About a month ago I traveled to Portland to enjoy a reunion with my cousins from my mom’s side of the family. We’ve stayed in touch over the years (mostly through Facebook and Christmas cards), but a few I hadn’t seen for a decade or more. All of us had grown up on the West Coast, but scattered across California, Oregon and Washington, we mostly got together on summer vacations and during the holidays.

Our bond was Granny, my mom’s mother, who lived in Portland, as my family did, and our gatherings often included a meal at her house. Her house was small, so we cousins would often end up playing in her well-tended backyard or roaming the leafy streets of her neighborhood around Reed College. Across the four families were “clusters” of cousins of similar ages and genders, so we enjoyed the companionship of shared interests and abilities.

Over time, each of us pursued different careers, some raised families of their own, and all found it harder to get together as a group. As many of our age (at or nearing retirement) discover, those gatherings more often than not came at weddings (of our children, usually) or at the funerals of our parents. We’ve determined that we need to make the time and the effort to see each other without those life-altering events being the spur to do so. Thus, when my sister-in-law and her sister from Oklahoma planned a visit to Portland, it became the perfect reason to rally the troops and meet up.

On a lovely sunny Thursday we all gathered at the Tualatin Country Club for lunch. My sister Julie and her husband are members of this lovely suburban course, and they had arranged a luncheon for us in a private room with several tables overlooking the pool and beautifully landscaped course. Our group of 20, including spouses and a few of our children, spent four hours reconnecting and catching up. My Seattle cousins had wisely brought a few boxes of photos (my Uncle Dick was quite the photographer), and Julie had also brought a bunch, and those elicited much laughter and storytelling, calling up memories not visited in many years. Although we each initially settled at a particular table for lunch, we eventually began playing a sort of Musical Chairs as we circulated about the room to chat with different individuals.

Although we were older and much time had passed since we had all been together, we felt that same warmth of kinship and shared experiences we knew as kids, eating Granny’s dinner rolls and cookies and playing hide-and-seek. Thankfully, our fun together wasn’t finished. The next day, several of us decided to take a day trip to the Oregon Coast, all of us being very fond of our beach time as kids and still finding the coast to be a place of rejuvenation and joy. As I wrote in a recent blog, we started our day visiting an unusual and whimsical piece of art in Southwest Portland before carpooling it to Cannon Beach. The day had started out gray and misty, but, in a bit of a reverse of the usual trend, the weather got drier and sunnier the closer we got to our destination.

Cannon Beach has been named Favorite Beach Town, Pacific Northwest, for the past three years in Global Traveler‘s online sister publication’s The Trazees. Those of us who grew up visiting it know why. The downtown’s Hemlock Street is lined with boutiques, candy and ice cream stores and bakeries, bookstores and galleries, restaurants and coffeeshops. The mild coastal climate encourages lush, colorful growth in the hanging baskets and flower boxes scattered all over town. Surrounding the business district are streets filled with weathered wooden cottages, and large beach houses and hotels line the bluffs overlooking the ocean. Businesses are very dog-friendly, with many offering bowls of fresh water on the sidewalks and free canine treats inside. It seems as if every other person in town has a four-legged companion, for the dogs love the beach at least as much as their people do.

After we parked on the street (on this late September Friday morning, it was blissfully uncrowded), we left behind our rain gear and heavy jackets (it was so calm and sunny!) and began a little retail therapy. We agreed to meet at noon for lunch and meandered our separate ways. Husband Harry and I always make it a point to stop at Bruce’s Candy Kitchen, a family-owned business since 1963, for their homemade salt water taffy. If we’re lucky, they are cutting and wrapping their taffy, and we can watch the decades-old machine at work through the storefront window. Then it’s on to the Cannon Beach Bakery for marionberry scones, Sailor Jacks and anything else that looks delectable (virtually everything). I can remember coming here when I was just 4 or 5 years old, when it was already an institution. We also always visit Cannon Beach Book Company; a great bookstore is an absolute requirement in a beach town, and this one fits the bill. The staff are very knowledgable and always friendly and helpful, and the inventory runs the gamut from kids’ books to nonfiction and, of course, a good dose of Pacific Northwest authors and subject matter.

Our shopping urges satisfied, we made our way to Public Coast Brewing Co. for lunch with the rest of our crew. This is another reliable go-to: good house-made brew on tap, excellent seafood and amazing onion rings, great atmosphere. With the warm sunshine, we snagged a couple of the picnic tables out on the patio, put in our orders and settled in for more conversation and memories.

Afterwards, the beach beckoned, and several of us headed down to the sand and then felt the magnetic pull of iconic Haystack Rock calling us to it. It’s about a mile-long stroll to the 235-foot-tall basalt sea stack from downtown Cannon Beach, a perfect distance for an after-lunch promenade along the ocean. It was a bit breezy on the beach, but the temperatures were in the 60s and the sun shone brightly through a bit of sea haze, so off we went.

Cousins Peter and Krissy (brother and sister from Seattle) and I walked and talked and poked at the occasional shell along the way, at last pulling up in front of Haystack. Unfortunately, the tide was coming in, so the tide pools around the monolith weren’t accessible, but volunteers with the Haystack Rock Awareness Program had set up some signs and displays providing information about the local sea- and bird life as well as the geology of the area. We learned that Haystack was a designated National Wilderness Area as well as an Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife Marine Park. It’s popular with birders, especially as it hosts nesting tufted puffins through the spring and summer.

We were particularly interested in a jellyfish the volunteers had marked on the sand. We had seen several of these (or parts of them) on our walk down the beach, but this one was quite large and intact. We learned it was a Pacific sea nettle, which can grow to have tentacles up to 15 feet long! We were also told that the sting is particularly painful, and that the venom can be transmitted long after the creature is dead. I will keep that in mind the next time I see a grandchild or dog tempted to poke at one!

Reluctantly, we turned back so that we could get back to our cars at the designated departure time. We had spent a magnificent few days together, recapturing a bit of our childhoods and reveling in the pleasure of the company of our grown-up counterparts. We separated, determined to better stay in touch.

— Patty Vanikiotis, associate editor/copy editor