I’ve been going to the Oregon coast with a girl named Jenny Marie Wallace since we were freshmen at Western Baptist College. Our first time there together was in September of 1987 for the culmination of Rush Week at the college. All the students piled into vans and buses and cars and made our way to some beach near Lincoln City for a big beach party. We weren’t dating at the time but we had met and I thought she was cute. I also remember that I picked up a kelp seaweed that looked like an Indiana Jones whip and was carrying it around (maybe to stand out as different to impress the girls, not sure:). I carried that seaweed back to the dorms and stored it in my clothing drawer until it began to stink so bad that my roommate forced either me or it to go.
My mom and sister made a trip to see me in the Spring after Jenny and I started dating (we first held hands on February 14, 1988). I have some wonderful pictures of Jenny at the Pacific from that trip that I hope to track down. Here’s an old photo of us at a beach in Oregon during those college years when we were dating. Notice my rolled up jeans which were a thing in the late 80s or early 90s.
We visited the Oregon Coast on our honeymoon in June 1992. Here’s a picture from our honeymoon at some overlook.
One of the beaches we have gone back to the most is Agate Beach just a little north of Newport. There is a lodge there owned by the First Baptist Church of Salem called Seakrest. Members of the church are able to rent Seakrest at a great price. Jenny’s sister Tina and her husband Randy have been able to reserve Seakrest for Wallace family gatherings over a decade. I think our first time there was in 2010. Here are some pictures from those early years at Seakrest.
Agate Beach has been a special place for Jenny’s side of the family to gather to play, feast, and be together. Like all families, we are broken and in need of God’s grace and healing. Still our time together has been treasured as sacred memory. Here’s a few more pictures from a Seakrest gathering just a few years ago.
There’s lots to see and do at Agate Beach. Surfers try to catch waves.
But my favorite is to sit in the warm sand and catch the sunset with Jenny.
In this painting I tried to put on paper the impression of one of those sunsets from the deck at Seakrest lodge. I like the colors of the setting sun on the cliff below, but how can one portray the grandeur of God?
If you are interested in this painting or want to see other paintings in my Oregon Coast Collection go to my online gallery here: