Coastal Rabbit Hole

This weekend I fell down a kind of rabbit hole of summer with a small group of friends, as we basked in white-crested waves and sunlight and the very brightest star-scape over a black expanse of water.

We travelled westward on Friday after work and found a shangrila campsite overlooking the strand—just in time to stagger up a hillside of deep sand and watch the sun disappear. Up in our little hollow—hidden, as we were, from the rest of the beach goers—life ground to a kind of halt. Our fire crackled. Our hot dogs roasted. The real dogs curled up all tired in the sand.

I think one of the very best things about camping is that you remember about the stars. They're always a surprise for some reason. You're done cooking, and you're all staring at the fire talking and sipping, when someone looks up. "Look at the sky!" Sure enough, the pale ceiling of dusk has been replaced by a ba-jillion tiny points of light. It's just the kind of little miracle thing that city peoples like ourselves don't get to see on a daily basis.

Hidden out.

Lincoln City for Go Skate Day—scary/fun.

Back seat car buds.

Summer Starts Now?

An entire saga of summer skate camp just ended (yay!), and without further ado, we packed up the car to go camping out on the Oregon Coast. To make summer and stuff. But I don't know. All the camp sites in every campground in a 50 mile radius were full. Grid lock traffic. Coffee shops packed with the obese and children wearing rollerblades. So Much Ice Cream being consumed. It was a horror show. So we cooled out at the beach for a bit and then split for Portland. The coast on a sunny summer weekend—I don't even want it. Let the kooks have it.

That's a sandy doggy.

Later that night, the Bracewells had a lil backyard ramp jam and called it the Salmon Jam. Loads of bros came through, old friends, new friends, people I didn't know. So much fun. Not another thing I'd rather be doing on a summer night.