The Coast

Jim survived his first week of work in 2+ years!!! We celebrated by driving to the coast. Really, we're like tourists with resident drivers licenses. Our first stop was Yachats (any tips on how to pronounce that???) to explore some tide pools. We'd checked the tide table and planned to be there by the low tide but the drive took a little longer than expected... fortunately tides rise at less than tsunami like speeds. It was stunning.

And a little cold. See, this is the Pacific Northwest and I'm still thinking as though I'm in the Rocky Mountain states in August and don't need a jacket. Silly girl. We headed out in shorts, short sleeves, and no jackets for anyone. As soon as we opened the car door I knew the buglet was going to freeze.

We walked around and looked at the tide pools, and then parked our buns on the basalt for a tasty lunch. After which a fight broke out.

They seemed to make up ok because we climbed down from the rock and went to touch the water. The cold, frigid, barely liquid water (52 degrees). After waterskiing a few weeks ago in warm lake water this was quite a shock, especially since that's probably as warm as it'll ever get.

When the cold water had taken it's toll we ventured south to Heceta Beach and gallivanted around those parts a while.

We found many neat things on the shore including this bivalve still intact - the largest I've ever seen! I promised Aeryn she could keep it as a treasure and then Jim kindly reminded me that this was State Park land and we were likely not permitted to keep it. Which led into an interesting talk about how people ought to treat the land and I started to feel my handsome hubby just might have a little hippie in him after all.

It was a gorgeous day. One I hope we repeat in the future - armed with rainboots and jackets. What a gorgeous place we get to live in. Yay grad school!!!