Last weekend, Nick and I woke up early, long before the sun was due to rise and after weeks of our days looking pretty much the same as well as being slammed with work, I had an idea.  That idea was to drive to over to the Oregon Coast for sunrise, explore a bit and then drive back to Portland to have a restful day at home.  And that is exactly what we did.

We headed to Cannon Beach, one of the towns on the Coast that’s about an hour away from Portland.  And while there was no real “sunrise,” and the beach was fogged in and the rain was pouring down and it was freezing cold, it was still an adventure.  We walked on the beach, took some photos, and then raced back to the car, dripping wet.  After a quick stop at a local bakery, we dried off and sat in the car overlooking the ocean, eating raspberry scones and drinking oat milk hot chocolate.  The moral of this story is that this adventure was wet and cold and short, but at the end of the day, it was an adventure, it was something different.  In this year of COVID, the one thing I’ve learned is that we take so much about our normal lives for granted.  I personally took travel so much for granted before COVID and this little, wet, cold winter escape to Cannon Beach was just what I needed to bring that sense of wonder alive again.