It’s hard to imagine a more carefree youth than my three boys and their friends have in this remote country setting near the southern Oregon coast. They have no city attractions to distract them from the fun and adventure of interacting with Nature. Not only are they far removed from the bad side of urban civilization, but they are often face to face with Nature and all its delightful displays of the wild and unexpected. I’ve talked a lot about the Rogue River near my home with its great salmon and steelhead runs, its miles of wilderness beauty and swimming spots, and its ferociousness if you are a boater and make the wrong move. But the Rogue is only one of several rivers around here. The favorite for my three boys is Pistol River, which is located only a few miles from our home. It has sand dunes that often block its outlet to the Pacific Ocean, and that has a special attraction for them. The backed up river this year unexpectedly formed a 1/2-mile long huge pond. They spent the weekend down there. My sons and three of their friends took Jacob’s four-man raft, inflated it with a foot pump on the beach, and pretended they were George Washington and his army crossing the Delaware. Once they landed on the opposite sand dune their game morphed into many other games, one after the other, as fast as their imaginations could carry them. They rafted, swam, even snowboarded down some dunes into the river. (Only mountain kids would think of bringing snowboards to the sand dunes.) They were soaked, sandy, tired, and happy at the end of each day. I was with them for both Saturday and Sunday but stayed on “the road” side of the river, intending to read a book. But I had my old 10×40 power Zeiss binoculars with me, which meant I could not only enjoy watching the kids, but I could look for whales. I spotted a pod of greys just beyond the dunes, about a half mile from what will become the river mouth when the rains begin later this month. What a sight! They were rolling in the kelp and blowing water 20 feet in the air. The whales just seemed to be hanging around, taking their time migrating to their calving grounds in Baja California in Mexico. I never got any reading done. It will be another few weeks before there is enough rain for the river to break across the sand to the ocean. The river is always changing. It’s outlet to the sea can vary by nearly a mile from year to year, so there is usually a long spit of sand for us locals to walk on. Often, after school, my boys like to stop at the Pistol River sand dunes to play. At low tide, they walk across the little tributary to Pistol River to the dunes; at high tide, they take off their sneakers and wade across. I walk on the beach, enjoying the sea air. I never get any reading done. Pistol River is a great place — an innocent and timeless place for kids. Jake, my oldest boy, turned 16 today. But he’s still a little kid in this type of country. There’s no hurry to grow up when you have places like Pistol River.

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This entry was posted on Monday, September 3rd, 2007 at 8:04 pm and is filed under Country Living. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.