Ireland's Rustic Lodges, Gold Beach, Oregon

 Starting in 1985, My husband and I found a quaint little cluster of cabins on the Beach in a tiny So. Or. town, called Gold Beach.  No phones in the cabins, a woodstove, or fireplace, a few even came with kitchens.  We started going there a couple times a year, Thanksgiving, and in the summer when family came to visit.  Everything that has been important in the last couple of decades has been discussed and shared in those cabins. We were there when I got the message that the baby we were adopting had been born, and again when the owner knocked on my door to tell me my Dad had died in the middle of the night back in Wyoming.

My Friends have sat around the table, playing the old board games and laughing.  My Grandmother and in-laws and parents, and friends from Germany have  all been there at one time or another.  My husband and I curled up in front of the fire reading, "What to expect the first year" and then watched our son learn to walk while we barricaded the fire with coffee tables and chairs.

 Over time there have been more changes in us than in the cabins, but there have been changes in both, so the fire is now artificial and the toddler is in his Senior year of High school.  The property was bought by the motel next door and there is now an observation tower and hot tubs on a deck on the beach.

 But deer still stroll the grass, and seagulls beg for handouts and friends still come to share Thanksgiving.

 since the fireplaces went fake, the massive woodshed was removed and a fountain put in its place.

 The hot tub, "Spas on the beach" is on this lovely deck.

 Twenty years ago, I painted a stone and placed it on the dirt of the flowerbed, and now the whole area overflows with painted mementoes, around the tower, the trees, bordering the trails.  This time, instead of painting, I was writing my novels, a sequel to "Duffy Barkley is Not a Dog" and another one about two girls, on the Oregon trail 150 years apart.  That is where I turn my imagination and creative spark these days.

 The gulls come to visit and beg, but the eagles prefer to keep to themselves and perhaps fish, or steal a fish from an unwary osprey.

 My husband and I have aged a lot since the first time we walked the sand here, but coming back always makes me feel younger.

 I always see things, in other things, like a heart, or a baby dragon asleep on the sand.

The sunset was one of the few moments the sun broke through the rain

 I don't often see the Rhodies starting to bloom at Thanksgiving.  But the raindrops lining every needle and leaf are just as lovely.

It is strange to think of the life of the cabin through the rest of the year, filled with other couples and families and groups.  But if I keep going there, a week at a time, there will come a day, when I can say, "I lived in a cabin by the sea, for a whole year."  Even if it takes me 52 years to do it.