The beach boys

After a long leisurely drive through some densely forested hills and past idyllic farmscapes, with stops at the nation's largest Sitka spruce and at a lookout point (where we tried to diagnose smoke emanating from the hood of our 20-year-old Volvo), we arrived at the day's destination - Cannon Beach.

My son felt right at home and eagerly put on his swim trunks, and we had nearly just about made it to dip our toes in the Pacific, when my son changed his mind and decided he would not be swimming in this ocean. So my Atlantic beach boy only saw the opposite ocean, never touched it.

Instead, he concentrated on collecting sticks and planning his pretend bonfire. His Texas cousin eagerly helped, finding all sorts of random driftwod into the fire. My son directed all the beach traffic according to his design. A budding supervisor, my little boy.

We lounged around on the beach, as the day got progressively warmer, despite the strong seabreeze. We stayed until the fine sand became intolerable and invaded every crevice of our clothes and coated our hair.

We timed our return home pretty well, but the schedule went awry when the only road back to Portland shut down suddenly when an RV caught fire on the shoulder of the two-lane country road. Ironically, my sister and cousin had been discussing wildfire risk when we drive into the traffic backup. The fire had started no more than a few minutes before we got there.

The smoke streamed up in a thick black column and we tried to call 911, just to be sure that someone had done that. We were deep in the heart of the Tillamook State Forest on US 26 and the cell phone signal was weak, but we managed to at least repeat the details of the fire. It was at least another 10-15 minutes before the first major fire truck arrived.

We were parked on the road for about an hour, as the boys intently watched the smoke rise, then started exploring the grassy shoulder, then played with their shadows in the road. Just about everyone had left their cars as the masses dealt with their boredom, starting random conversations with other drivers.