30 days in Oregon already done. We arrived in Rockaway Beach a month ago yesterday and so far it’s been all we expected and then some. First, the trip from Texas to Oregon. Departure morning in Dallas had us re-evaluating everything we planned on bringing along when we still had a full cars’ worth of things sitting on the garage floor once the car was full but by that time I had already dropped the laptop and killed it so I figured things could only get better. So it was another hour unloading, re-prioritizing, and one last trip to the storage unit to whittle it down to what we could squeeze into every nook and cranny of the Xterra and still leave room for us. Two hours behind our planned departure but still upbeat and excited to be on our way we headed west at 11 that morning. Seven days later – after 2766 miles, wind, rain, snow, great scenery, closed highways, blizzards, more scenery, snow chains, white-outs, and more awesome scenery- we pulled into Rockaway Beach at noon on Monday, January 7th. I won’t say much about the few broken items that somehow flew out of the back of the car during the “de-chaining” and one of our fuel stops in northern California but just know I’ll likely not hear the end of it.

We were thrilled to get the car unloaded once we got to the house in Rockaway. It’s a great feeling to use the rearview mirror after being hind blind for a week. Since then we’ve been on the road every day travelling either north or south on highway 101, the two lane asphalt ribbon that hugs the Oregon coast between the dunes and the coastal range mountains that rise up from the surf. We’ve put another 2200 miles on the odometer, most of that on the 101 north or south from our home base exploring beaches, forest trails, and the many small towns every few miles along the coast, almost all having populations of fewer than a couple thousand and most having not one traffic light. We’ve logged over 60 miles hiking, most of that along the beaches or the trails that lead to those beaches from 101, and some of that on trails that climb along the cliffs jutting out above the Pacific with the full power of the sea crashing into the rocks below sending plumes of spray high into the air. It’s hard not to spend hours standing and staring at the incredible forces in play that have shaped this coastline for thousands of years. Seeing this non-stop onslaught of nature in pictures can’t come close to standing above the beach watching as these waves move methodically toward the shore and then crash against the rocks. The visual is mesmerizing, but to be close enough to hear and feel the solid “thud” and the change in the air pressure as the wave explodes on the rocks or sand is something that can’t be described.

We’ve spent at least some time on the beach every day depending on the weather. The first week was typical Oregon coastal weather – cloudy and rainy – but then we had two weeks of partly sunny to sunny skies and we were able to either walk or drive down to watch the sun set each day at the beach. Like they say, no two are the same. The past week has seen the first snow on the beach in four years and some fairly cold temperatures but that hasn’t kept us away from our daily walks on the sand even if we do keep it a bit shorter.