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The Oregon coast has some of the most incredible views. The mountains directly clashing with the ocean in a way that must be seen with your own eyes. Alyssa, Ollie, Baloo (our friends’ pup), and I decided to do a day hike at Cape Lookout, outside of Tillamook, Oregon.
It’s about an hour or so outside of the city of Portland. People flock here during the whale migration season to try and catch a glimpse of pods of whales as they head north. This was one of the first nice days of the spring that Alyssa and I had a chance to get out for a hike. We packed a picnic, rented a car, and headed to the coast. This day was perfect and a stark contrast from our first attempt of this hike.
Photo credit: Ric Burnett
The first time we tried to do this hike was last year. We were trying to catch some of the whale migration but the weather that day had different plans. Not only did it make the possibility of spotting any whales laughable, it made the hike much more difficult than it had to be. Little did we know, we were sooo close to the end of the hike when we had to turn around. The higher we got, the more the winds picked up and the more it started to rain. It wasn’t the weather we had expected and we were in for a stormy night.
The campsite we booked was just a few miles away from the hike. It’s a great site, extremely close to the ocean and not super primitive. The amenities are great for anyone that’s used to tent camping. One of the other reasons we decided on this hike was to try out some new camping gear. We had just bought a weatherproof, two-person tent and it was about to go through a pretty intense trial run. The little guy did great. If you’re looking for one, this one is awesome!
It was obvious that we had a choice to make. We could head home, forfeit our money we already paid for the campsite, and solidify a nice, predictable evening. The other option was to stay, subject an untested tent to some pretty nasty weather, and see what would happen. I’m glad we chose the latter. The night ended up being fantastic, even though the circumstances weren’t the most opportune. We stayed up drinking wine, laughing, and playing rummy via light from our headlamps. The tent stayed incredibly dry, even though it was torrential out, and we fell asleep to the soft sounds of waves crashing and the hypnotizing rainfall. It’s nights like these that prove, over and over, that I’ve found my best friend and partner in crime.
Life isn’t fair, it isn’t pretty, it isn’t even fun most of the time. We always have a choice to let it crush us or we can choose to laugh in its face and I’ve always believed that laughter is the best medicine.
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A version of this post was previously published on Gofindyourhappy.net and is republished here with permission from the author.
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Photo credit: Istockphoto.com