October 10, Friday – Saltwater

Caitlin and Will are part of the work-a-day world: Caitlin as a recruiter for Inside Track, a firm that works with college students to remain in school and to achieve academic goals and Will, who just got admitted into the PhD program at Portland State in artificial intelligence. So breakaway time didn’t come until Friday. The four of us (Caitlin, Will, Doogan, the dog, and me) were to head for the Oregon coast for a little R & R. Will was a last minute scratch because he was coming down with a cold.
Friday at noon Snee-Oosh with the Jetta in tow had a new load of passengers on board; one in particular was being closely watched. I have a thing about having a dog in my RV, namely, accidents, dog hair on everything, being on the furniture to name a few. This was a test run for my attitude and Doogan was the subject of concern. Caitlin and I loaded his dog crate and placed it under the settee table. Caitlin then built a barrier at the far end of the sofa/bench seat. She also put his crate door just behind the front seats so he could look out the front but not get into the driving area. The crowning action was that she brushed him before he got into the rig.
I have visions of Caitlin taking the RV on her own trips so as soon as we were outside of Portland I turned the helm over to her. For the first time since Hannah was on board in the last part of May, I got to ride and look out the window. Going up and over the Coastal Range and down into Tillamook Valley was a good experience builder for Caitlin. As a youth she drove a huge pea viner in the Skagit Valley so driving big equipment was not intimidating for her. As we were dropping off the summit we had one close call: a timber chip truck was going over speed as he was heading uphill. He came at us then cut back to his side of the highway causing his trailer almost to tip over on us. Scared the you-know-what out of us. Doogan sat in the walkway just behind us taking this all in.
We got into Cape Lookout State Park a little after 2 and took one of the two last moorages available. I had forgotten that it was Columbus Day weekend and folks were out enjoying the fine weather and the last fling of fall. As soon as we stepped out of the rig the crash of the surf greeted us; a sound I had not heard since leaving the mighty Lake Superior. With the shore power and the water line hooked up we headed for the dunes and the beach. I was in bliss. The beach stretched for a couple of miles to the north to sea stacks with arches off the coast of Cape Mears. To our left was a two mile finger that projected out into the Pacific Ocean called Cape Lookout. We unleashed our inner child and ran and played with the incoming ribs of water smoothing up the sandy beach. Since Doogan was a Yakima dog, this was his first experience of being on the ocean. At first he stayed right next to Caitlin; if she ran, he ran, if she walked, he walked. He slowly got familiar with the lay of the beach and when he crossed that threshold, off he went and then it was playtime. He would charge us at full speed and at the last second change directions with the grace of a football corner back. Jumping this way and that at us.
There is something about playing with a dog on the beach that is so primitive and therapeutic. I finally broke away from our small group and went to the water, the saltwater, knelt and touched it. My connection had been made. This feeling of being part of a planet with its water and companions was capped and put to bed by watching our special orbit slide into the water sending shards of light into the layer clouds collected on the distant horizon. Goodnight, Caitlin. Goodnight, Doogan.