Water Here Or Water There

Trey Smith

When Della and I moved to the Washington coast in late 2005, we thought we'd never leave. Living near the Pacific Ocean had been a dream of ours since the mid 80s and, since that time, we had slowly worked our way across the country from Arkansas to Kansas to eastern Oregon to western Oregon to coastal Washington. Once we moved to South Bend, we figured that we would retire and die here.

And yet, here we are getting ready to move away from our beloved ocean.

We aren't moving away from water -- we're simply moving away from close to the ocean to being close to a major river.

We're both glad that it has worked out this way because we both find a lot of spiritual rejuvenation from waters. While we will miss the ocean mist as it descends on our small coastal town, we can still rejoice while gazing at and walking along the Columbia River.

One aspect in common for these two divergent ecosystems is wind. Every winter we have gotten slammed by storms rolling off the ocean. It is not uncommon at all to experience wind storms in excess of 75 mph. While the Columbia Gorge region receives significantly less rainfall than South Bend, it has its own wind storms as well. The gorge acts as a wind funnel and the area around White Salmon is famous for its wind surfing.

Still, it is going to be very different living there. The gorge receives a lot more snow than we're used to and White Salmon is on the edge of the high desert. As you go toward the east, trees become far less frequent and sagebrush dominates the landscape.

But through it all, we still will have the water and that's what we will hang our hats on. ;-)