April 18, 2010.

My brother came to visit me for an ever-so-short weekend. I had to pack in as much fun and adventure as I could to show off Oregon and get some good family time. Yesterday we hit the Portland Rock Gym and hiked up Beacon Rock. Today we headed out to the coast for a hike to Cape Lookout.

The weather is always hit-or-miss at the coast. Today, it was a hit! We arrived at the parking lot around 9:30 am under sunshiney skies. The hike began in a thick forest, but the bright light overhead filtered through the trees, giving the trail a warm aura. We quickly learned that although the weather was nice, the ground hadn’t had a chance to dry up yet. The trail was a mud bog. My brother, wearing shiny white sneakers, had a heck of a time trying to dance around the mud pits.

That gave me some time to search for spring wildflowers: skunk cabbage, trillium and lots of other pretty things I didn’t recognize. There were also some cool-looking millipedes and bugs doing their thing.

Meanwhile, Jake practiced his balancing beam skills on every trailside log he could find. It was quite impressive.

In just over an hour, we made it to the lookout point. There, we watched the waves crashing up against the rocky shore. A grassy meadow dropped off towards the ocean from where we were standing. It was a pretty spot.

The walk back took us ever so slightly uphill to the parking lot. After the hike, we took a walk out to the beach and explored the coast a bit more. There may have been a mandatory ice cream stop on our way back!