We Love Oregon!

We made it to the ocean! Sure, we had seen the Puget Sound in Seattle and Port Townsend, and had even been on the water, but we were so pumped when we first saw the ocean, ran our toes through the sand, and chased the waves through the ripples of low tide.

We made it to the beach just in time to catch the sunset on a sunny and gorgeous late summer night. The girls were delighted and captivated by the waves, chasing them in, then turning around and letting the waves nip their heels as they ran away.

We watched them delight in the enormity of the sea and its unpredictable flow, experiencing its greatness for the first time (this trip). It was a cathartic experience for me and Alex. We felt a collective sigh, like ahhh… thaaaat’s right, THIS is what we were aiming for.

Any struggles, difficulties and questioning we had been through dissipated (or at least momentarily faded into the background) as we watched the girls dance on the beach and in the waves. Our current manner of living is not always easy, but moments like that make it all worthwhile – for the time being.

Our first stop in Oregon was Fort Stevens State Park, just outside of Astoria, Oregon – the uppermost tip on Oregon’s coast. Astoria is an eclectic and fun little town. The coffee shops, bookstores, and gift shops maintain their own unique character, explicitly rejecting convention and commercialization. The town sits where the Columbia River and Pacific Ocean converge, but it was built with the water as an afterthought. The water has always been primarily used as a source of income and industry rather than beauty and tourism.

Exhibit A is the co-working space that Alex rented for a few days. Although the inside was nothing to write home about, it was situated on a pier right above the Columbia River with views out into the Pacific Ocean. The office’s shared balcony was lacking furniture, as if no one has used it or would ever want to. It was very curious. All week our creative brains were buzzing with what could be.

The girls and I spent several days lounging at the beach: building castles, reading, and running up and down the sand mounds. The ocean along on the Oregon coast is not exactly swimmable, at least not with the 60-degree air temperatures we had when we were there. I’m told it rarely gets above 80 degrees and windy, and with the water temperature hovering in the mid-60s, even after our feet and legs got wet, we rushed to warm up in the sunbaked sand.

Fort Stevens State Park is the largest and most thoughtfully developed campground we have stayed in - state park or RV park. Fort Stevens has hundreds of campsites spread between a half dozen separate loops, and miles upon miles of trails - paved paths for biking, dirt and gravel trails for hiking, and even horse trails that hug the beach. We tried to bike everywhere we went – the beach, the playground, the wood pile, and eventually we biked just for the sake of biking. Willa even made it over 5 miles on one of our family rides! That is a lot of rotations for her little legs on her little bike. She is nothing if not determined. It was neat to watch the terrain on the trailside change from grassland to dense jungle to beach and back again, all on the same bike ride.

One evening we climbed the Astoria Column, a century-old tower on a hill at the outskirts of town. The girls threw small wooden airplanes from the top of the tower (purchased at the gift shop for this reason) and we tried to guess how far they would make it coasting with the wind. The sun was boldly shining, so we took off our sweatshirts and bounded up the bumpy hillside, pausing for a twirly game of ring-around-the-rosie and to belt out “the hills are alive with the sound of muuuuusic!”

Our campsite at Fort Stevens was one of the best yet – super easy to pull in and set-up, relatively private compared to other sites nearby, and it had a little path through the bushes, which formed a little fort of sorts for the girls to play in.

The girls and I had finally established a predictable and steady school routine and have managed to keep it going for several weeks now. After breakfast we pack up our school materials and sit outside at the picnic table or walk to a nearby quiet spot for an hour or two of dedicated school time.

So far Audrey has been pretty good about entertaining herself while Elsie and Willa do school. She has alternated between a few different chapter books, claiming they are “her books” (“where’s my book?!” she will say in a panic if she misplaces her current selection). She carries these books around, one at a time, like a prized possession, stopping to open the book and “read” it to herself. She also carries around a little backpack of toys: “cool rocks” she has collected or that we have bought for her at souvenir shops, little pieces of paper she sometimes writes on, matchbox cars, Lego figurines, and other obscure toys and pieces of garbage or recycling she claims to be treasures.

