I have a jar of stones upon a shelf. It is a remembrance of the time I discovered hidden treasure at the Oregon coast.
When our kids were young, my husband and I bought a motor home. We took many weekend trips during all seasons of the year to various locations, enjoying the travels within the comfort of our steel constructed cabin on wheels.
One such outing was to the Oregon coast during the winter. Without the RV, we would not have ever considered going camping in the cold, rainy months. And then we had the freedom to discover one of winter’s best kept secrets. What was buried treasure during the summer months, was laid open and plentiful during winter.
At our campsite that weekend, we drank up the sight and smell of sand and sea. The rocky shore and burble of a nearby stream were music to our ears. How lovely to be there at the coast without the crowded beaches that often occurred in the summer months!
We debated the pros and cons of taking a walk in the rain. Was it worth it to get wet and cold, just to stroll along the shore? After all, we surmise, there would likely only be wet sand and black rock.
Then came a break in the storm, so believing like all optimists that even if it were to begin raining again, it can’t be that bad. After all, we did have a change of clothes at the RV if the rains came harder or drenched us.
Fully decked out with warm coats, hats and gloves and the mental picture of hot chocolate as comfort food when returning, I and our two kids set out to explore the shoreline, plastic bags tucked into pockets in case we found something interesting like seaweed or a shell to carry back.
My son was the first to notice a translucent gray rock on the beach. It was about 1 inch in diameter. What type of rock was it? Could it be an agate?
The size, transparency and color were a delight to all of us! Never in summer had we seen such variety of color and shape. What a marvelous find!
As we kept walking, we each began to discover more and more of those unique stones. Some as small as a half an inch and some as large as 3 inches, they came in a variety of colors from gray to white to a bright orangey brown. Glistening and glowing in the volcanic stream bed those beach rocks were a type of quartz. The surf and creek water came together to tumble and turn them, polishing rock against rock.
During winter storms, when strong rains, wind and minus tides beat the coastline, the earth spilled out the agate that had been held fast inside cliffs and under sandy shores. In winter, the sparkling glowing jewels of the earth were flung here and there among the rocks. We reaped the bounty of the earth during our winter walk that day.