Refugium
Oregon · USA
A haphazard search for a vacant campsite on the Oregon Coast serendipitously brought Ashley and me to this distant view of Three Arches Rock from atop the 200-foot headland harboring the Cape Meares Lighthouse. A mystical haze borne by the marine layer hugged the coastline all day, lending an ethereal quality to the light of the setting sun. With a blustery wind whipping about, I opted to use a 30-second black-glass exposure to tease out some subtle ocean currents and delicate pastel accents in the fast-moving clouds streaking past.
Ultimately our efforts to insulate ourselves a bit from civilization (including what henceforth will forever be known as “The Ditch Incident” but whose details, by my immutable decree, shall remain forever shrouded in tight-lipped secrecy) ended at the delightfully quaint Old Wheeler Hotel after it became apparent that half of Oregon had already decided to pitch their tents along the coastline before us. Our hopes of warming ourselves in front of a flickering campfire under a roofless starry sky were replaced by an utterly domestic viewing of Bogart and Hepburn in “The African Queen” in the stir-crazy ‘comforts’ of our hotel room, our tent and sleeping bags still rolled up tight in their stuff sacks, their primal calls to be unfurled left unanswered for one more torturous night.
That first day might not have gone quite the way we planned it...life never really does, I suppose...but I wouldn't have scripted things any differently even if God had given me a mulligan. Because next to me the whole way through was the most patient, understanding, and forgiving partner I ever could've dreamed into being. I’m sure more than a few of you threw up a little in your mouths just now, and from the outside looking in I'm sure such saccharine cheese curd just sounds like the far-fetched mawkish musings of some awkward rutting freshman who’s set his eyes on the most popular girl in school, but it’s not. It’s a statement of cold, hard, irrepressible fact.
If you’d lived through The Ditch Incident yourself, you’d totally get it... :/