On one of our Fort Stevens days we drove south to Seaside, Oregon. Compared to the state park and quirky town of Astoria, Seaside was a completely different experience. Seaside is very much a tourist town, so much so that there are a just as many storefront carnival rides as there are shops and candy stores. With COVID raging once again, especially in Oregon, many of the shops and attractions were shuttered or were operating with very limited hours. As with many of the places we have visited, “help wanted” signs cluttered store fronts left and right. It was hard to know if things were shut down because of new COVID concerns or its residual effects on the hospitality industry.

We were in Seaside on a Friday, which happened to be the day before the annual Hood to Coast relay run was set to finish there. Crews were setting up the finish area on the beach to mark the end of the race. I couldn’t contain my excitement. It was like the contact high you get when you watch a big race like Twin Cities Marathon. Like when you’re suddenly thankful for the athleticwear you insist on wearing because you never know when someone will tag you in and you’ll have to finish the race for them. I started to imagine scenarios where I might get to sub in for a team who needed another runner. I’m not the only one who thinks like that, right?

Needless to say, I have always wanted to do the Hood to Coast race! Runner friends, expect an email from me about getting a team together.

We were not eager to leave Fort Stevens. For one, we had gotten used to having nightly fires, which had been banned ever since South Dakota because of the drought and wildfire risk. We also loved being close to the beach, biking everywhere, and feeling like we were truly camping in the woods.

On the other hand, it was still summer in my mind, and we were not at all warm. We had moments of warmth in Washington and occasionally took our jackets off in Oregon, but the damp chill was ever-present, and I was ready to feel hot again.

Well, it was short-lived, but we left the coast and ventured inland to find some heat. This detour was one of the (many) genius ideas I had while planning the trip. I thought we would for sure want to see Portland, right?! After all, we had never been. So we took one night off from the coast, drove 2 ½ hours inland, past Portland, and to a different state park about 45 minutes outside the city. When planning I had not factored in late check-in times, the amount of work it takes to move the rig, and the extra drive time to and from the city. After getting to the campground around 4pm, we decided against turning around and driving back into Portland as we had originally planned. Instead, since we didn’t have to be out of the campground until 1pm the next day, we figured we could wake up early, drive to Portland to check out a few sights, and still be back and packed up by 1pm.

So Saturday night we found a little brewery with food truck close by and dressed up in our warm weather clothes that hadn’t been seen in what felt like forever.

Back at the campground we struggled to get to sleep. We have been very lucky to have mostly quiet nights where we’ve stayed. There have been a few one offs with noisy neighbors, but nothing we couldn’t sleep through. This was the first time we had a full night of noisiness. We were even warned ahead of time! When we pulled in, the site next door was bursting with people who were already getting after it pretty hard. One woman in the group warned us, saying: “We can get pretty rowdy! But don’t worry, we’ll pass out by 10.” Untrue. I wasn’t keeping track of time, but I think it was closer to 10am before they quieted down.

Undeterred, we took off for Portland early Sunday morning. With just a few hours to spend, we couldn’t really form an agenda for the morning. That is, other than great coffee and the best donuts. We found both. Blue Star donuts… oh man, they may have been the best I’ve ever had (until a few weeks later…). They were yeasty, dense and unique – lavender vanilla, dark chocolate, and lemon poppyseed. The girls weren’t huge fans. And since Alex can’t have gluten, I had to finish them off.

We didn’t have time to drive around and get a feel for the true character of Portland, which is a bummer since Alex and I discovered Portlandia shortly before we left home and wanted to see if the reality was culturally similar. The only other place we wanted to go to in our short venture was Powell’s books, the largest and maybe oldest bookstore in Portland. We drove around waiting for it to open and were struck with the extent of homelessness in the city. It was overwhelming. We also drove on the outside of the autonomous zone near government buildings in downtown Portland. Incredibly, it still looks like a warzone more than a year after nightly violent protests began. Very few people walked the surrounding streets, entire blocks were still fenced off and windows and stores were boarded up for blocks and blocks. It left us with a feeling of hopelessness and sorrow for the city and its leaders.

Feeling heavy, we left Portland and moved on to our next spot. All in all, we had much to look forward to – staying in Oregon near the water and seeing family! Newport, here we come.