Dusky gloom holds court daily, refusing to yield but for a handful of colorless hours. Scant daylight accompanied by a thermometer declining a meaningfully rise. Christmas and New Year’s celebrations long passed. Wintry doldrums rest heavy on the psyche; emerging at daybreak from the blanketed cocoon grows increasingly burdensome.
At this station on the annual calendar, I begin musing on the summer season. Sun-drenched dreams of baked sand under foot. Redolent aromas of toasty beach bonfires, rhythmic drumming of crashing waves, warmth of solar rays bearing down upon my pale face and tinting my hair a dusty brown. Lingering days resisting dusk, promising eternal ardor in the pure countenance of an illuminated sky.
Winters can be onerous in the Pacific Northwest—more so for some than others. While I typically do not shed tears at silver skies and a little precipitation, by February and March the game wears a tad thin. I yearn for consistent sunshine, a bit of natural heat, and a few connected hours of comfortable outdoor indulgence.
In a few months, when summer is finally in full swing, one of my most treasured spots is Oregon’s central coast from roughly Yachats to Newport.
Growing up in Southern California, the notion of the beach involved an obscene aggregation of bodies, intermittent flotsam, and exorbitantly priced real estate. It was not until I lived in Humboldt County that I experienced the utter joy of pristine, sandy beaches devoid of other humans. Long stretches of golden granules stretching as far as one would wish to reasonably stroll. Similarly, in Oregon, the beach is not a venue for battle over a few square feet to wedge in a towel and picnic basket, but rather a vast expanse of open terrain interrupted only by the occasional sea stack or deceased whale.
A couple of years back, my wife and I rented a large, two-story home just south of Waldport on the Oregon Coast. Fronting the splendid Wakonda Beach, we invited family and friends to join us and soak in the summer camp atmosphere for a week. Our plans were concrete: do as you wish, enjoy the beach, and make no schedule.
In the mornings we awoke to the melody of the waves. After coffee and baked goods, we toured the shoreline gathering shells, let the dogs run wild and sniff driftwood, sank into Adirondack chairs overlooking the coast, idly skimmed paperbacks, grazed at the lunching hour, swilled beers, popped wine bottles, chatted, splayed out on the small grassy lawn, visited a local lighthouse, devoured dinners of smoked pork chops and roasted potatoes, and applied moisturizer to our slightly sunburnt foreheads.
It was glorious.
On the final day we loaded into a couple of vehicles and trekked to the Hilltop Café Bistro in Waldport for sickly sweet mochas and massive breakfast plates piled with various swine products alongside mounds of hashed browns. Satiated, we bid each other farewell and drove back to our valley abodes. But seared in my memory is a festive week with a remixed crew of family and friends on Oregon’s exquisite central coast.
Today, as the rain pelts my office window and the sun struggles to peek out from behind a deluge of drab clouds, nothing sounds better than agreeable company, a frosty pilsner, a cerulean sky, and a sweeping view of sunlit Wakonda Beach.