Life’s A Beach

Over the weekend, G and I went to the Oregon coast – just he and me.  The kids stayed with friends – good friends who even took over soccer mom duty for Indigo.  They did this so that we could go have a romantic weekend away in the VW Bus – for our anniversary.

When I was asked where we should go, there was a bit of “really? the coast in October?”  when I said where I wanted to go.  I think there were visions of us being stuck in the bus while it stormed outside – a common occurrence starting this time of the year.  But, he booked the campsite for two nights – and away we went.

This was the furthest trip the bus had gone.  Quite by accident really as we booked the place and literally forgot where exactly we had booked the site.  As we are on the freeway headed out to the coast highways, I was looking up on my phone where we were going.

We reached the coast while it was still light, found the site, and setup camp.  The site was perfect – literally right across the street from the beach.  And, even more perfect was the campground.  For the tent and VW campers, the sites were surrounded by bushes so that each site was private.  Good stuff.

Once camp was established, we opened the bottle of Penetration wine from the Naked Winery – a gift from friends and took our glasses on the beach where we toasted a good weekend.  Then the rain started as we made dinner and a fire.  It was post-dinner that we discovered the main thing we had forgotten – the rope.  The rope that G was going to use to tie me up – and suspend me with.  Fuck.

We ate toasted marshmallows in smores, then headed to bed.  We were both exhausted from the week.  We crawled into bed, under the covers, and made love as we listened to the rain hit the top of the VW bus.  Then we slept hard.

At about 3am, G woke up to go to the bathroom only to come back to say “honey, the moon is out – so are the stars, let’s go for a walk on the beach!” Yes, I declined. I was tired and comfortable and warm.  So I enticed him back into the van for our own fun before we fell asleep.

We woke up late on Saturday morning, made coffee and ate pancakes and spam.  I should explain the spam.  I had bought it over the summer after the girls went on and on about not understanding what spam was.  And it sat in the cupboard until I tossed it, as a joke, into the food stuff for the trip.  We ate it for breakfast – G’s first taste of spam.  After we cleaned up, we took our coffee to the beach for a walk.  It was sunny and warm and gorgeous.  So we did something we hadn’t done for a while – we talked about everything – we laughed – we found things in the sand including 4 whole sand dollars (quite a feat on the coast given the rocky shores).  And we just kept walking.

Where we camped is a stop for the pelicans as they migrate south.  I knew that at the end of the cape we would see the huge flock of them. So we walked and walked until G said “you know, you could get naked here and no one would know. Pictures?”  So I stripped off my clothes, and we took pictures as I enjoyed the sun on my body.  Then we made love on the beach – the empty beach – as the waves crashed behind us.   After, we wandered some more before I put my clothes back on and we walked some more.

In the end, when we got back to camp, we figured we walked about 6 miles.  We were gone about 4hrs and could feel the starts of a sunburn on our faces.  Back at camp, we decided to drive further south to another cove where there was a microbrewery and another gorgeous beach.  We drove down there, had a beer in the sun on the patio, then headed back for a long nap.

After the nap, we opened a bottle of wine, gathered fire wood from the beach, started the fire and made dinner.  By the campfire, we talked some more – we laughed some more – and enjoyed the fire.  Then we climbed into bed for the night.

The next morning, we packed up camp to start our trek home. Our goal was to poke our way back – taking a scenic route and find a coffee shop along the way.  Landslides prevented this from happening, so we had to go back home sooner than expected.  We got back in town, unloaded the van, and found some lunch before getting the kids.

The trip was great. We needed that reconnect time.  When we did our annual negotiations the week before and again this past weekend, we both talked about our desire for balance.  This past year, things have not always been in balance for us.  We were doing too much of our own thing.  And while good, it eroded the time we had together.  Both of us agreed we needed to make sure this didn’t happen anymore.  It is one thing to understand short term impacts, but the iron man training, for example, was 7 months of me not seeing much of him during the week as he was getting up at 4am and going to bed at 9pm at the latest.  G gave this an example of what he is not willing to do again as it would get us out of synch too much.

We got to exhale.  We needed to exhale.  And we needed to reconnect emotionally, mentally and physically.

We are blessed we got this time together.  We are blessed to have great friends willing to take the girls for the weekend.  We are already planning our next trip.  We are thinking about finding hot springs in December.

Can’t wait!

6 Comments Add yours

  1. Dana says:

    The Oregon coast is – by far – my absolute favorite. Much more “personality” than what you’ll find anywhere else in the U.S. And now I am homesick …

  2. What a great weekend! Sounds amazing. I’m glad you had a chance to get away.

    Whole sand dollars on the beach? That’s so cool. We mostly get scallop shells and clam shells here.

  3. Joker_SATX says:

    Great post!..Just a reminder to me that I have to take one of these with the wife soon!

  4. That sounds like a wonderful weekend. Its so important to get away without the distractions of daily life to really connect.

  5. Sounds like an amazing getaway – thanks for sharing it with us.

  6. Myli says:

    I’ve been going to the beach my whole life and have never found a sand dollar! I’m so jealous. And first time with spam? Wow! I’m from Hawaii, so spam is a few times a week thing!

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