Don't read this

You might not want to read this if you haven’t gotten to fall asleep listening to waves crashing recently. Or if you haven’t camped on the beach front, so you can see the waves as you eat breakfast, and step out your door onto sand each morning. Or if you haven’t spent the last few minutes of daylight on the beach watching the sun burn up the horizon as it dips below the silvery water for the night.

We spent the better part of last week on the Oregon coast, under sunny May skies, appreciated all the more after our cold wet winter. We spent our days exploring places with names like Hobbit Beach, Devil’s Churn and Seal Rock. In the process, we got to spend time around trees like a 500 year old Sitka Spruce and the massive many armed Incense Cedars. And at the Oregon Coast Acquarium in Newport we got to see those pelagic creatures who are hard to get close to: Tufted Puffins, Rhinoceros Auklets, Common Murres, Oystercatchers and Pigeon Guillemots.

Don’t read this if you are still working. You probably scoff at someone who gets to sleep as late as they want to and stay up as late as they feel like, and still gets to take a vacation. Retirement has its hardships. I mean, all that stress of deciding what your life is all about now that you aren’t structuring it around earning money. All those decisions to be made about what to do today. All those fancy, dress-up clothes languishing in one corner of my closet. All those soft comfortable pants getting threadbare from being worn every day.

So last week, we had a lovely vacation to Oregon, part of it visiting our old Kentucky friend Barbara, her partner Hyla and her son Alfonzo in Eugene, and part of it on the lovely peaceful Oregon coast. If you haven’t had the fun of being with old friends, or spending the day looking at wildflowers, I highly recommend it.