head out to the coast because we had three important showings on our house that day and we wanted to steer clear of our clean house. (By the Way, we recieved an offer that we accepted!) We headed straight to my favorite beach, which I can never remember the name of... I think it is Oswald State Park. We intended to find a camp site at this park and have a fun day and night of camping. Imagine our disappointment when we found that they closed down all the campsites since the middle of last summer. Last summer I posted a blog about a tree falling down in the middle of the night at a campground, well this was the place. The Oregon Coast is a forest of pine trees, and in the winter it is not uncommon for many, many trees to fall down during a windy storm, they cause all sorts of problems, blocking roads, knocking over power lines... it is uncommon for this to happen in the calmer summer months. For this reason, the powers that be decided it best to close the park to camping. This HUGE tree that fell down narrowly missed falling on a sleeping family.The parents were in one tent and the kids in another and miraculously this tree fell in betweent he tents. It's a miracle to me. As we walked through the park you could see also where many other trees had fallen because this tree knocked them down. A park ranger told us all this. He also said that many of the trees in this part of the forest are probably sick and rotting on the inside, which is why it fell, but it would take a tree specialist to tell which ones are at risk of falling.

This Picture of Chad shows the fallen tree on either side of him, the chunk that they removed from the middle is lying behind him and off to the side. Jacob is sitting by part of the tree. And below we are standing by part of the tree. You can see how big around it is. These trees are tall !

After we walked through the campsite we wandered down the beautiful trail to the beach. I love this beach, it is protected from the wind by its crescent shape. As you can tell it was another beautiful sunny day on the beach ! NOT! Actually, around 3:00 the sun came out. In the early afternoon it was still about 60 degrees. Funny, it was 90 degrees at our home in Vancouver.This cute picture was taken jus seconds before Phoebe bit it and got a big goose egg on her forehead. We were too busy admiring how cute they looked to notice the big kids were kind of pulling her along, not letting her get her footings.We all thought this cool suspension bridge was fun. Lia Bell was a little nervous on it. We love the Oregong Coast! Even on a cloudy, wet day. There is always someplace fun and interesting to explore. Things to see, and I love the smell of the ocean, the feel of the breeze, and the sound of the waves. I need a beach house! We had fun climbing on these rocks, just to see what was on the other side.

This was probably the most interesting thing we've ever seen at the coast. This poor baby sea lion just laying there in the sand. I don't know how he got there, but I felt bad for him, because he is obviously sick. He finally moved after a few hours, not very far. It was only a matter of time, I'm sure, before the tides changed and he would be washed back out to sea. I hope he's alright.

We couldn't camp at this campsite, but we found a different place in Cannon Beach to camp. Unfortunately we ran out of batteries on our air pump, so I tried to manually blow up the airmattress. I didn't get very far. Chad had two little sleeping pads, the one I was on kept leaking air, so I basically was asleep on the floor. I finally went to the van around 5 am. The firewood we bought must have been wet, because Chad had the hardest time getting it started. He ended up putting his propane powered water boiler under the wood and left it there until the propane ran out, all so the kids could roast some marshmallows. Phoebe kept running around the campsite tripping on things, so I locked her in the tent where she screamed so loud I thought they would kick us out, so then I locked her in the car in her seat and she fell asleep quickly. I was laughing as we were trying to get ready for bed, phoebe crying, the fire smokiing, the air mattress flat. I had just said to Chad, "This must be the worst camping trip EVER!" two seconds later Jacob said, "THis is so Fun! Can we stay for a week?" I stand corrected. If the kids had fun and want to do it again, then I guess it was a success, even though I have a very achey back!