Friday, August 12, 2011

The Oregon Coast

I realized I needed to describe my day at the beach in text. Sometimes I get so caught up in photography I forget to write. Photos are amazing but writing can sometimes make a pictures that is even better then the picture.

When Roger first said to me he could make the move to Oregon happen I spent hours browsing the internet for images of the Oregon coast. There are tons of pictures of Hay Stack Rock. I knew this was a must see. It was quickly added to my bucket list. Like many of the moments in this trip mentally stating that you will go see something just doesn't bring home the reality like the moment you turn the corner and see some spectacular site. This is how a lot of things are in my life. When I am working on a piece of art I never believe its going to happen or turn out as I envisioned untill it is done and I sometimes look down at it in disbelief that I was the person who just created it. That has how this whole move and now this ocean experience seemed to me. It seemed as if it was happening to me and I was doing nothing to propel the experience along. I think this is why people can go on vacation and then return to their homes is because they just think of these things existing in that brief moment and not as always being there. I feel so incredibly blessed to be able to live here and miss these incredible sites fewer times. We literally doodled around till one p.m. today and at the last second went on a vacation that most people spend months planning.

To see the rock in real life is just breath taking. I just can't believe these things exsist. They have only existed on the scale of a television or computer screen for me. I sometimes think to my self that this amazing thing has been here being stunning my entire life and I had no idea. During one moment in my life when I was mundanely burshing my teeth in New Woodstock, New York the sun was setting at  Hay Stack Rock and a dark purple starfish was gently crawling down the side of a rock.

I was honest to god just impressed by the shattered sea shells and the sand that had been washed into a exotic fish scale pattern. The rocks were stunning but still far and not quite registering in my brain yet. We walked with bare feet on the warm but comfortable sand till we got to the part the waves had touched and this was much cooler. The water on the Pacific is biting to say the least. It is not easy to find a warm patch. These images alone could have rocked my world and sent me home with hundreds of words of text to share with you all. We drew closer and closer to the main attraction though and I started to see the tidal pools. I fighred I might see a itty bitty starfish like the ones you see at the pet store in the salt water tanks. I saw hundreds of people tompsing around and figured there would barley be anything to see here. I was completley wrong.

I spotted the small circles jutting out of sand surrounding the shallow rocks at the entrance of the tidal pools. I did not realize there were anemones let alone they were even alive! I soon came to a part of the pools where the water was deeper and the creatures were fully out and slowly moving independently of the current. They were composed of slight blushes and greens. They were visually the most exotic creatures I have ever seen. I have been to aquariums but there is no comparison. Some how being behind glass made the aquarium creatures just like T.V. creatures. Unreal and somehow not registering as a real wild creature. There were so many creatures in these pools. Tiny crabs scurried around, fish that blended into the sand perfectly it took me some time to spot them, all kinds of snails and clams. There were three colors of anemones there. The smaller blush colored ones, larger neon green and then I did spot one large white. The starfish came as a complete shock. We were walking around finally noticing the rocks after being totally ripped away from them by all the awesome creatures when Roger asked if that was a starfish. He did not think at first that it was alive. It was and soon we spotted tons of them. They were all tangled in with one another on the under sides of rocks and hidden blending perfectly with the rocks in the shallow pools. There were mostly dark purple starfish with an occasional bright orange mixed in. The Orange would be at the center of the group. I imagine they were different genders and perhaps mating. I am not sure though. When looking close their skin was not smooth but looked as if it was made of soft spongy textured skin. I have no idea if it is refereed to as skin. Their shape was highlighted by a lacy pattern of white nob like formations.

The jelly fish and the anemones both had jelly like qualities and the colors seemed to be something that could only be synthetic. It is quite amazing to see something in nature with the same color as my plastic high tops from the 80's. I always think people invent things but we just mimic it. Remember that the next time you pick up one of those rubber tentacle ball toys at Wal Mart. Some person was hanging out at the ocean and thought "oh hey, this would be cool as...."

We have two dogs. A Cairn Terrier named Ozzy and a Beagle named Daisy. They had a blast at the beach but were starting to get cold and very tired. We decided it was time to head back. As we left the beach and were walking down the touristy sidewalks I gently licked my lips. I tasted the ocean on my skin. What a fantastic taste it was. I felt so happy I was left with a small souvenir to remind me of the day. 

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