We shared the first four days of our end-of-summer week at the beach with my daughter, her husband and their two boys. Two years ago, just after they moved to Oregon from the Chicago area, we also spent time in Seaside with them; and Sean, our older grandson, remembered our great times there and was eager to repeat some of his favorite activities. First on the list was a visit to the Seaside Aquarium, a convenient short stroll just down the Promenade from our condo fronting the beach.

The aquarium is the oldest privately owned aquarium on the West Coast, having opened in 1937 and residing in a 1924 building that once housed the town’s natatorium (a salt water indoor swimming pool/bath house). As we approached the building, we admired the huge whale skeleton displayed in the window. Three-year-old James corrected me, saying it was a dinosaur, not a whale. (I could see his point.) Once inside (with masks required and social distancing observed) we began our circuit around the various tanks filled with all sorts of interesting fish and other sealife native to the northern Pacific Ocean.      We admired the giant Pacific octopus    in her large, open pool before turning our attention to a slew of touch tanks just waiting to be explored.

These held all manner of interesting critters, from hermit crabs,   star fish and spiny urchins to sand dollars, clams and sea anenomes. Young James preferred to watch and not touch,   but Sean was eager to check everything out.

Of course, we had to buy some fish to feed to the seals   before we headed out the door, and they earned their treats with their very entertaining antics.

The next day, after checking out when low tide would be, we trekked a few miles down Highway 101 to visit Cannon Beach to get some more hands-on time with sea creatures in the tide pools around Haystack Rock. The weather couldn’t have been more perfect, and while a lot of other people had the same idea we did, there was plenty of space to ramble about.      The boys (well, and we adults, too) immediately started wading through the shallow water,      keeping an eye out for and identifying some of the creatures we’d seen the day before at the aquarium. There were plenty of anenomes to gently touch and watch as they retracted their silky, sticky tentacles, and sharp eyes spotted tiny fish and hermit crabs in the shadows of rocks jutting from the sand.      

We splashed and strolled about for about an hour, but gradually the colder water of the incoming tide encouraged our retreat to drier ground. It was the perfect outing to complement our aquarium visit and one I’m sure the boys will remember until our next visit to the coast.

— Patty Vanikiotis, associate editor/copy editor