Beach Finds

I know that a beach beaver is an epic find, but it's also unusual and unnatural. So I'm dedicating this post to things you would expect to find at the ocean...but JUMBO sized.

Our first morning at the beach, my mom and I went for a run to the jetty. We met my dad and my brother there and one very very large washed up tree. This is probably the biggest one I've ever seen in my life. And it was oddly balanced on the jetty. That didn't stop us from climbing on it though.

Can you find us?

The next day we went to what we call "agate beach". It's about a 45 minute drive away from Rockaway and fairly unknown. Which is good for us because our family hunts for agates like they're diamonds. We have been visiting agate beach since as long as I can remember. Even before there were stairs built down to the beach from the cliffside we were sliding down there. I believe that qualifies us as hardcore agate hunters.

There are a lot of different types of agates, but they are generally varieties of compressed silica developed from volcanic rocks. We recently found out after a visit to Waldport that blue agates exist. They are the hardest to spot and some of the prettiest. My favorites are the orange ones. You might think that finding them is easy, but it's really not. By the end of a day at agate beach, all of our eyes, necks, and backs hurt from searching. We have also developed agate eyes. In a beach primarily composed of rocks, over 10 years of agate hunting gives you a really good search image for your brain to find a needle in a haystack.

Our haul this year was exceptionally good:

And Eric found the largest agate to date (JUMBO!):

Oregon Coast

We had to skip our annual Oregon coast trip last year because I was in Florida when we normally go. Now that we're all together again, everyone decided to take a few days of spring break and spend our time at Rockaway Beach.

There are several things that you need to know about our family before you fully understand this post and those to come. We have been going to the Oregon coast on vacation since I was around 7 years old (my parents even honeymooned there) so it's like our second home. On long road trips, my mom has recently adopted an "animal sightings for money" game. It starts with a list of random animals and their monetary values based on how likely you are to see them. They have to be living when you spot them and you also have to have a witness so that you can claim your money fair and square. The list for the trip went something like this:

Bear: $20

Donkey: $1

Baby goat (my mom calls them goatlettes): $1

Beaver: $10

Elk: $1

Fox: $10

This game is actually kind of fun because we usually see something on the list. It's also an upgrade from previous road trip games where my mom would just make the matching animal noise as we passed things. Does anyone know what an alpaca sounds like? Me neither, but she made up a "pak, pak, pak" whisper and now that's all I associate with alpacas. Very weird. You'll be glad to know that I made a whopping $12 this vacation because I saw a baby goat, a donkey, and one morning as I was running along the beach, I found a beaver. First of all, I never expected to encounter a live beaver in my life, and second, what is a beaver doing in the ocean? To be able to claim my ten dollars, I had to sprint back to the house and grab the camera to get photo evidence. Lucky for me, beavers are not fast.

We stopped by a surf shop in Seaside on the way down and everyone was gifted with wet suit upgrades. It turns out that a full wetsuit makes a world of difference when body boarding in the Pacific Ocean. In 55 degree water temperatures, we could stay for at least an hour. The only bad part is the first ten minutes when your feet feel like they've been put in an ice bucket.