Vacation Photos

My husband and I just returned from a glorious week spent on the Pacific Coast, we rented a beach house with my sister and her family and had an absolutely marvelous time.  What a restful restorative week we had!  We have been to the coast a number of times but this is the first time that we stayed in the same place for any length of time and enjoyed the scenic beauty of the area.  We stayed at Pacific City which is a small town a 30 minute drive south of Tillamook and has a really glorious beautiful beach.  The town is small and quaint devoted to the tourist trade and water sports that are popular in the area.  The house that we rented was a short walk from the beach and we spent all but one day walking the beach and enjoying the tide pools, shell collecting and were finally brave enough to wade toward the end of the week.  We were actually forced to wade since the surf came in and washed all around us while we were collecting Sand Dollars on the beach.  No swimming for me in the Pacific without a wetsuit, much too cold.  I am a very warm water ocean swimmer, I admit it I am a baby when it comes to the cold, surprising considering that we live where we have winter 9 months of the year.  During our numerous trips to the coast we have rarely had the experience of a really warm weather  and usually freeze and this trip was no exception however, maybe because it has been so hot for much of the summer this year the cooler weather was really refreshing.  The fog shrouded the coast much of the time but when the sun was out we quickly snapped photos and unzipped our jackets and enjoyed the brief but glorious sunny moments.  LOL.  We did not let the cooler foggy weather change our plans and did everything that we had planned just bundled up!  Most mornings during our walks on the beach we wore pants, polar fleece jackets, and a rain jacket to protect us against the mist and were usually comfortable.  By the afternoon we could change into shorts but still needed a sweatshirt or jacket, but by evening we were turning on the gas fireplace to keep the house comfortable.  We laughed that in August we were using the gas fireplace, we wouldn't have been doing that at home.  LOL. 

The Pacific City beach has a gorgeous rock out in the ocean which is a landmark for the area and is called Haystack Rock, I snapped a number of photos of it during those brief moments of sun and of course when it is shrouded in mist.  From this beach we watched surfers, the Dory Boats take off and land and watched kids sand surfing.  I used my phone to take these photos and was really pleased and surprised with the quality. 

Haystack Rock is a favorite subject for artists around the area and I can see why, it was beautiful.