Last week was incredibly complicated here at the Momster household. During a blistering week of record heat we had guests in town, so I was trying to get all my freelancing done around visiting and sightseeing. But I work in the attic where the heat hovers, so my mind was melting around sentences and mixing up words as the fan hummed me to sleep. (Why is it I can’t sleep in a hot bedroom, but I can’t stay awake in a hot workroom?)

A quick trip up the Columbia River Gorge afforded us relief from the heat and access to three magnificent waterfalls, all within 10 miles from each other, and all within walking distance from the highway. Despite the easy accessibility there weren’t too many people, and there was hardly any litter. Watching Georgia pick her way carefully around the rocks at Bridal Veil Falls, hearing the power of the water and seeing the beauty of the surrounding cliffs, my mind cleared, my lungs filled with fresh air, and my stress-tightened back started to release.

Two days later we had a wedding to attend at a lighthouse three hours and 30º away, so we bundled our fleece into the car and drove to the beach. The wedding was lovely, and afterward we all tumbled in late and tried to sleep in the king sized hotel bed. Georgia is a bed hog so I woke up several times with her feet in my ribs, and the mattress was lumpy for all of us. We didn’t sleep very well.

Somehow we managed not to be grumpy when we went to breakfast. We found a green café, The Green Salmon, with organic, local food. After breakfast we checked out and went down to the ocean, because it seemed silly to go to the beach without making a trek to the water’s edge, even if it was chilly. I always forget the restorative power of nature, and it always takes me by wonderful surprise. Leaving civilization even just 100 feet behind, and taking a bag for washed up litter, we found restorative happiness right at our feet.

The Oregon Coast is very wild and fascinating, with loud crashing waves and jagged rocks and cliffs. It’s beautiful, foggy, windy, and in most spots, dangerous. We know never to turn our backs on the ocean, and we’re careful about the tides. Exploring the tide pools directly behind the hotel, we discovered mussels and barnacles and tiny shrimp, and magical rocks in the sand, and let the sound of the ocean lull us into a calm, easy pace. I actually felt my shoulders start to relax.

We stopped at a few beaches up Highway 101, wondering at the difference in temperament and temperature from one mile to the next. At one beach we saw a large and beautiful polyphemus moth with a six-inch wingspan. It was clinging to a sheltered rock, not concerned about us being near it, clearly at the end of its lifetime. We studied it and were amazed by the eye markings on its wings; it’s feathery antennae, stocky legs and pudgy, furry body. At another beach, sea lions barked, roared and jockeyed for space on the rocks in the bay and the docks directly below us. One had been snagged and tangled in a plastic band from the fisheries, but, according to the posted notices, he’d lived that way for a year, and the plastic wasn’t immediately life threatening, and was even slowly fraying, so we left the sea lions on a hopeful note.

Nature has a way of clearing all the clutter in my head, and truly soothing my soul. Nature is all around, especially here in the Pacific Northwest. Georgia loves to be outside, to explore and wonder at the “wilderness.” So why does it take visitors and a destination wedding to get us out in it?