This past weekend Chris and I traipsed coast-ward, to spend two days soaking up sun wind and sand, and while there was only swimming to be experienced on a dare, it was, as usual, breathtakingly beautiful.

We started our two-day mini getaway in Astoria and worked our way south on the 101 until we reached Lincoln City. Along the way we stopped for a night in Cannon Beach wherein my little sister and her husband prepared a home-cooked Korean feast that left me craving roasted seaweed and kimchi the rest of the weekend. The next day we gallery-hopped, took pictures of phone numbers etched in the sand from someone apparently quite excited to be visiting from Montana, enjoyed many a piping hot cup of clam chowder, and pedaled our way through many a sketchy coastal town.

By “pedaled” I of course mean “drove, but deliberately hoping to evoke the image of cars powered by fast moving feet on The Flintstones, so we don’t have to talk about our nation’s dependency on petroleum, gas prices rising faster than Obama’s popularity, and how I nearly cried when we filled my measly 12-gallon tank for the first time in months.”

Every time we entered a city that looked less than welcoming, less alive and more, shall we say, probably haunted, we started the routine of referencing the fictional Truckee River Killer from Reno 911, purposefully driving a few miles an hour faster until we reached the end of said creepy little coastal town. I’m not necessarily proud of some of the topics about which Chris and I jest when we are fleeing dilapidated housing structures most likely filled with zombies, but, as it turns out, inappropriate jokes are highly effective in maintaining sanity on road trips, and anyway, the zombies would probably find our collective sense of humor amusing, which would perhaps stave off the eating of our flesh.

(OK, so clearly I watch too many movies. I know this, but I just can’t help myself, and alas, that is a topic for (a whole other page on this site, and) another day.)

On Sunday we spent significant time driving in circles to reach a mysterious cape we had never before heard of nor seen, and while my hands were feeling close to frostbitten, and the .2 walking miles advertised to reach our much sought after viewpoint were very very downhill and, as physics works, very very uphill, the view was so totally worth my calves and ankles and shins screaming at me because Hi, I’m Kerri, and even after twenty-six years of life and life lessons I apparently don’t know how to wear appropriate footwear whilst mock-hiking.

Instead, I wear Teva’s. The flip flop sandal version.

I do know how to take endless pictures of an endlessly gorgeous view, though.

And look! a lighthouse!

Exhibit: Steep

But, again, totally worth it.

I’m proud to hereby tell you I doctored these photos not at all, which is hereby meant to be less a testament to my photography skills and more a testament to how outrageously beautiful is the Oregon Coast, especially when the sun, it is shining.

I’m also proud to hereby tell you that my birthday was fantastic, thanks in no small part to My Amazing Husband, and to the many of you who called and commented, emailed and texted and e-carded, and generally just made the anniversary of the day I am allowed to shove my face into multiple piles of cake to celebrate being successfully passed out of my mother’s womb a truly memorable one.

I’m very much looking forward to this year being my best and most challenging ever, but I won’t get ahead of myself just yet.

For now I leave you with my three favorite pictures from the weekend: