A Trip to the Beach Coast

For week 2 of our “enjoy the weather while it lasts” fieldtrips I decided that we’d go to the Oregon Coast.  (The word coast is used deliberately as a contrast to the word beach.  The coast is a pretty place that is often also very cold.  The coast is scenic rather than recreational.  The beach is recreational.)  I checked out the tide charts and decided what day we would go based on when the best low tide would be.  And then I loaded my three grumpy pre-teens in the convertible for the 90 minute drive.

As you can see, they were not too happy to be going.



We drove through the beautiful Coast Range.



And they were still cranky.  But once I stopped and bought a bag full of junk food it was amazing how happy everyone got.

Just a few minutes later we arrived at our destination, Cannon Beach, and more specifically Haystack Rock, a protected marine garden.

It was late enough in the day when we arrived that the light was already really interesting.



And it was freezing.  If Oregon rule #1 is always bring a jacket, then Oregon rule #2 is always take a coat to the coast.  Now that may sound extreme, but based on our limited experiences with the Oregon coast, 2 out of 3 times we have wished for coats.  On this day we just made do with what we had.



When Josh drove to Oregon with Ken, Connor, and Tiger, we spent a day together on the coast.  We’d hoped to see the same starfish again that we’d seen that day, but for some strange reason (possibly the storm than had come the day before?) there were no starfish.  We did see lots of anemones, though.



The tide kept rushing into the marine garden area, so the kids gave up on trying to stay dry.



Definitely not our most successful field trip.  But at least we got out of the house and spent some time together and ate some good junk food.  And next time hopefully we find the starfish!