Cape Lookout State Park is my favorite place for camping on the Oregon Coast, and has been a tradition for my husband and I to camp here every year since we moved to Oregon ten years ago. It was a tradition, that is. We haven’t been going as often since I started backpacking, but we both missed it, so we went back recently for two nights with friends.

We spent an entire day on the beach, taking a long walk that started out cool and foggy and changed to warmer and sunny by the afternoon. There were a lot of crabs on the beach at high tide, more than I’d seen before. I brought my kite with me and was able to fly it for a bit in gusty wind conditions. Both nights, there were spectacular sunsets, and when the light vanished, there were millions of stars and the Milky Way filling the dark sky.

After a great reminder of how special this place is, I think that next year we will be back to our tradition of camping here twice each year.