Last week Tanner and I spent one of our days off walking along the misty, sandy shores of the Pacific Ocean. Being that he has spent his whole life on the east coast, he has never seen this particular rim of the continent. It was delightful to see his reactions to this wild and wonderful edge of the world.
The west coast is so different from beaches back home -- there is no sunny, hot sand to curl your toes in, to lay your beach towel upon and lie in the sun until you come home crispy. There are no children with sand buckets and shovels, nor couples lying under umbrellas with sunglasses and books to read. There are no white dunes and no piers that stretch into endless sea.
Instead, there are sheer, dark cliffs which plunge into wild ocean. There are dark, pebbled beaches where the water is frigid to the touch, and small, black stones that have been washed smooth by the ebb of the tide. There are mysterious formations of rock which litter the seaside, and misty, hazy clouds that hang over the mountains. There's a sharp, cool breeze and surfers keeping warm in tight neoprene suits as they face the churn of the whitecaps. It's a different kind of beautiful.
"What do you think of the Pacific Ocean?" I asked Tanner as we walked along the seaside, eating ice cream as our hair whipped crazily in the wind.
"It's biiiiiig," he whispered.
