2022 Challenges Commence!

2022 finds it the centennial of two amazing things: Oregon State Parks and The Newbery Award Medal for children’s literature.

Upon learning this, I made a challenge to myself. Start ticking off those award winners one by one, and start discovering the beauty that you are gifted access to by just by being an Oregonian! With an amazing state park system that truly is a crown jewel in the United States, why have I waited so long to do this?!

For Christmas I made good on my decision by gifting my hotness (that would be my husband, Ron) an annual park pass, the parks guide, and a month-by-month agenda to explore parks that we had never been to. Now Ron has been in Oregon for 50 years, I have lived here for 23 and let me tell you, we have not explored even 15% of what there is to offer, so the game is afoot.

One of Ron’s Christmas presents was a marked up copy of the parks guide (left) and we are making notations on what day we visit a park on the inside (right).

January goals accomplished: Read Call It Courage, the 1941 winner. Read The Twenty-One Balloons, the 1948 winner. Visited Cape Meares (lighthouse bonus!), Oceanside, and Nehalem Bay State Parks.

View from Cape Meares State Park on Saturday, January 29.

Ron and I stayed in Garibaldi for the weekend. We were given an amazing Saturday in January to start our park challenge — the weather was glorious.

We explored caves, tidepools, found intact sand dollars (quite a few), sea anemones, starfish, and I brought home an extraordinary rock that I can’t wait to see what it looks like cut and polished!

I picked up this beauty of a sand dollar for a photograph, but left it behind. Plenty of kids out there that this will thrill I’m sure!

Can’t wait to see what this beauty looks like once it is cut and polished. I think it is quite extraordinary. Found at Oceanside State Park beach.

In true Ron and Stacy fashion we had plenty of shop exploring opportunities too. Second-hand stores are a favorite and mom-and-pop shops like Pelican and Piper in Wheeler make me really happy. I had to buy a super-soft sweatshirt at Pelican and Piper, where the creative artist husband and wife team design graphics and silk-screen clothing, bags, tea towels and embroider hats that are found only there. Jackpot!

Seriously a Victor Costa raven feathered black velvet dress at a second hand store. Damn, if I wore a small that would have made it home with me!

I am going to wrap this one up. Get out there and explore! I am leaving you with some more amazing texture shots of our time on the coast. And a couple of Ron and I because I just want to cement how much I love this man and how happy we are just being together.