Doesn’t it seem like anytime you look at the news, not politics, not the economy, not international affairs (all of which are enough to make me NOT watch the news.) I mean the news about the weather and the environment. Reading about most of the world, it’s dismal at best.
In Florida they talk about hot tub temps in the ocean and the die off of sea creatures because of it. Temperatures are soaring and people are, or will soon, run out of water world wide. Whole forests have turned brown cuz of drought, insects, heat or all three. And shoot, Canada is essentially on fire. This year the east coast was covered in smoke. Then there are freak floods, too much water in the wrong place and all at once!
It is truly enough to make a person worry.
Somehow, though, I have ended up in a spot that, though not immune to the quickly changing climate, seems to have a way to not show the effects as much.
I don’t know if its the cold ocean, the prevailing winds, or hell, just coast kid magic, but these last weeks have shown me how lucky I am to be in our little corner of the world here at the Oregon Coast.
First off, it’s the clean air!
The steady wind helps keep the air clear and easy to breathe. The skies are blue and the air healthy. Two weeks ago we went to Bend Oregon for a concert. The smoke was so bad, we had to hide in the hotel room with the A/C on. I felt like I could chew and swallow what I was breathing. Some people get this all summer. Lucky for us, smokey air is a rarity.
Then there are the forests. Just today I was riding up in the trees of the coast range.
Green and healthy. I could smell the trees as I pedaled along. I won’t lie, we of course have some dead trees, but not whole swaths of forests. The trees here help take in the carbon dioxide and breathe out pure oxygen. On the hills I pedaled today, I needed the extra oxygen for sure!
Then there is the life in our waters!
Whales
Birds
Starfish
Shoot, just the tide pools in general
And insects
Biggest bee I’ve EVER seen!
Shoot, for the first time ever, even a lizard!
Sitting in my back yard there are squirrels, chipmunks, deer, a myriad of birds from humming birds to osprey, and bats. Not to mention Pete the possum and one annoying raccoon family. A few weeks ago two coyotes walked up the road. Our biodiversity is astounding to me.
I am not trying to brag. I really am not. I was just sitting here this evening and looking at some photos from the last few months, and it got me thinking.
Is the Oregon Coast one of the last healthy places to live?
We aint perfect, there is one smelly dead sea lion on the beach nearby, a number of birds washing up on the shore after dying, and we are in a bit of a drought ourselves. Shoot, 3 years ago, this was my neighborhood just a few hours before we had to bug out due to a fire!
I guess the message I am trying to impart is that I am realizing just how lucky we and my neighbors are. I have always loved living here, rain or shine, as you can tell.
But seeing what the rest of the world is dealing with, and how much worse it seems to be getting every year, I am realizing that somehow the magic of the Oregon coast is keeping the ugliness at bay, at least for now.
Which gives me just one more reason to get out and experience it as much as I can. Summer is ending, and it you can feel fall in the air. But I am going to get outside, see all I can, and share it with the world.
I do worry about the world we will be leaving to my grandkidlet and grandniece. So hopefully they will get to see the photos of the magical place we lived in and how beautiful it was…
Oregon Coast Cyclist 
