Just yesterday morning we left SeaQuest State Park in Washington where we'd spent two nights and explored the destruction of Mt. St. Helens. Ian is in love with volcanoes and so seeing a real one up close was pretty cool for him but he was disappointed that there was no lava spewing at us.
As we left Seaquest, we headed for the coast and drove down the ocean. I found myself getting excited to see the ocean again. We've experienced on this trip, as I've posted before, almost every kind of geography there is in the Western U.S., except the ocean...now we were almost there.
The Oregon Coast always takes my breath away, there's nothing like it and the Northern California Coastline. We soon found a beach and just played for a while. Kiley caught what, I think will be, my favorite photo of the entire sabbatical. I'll post it below.
Finally, we were slaves to the clock and got back in our "land yacht" and continued our cruising down the coastline. The boys were begging to play more on the beach and so we started hunting for campgrounds along the beach earlier than we planned on stopping. We chose one at random as we turned around a hill and, again, it was an amazing "coincidental blessing." This little camping spot had us overlooking the ocean and listening to the crashing waves. Once we set-up, we answered the boys' begging and headed down the path for the beach.
As the sun set, we searched the tidal pools, climbed rocks and gathered shells. Ian was ecstatic to watch a crab bury itself in the sand, play with a live starfish and watch an anemone curl up on itself as he touched it.
We fell asleep last night to the crashing of the waves and the soft drizzle of rain you find so often on the coastline in the Northwest.
This morning was wet, but the boys begged to visit the beach again. So the boys and I dawned our rain coats and beach shoes and trekked down to discover that the tide had gone out...way out. Where water would have been over our heads last night was a whole universe of discovery for the boys.
For the next hour we got soaking wet in the thick mist exploring hundreds of new tidal pools, discovering hundreds of starfish, watching a starfish pull apart a mussel shell, climbing rocks and so much more that our boys will talk about for a long time to come.
Finally, we reluctantly pulled ourselves away from the beach to tear down the camp and head South. We stopped at more beaches along the way and played until arriving here in the Redwoods.
Tonight, they road their bikes around the campground with new found friends and played in the "caves" inside old Redwood trees.
Like I titled the post...a lifetime of memories...and that's just in 48 hours...
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