They wanted to stay by the ocean
They wanted to their whole family with them.
They wanted to see the Redwoods.
They wanted to do something they had never done before.
And so they did.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
For their 50th anniversary my parents wanted to take all of us on a vacation. To see something they had never seen. To do things they had never done. We wanted to not travel too far. Keep the plane ride as painless as possible. So the Pacific seemed like the logical place to choose. And the one big thing on our list on that side of the country to see is the Redwoods.
So we meandered our way to a halfway point between Portland and the trees.
Bandon by the Sea.
I loved that name when I saw it on the sign when we pulled into town. It rolled off my tongue just the right way.
It’s a little tourist town next to the cold coast. Surrounded by logging towns, fishing villages, sand dunes, rocks jutting out of the ocean and cranberry bogs (which weren’t ripe, so I had no idea they were there) and you get to it by winding your way through the Oregon back roads that are surrounded by forests that seem to go on forever. Millions of dark but perfectly shaped trees. Dense and thick.
In the few days we stayed in Oregon my parents got to see just how different and beautiful it is there. The real Oregon. Not just the city. We visited dahlia fields. Wandered our way through the country side. Past hazelnut groves, sunflower fields, Christmas tree farms, hops, wheat, potatoes. You name it, we saw it. The soil is rich. The trees are dense. We stopped in lazy but bustling tourists towns. We tasted the best food they had to offer. I ate seafood for a week straight. Chowders and crab sandwiches and everything in between. It would be a shame not to have it so fresh.
Our Beach house overlooked the ocean from the second floor. My mom wasn’t quite prepared for the cold. Or the vastness. The pacific coast has it’s own special extremes. The waves are harsh and large. And the rocks seems to take a beating with every one of them, one right after the other. We went barefoot. Found treasures. Flew kites. Chased birds. Reveled in the sea life that was so foreign to us. And I got to celebrate my brothers birthday with him for the first time in 15 years.
The boys and I were able to spend a day crabbing and clamming. Something I’ve had on my list for the Dino Dude for years. Introducing him to crabbing on a dock surrounded by locals. Each cheering us on as we pulled up our catch. We ate a feast of crab dip with our red rock crabs. Another local boy, a senior in high school in the area taught us in the early morning hours how to clam for the big ones. It required much more work than I was prepared for, but it was worth to see how excited my little one was to be digging in the sand up to his neck and to come up with a clam the size of his head.
We made it to the Redwoods the day my parents celebrated their 50th.
The day was their favorite. By far. They went to bed with sweet dreams of sun splashing through giants. And clear rivers. And rock skipping. And grandsons looking like specks compared to their surroundings.
Seeing the redwoods is definitely indescribable, but I’ll try.
Pictures do absolutely no justice. No matter the equipment.
It was like I was bug in a giants world. Like I had shrunk and everything around me had grown to proportions out of this world. Eight of us, hands stretched, couldn’t go around a whole tree. The trees have been there for two thousand years.
Think about that for a minute.
Two thousand years.
I had a hard time wrapping my head around that, as our country, we talk about only in centuries. And only a few at that.
Two thousand years is 20 centuries.
I thought about fireflies and fairies the whole time I was there, because that’s what I felt like compared to the size of the trees and the growth beneath them.
I was sad to leave them. So were my parents. But every once in a while on the drive home, up the winding coast with its furious winds and waves, my dad would say “I just can’t get those trees out of my head.” or my mom saying “did we really just see that?”
Those hours were worth the whole trip alone.
We spent the last evening on the beach watching the sun set. I sat down and listened to my brother and his son laughing on the dunes. Music to my ears. The waves crashed. The air cool and salty. The color of the water, perfect. The horizon lost.
Thank you to my family for coming a long on this little adventure. Thank you mom and dad for your generosity of this trip. One of a lifetime. I hope it was for you as well.
