The first summer we had Obi, when he was only five months old and I was 34, we traveled to Oregon for a two month vacation.  For the first month, we stayed in a house we’d rented on the coast.  Waldport, Oregon, population 2050, “where the forest meets the sea.” 

Growing up in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, only about an hour away from the coast, I spent a lot of time there as a kid and when I got older.  When we’d vacation in the summer at Lincoln City, forty five minutes north of Waldport, usually with all my aunts and cousins, I’d find whole sand dollars while hunting for shells on the beach.  But, the town is busier now, more crowded, with a casino, an outlet mall and hotels instead of the clusters of huge old two story houses that we used to rent to stay in, barely recognizable when compared to the place of my childhood, and there is only the occasional broken bit of sand dollar, although you can buy them at any souvenir shop for a dollar.