When I got to Oregon I realized there was nothing on the roster, I was just driving through. This is when you know I didn’t proof read before I left… how could I not have something planned for Oregon? Its absolutely loaded with fossils and was the once fawned over home of a college I wanted to attend in grade school. (Yes, I planned WAY ahead. Nothing ever came to pass as life just doesn’t work like that!)

I looked up where to find fossils and there was a ton of confusing information. As I guessed many people just walked the highways, the rivers, and the beach fronts, all finding various artifacts, mostly marine in nature. I looked again and found a forum post about a woman who went to Moolack Beach. She came home with a ton of fossil shells and apparently the beach was popular amongst other rock hounds looking for fossils, agate, petrified wood, and other interesting little things. The beach even washed up some sort of structures from an Asian tsunami.

There was one issue. Low tide was at 7:30AM, meaning I’d have to get up at 3AM, just a few short hours of sleep, and get going. This I did. Initially I wasn’t fond of the idea but once I got there I was convinced. This place was amazing. To most of the local hotel people it was a sandy beach and some waves but if you looked closer it was covered in rocks and had the most extensive and deep tide pools I have ever seen. The water had washed the clay on part of the beach into these fantastic rippled structures. A lava rock full of shells lay on the ground. I found a very nice chunk of petrified wood, and as usual there were two ghastly bloated starfish loitering in the tidepools. One was bright red, the other bright orange, and they were the big suckers.

It was drizzling and I didn’t expect to see anyone else but upon arriving there were three other rock hounds picking the beach and by the time I left an hour later there were fifteen of them. I asked one about fossils but she was clueless, obviously here searching for something else. The search therefore was limited and I am not sure I found much of anything but that’s alright, it was a very interesting little beach full of character.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!