Happy April 3! Today feels significant. In exactly four months, I’ll turn 26, and I’ll officially be what I like to call, on the wrong side of 25. I also realized last night that one year ago today, I was on the island of Maui. And that…really makes me wish I were on Maui.
With no planned tropical travel this year, the monotony of Portland’s winter weather has started to drive me a little crazy. I’ll never forget the gorgeous summer of 2009 here in Bridgetown, when I fell in love with a man and the temperate climate of the Pacific Northwest, but that it’s 48 degrees and raining today, is making me think about the weather I spent the first 21 years of my life hating.
Hot, sticky, Florida weather, where your skin is consistently damp to the touch nine months out of the year, and the mere thought of wearing a chiffon maxi dress in July makes your inner thighs break out in heat rash. I have this to say: Florida, I took you for granted. You and your 1,200 miles of coastline, your 80 degree Decembers. You’re like Maui, but attached to Georgia. And much closer to Cuba. I didn’t know what I had, until it was gone.
And because my work-related quasi-reprieve in Vegas only lasted for a week (and now feels like it was decade ago), Joe and I decided to get the hell out of Dodge and celebrate his birthday with friends at the coast. We rented a darling house in Manzanita, OR for the weekend, and had the incredible luck of being there on the warmest days I’ve ever spent on the Oregon Coast. Although, it’s breathtaking, the Oregon Coast is no Gulf Coast. Pacific wind bites.
Our weekend was lovely, and the ocean was magnificent as usual. It was great to get out of the city, and especially great to spend our mini-vacation with our friends and dog-babies with no schedule and nothing to do but explore and play. Manzanita is a new favorite—although we adore Astoria, Cannon Beach, Lincoln City and Newport—Tillamook County’s hidden gem with seven-miles of uninterrupted coast is a great place to escape touristy beach-town gimmicks.
And I just love this song, which nearly perfectly sums up the sentiment.
