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Beach

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I love the outdoors, so I can be happy in either setting, but I tossed a coin, so today I am picking the beach over the mountains. I love them both though, so the question is like asking me whether I love my Sons or my Daughters the most.

I live in a state where I am not forced to choose. From Salem, Oregon you must drive through the mountains to get to the beach.

Many times in the summer, I will camp in the coast range of mountains and in the same vacation, take a leisurely drive along the ocean beaches. But let's talk about beaches for now.

I grew up in Santa Monica, California, less than a mile from Venice Beach. As a kid, I was down there on my bike every day. I remember many days building castles in the sand and making tunnels for my plastic soldiers.I would get to the edge of the wet sand shortly after tide would begin to go out, so I would have plenty of time before the ocean would come back and wash over my work.

I remember flying my home made box kite and doing it for hours in the breeze from the ocean.

I was a beach boy, back when the BEACH BOYS were making beach boys popular. I didn't get my tan from a light, and my hair wasn't bleached from peroxide. I didn't wear flip flops in the hot sand. We called them thongs back then.

From my house, I would take 50 cents with me and get a 25 cent cherry slushy at Foster's Freeze and a slice of Pizza for 25 cents at the Pizza Hut. Those were the days.

I could go out on the Santa Monica pier and watch the fishermen catching their dinners. On the weekends I was often there from sunup till sundown. Unless the Dodgers were in town.

So today, I have a natural fondness for the beach. I have sunbathed on the black sand beaches of Maui. I have dipped my toes in the waters of the Atlantic from the boardwalks in Atlantic City, New Jersey. I have waded way out into the Gulf of Mexico in Boloxi, Mississippi. I have collected black obsidian from the beaches along the shore of Lake Superior. I have body surfed in Malibu, California and snorkeled off the beaches at Hanauma Bay, Hawaii. I have walked the shore in Bar Harbor, Maine and watched the giant cruise ships come in. I have sat near the beach in Miami and watched the pretty girls go by. I have been on a beach near Anchorage and watched the glaciers calving across the bay. Beaches call to me. But none, like the beaches of Oregon.

Oregon does not have a rival state for shear beauty. I won't get into the Forests or the Mountains or the Deserts

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