Mighty Rivers

I grew up near the ocean. Its sounds are a part of my soul and heart. After having lived in Texas 10 years as a college student, I am glad to be living in the Pacific Northwest these last 27 years. One of my favorite places to visit each year is the Oregon Coast, specifically Cannon Beach which my husband and I discovered through a friend of his when our son was just 9 months old. He is 23 now, and we just got back from a very relaxed week there. I never tire of the enchanting place, with its dramatic coastline and iconic Haystack Rock. I always come back from our time at Cannon Beach feeling refreshed, recharged. The road there from Olympia is interesting to me, because it allows us to cross over the mighty Colombia River. I recently read a fascinating article in the latest National Geographic Magazine about the Congo River, another one of earth's giants among waterways. The Congo Basin encompasses an area half the United States. The DRC government does not harness the river's enormous hydro - electric possibilities and so the river is used as cargo transport for overloaded outdated barges that become even more burdened and dangerous by the addition of up to 600 passengers that spend up to 8 months reaching various destinations in Central Africa. I envisioned one of these large precarious barges on the Colombia River, as we passed through Astoria, a town that bears witness to the wealth the river and the lumber business brought to the area in the 19th century, as is still evidenced by the dozens of Victorian mansions that litter the hills above the river. Seen from above, our earth must always be bearing witness to the importance of its mighty rivers. The Congo, the Nile, the Mekong, the Yangtze, the Yellow River, the Amazon, the Orinoco, the Colombia, the Mississippi, to just name the ones that stick out in my mind. I thought how my father would have loved to cross the Astoria bridge spanning over the Colombia River into Oregon, how he would have been fascinated by the history of the lumber being carried across this giant. He was fascinated by the history of this young country, and I miss his knowledge and input on these matters. It was his birthday yesterday, he would have been 85, and I thought it was appropriate he was so strongly on my mind. I owe my thirst for travel and history, for learning to him. I smiled at the thought also that he was not too keen on beaches and oceans, too crowded and commercial for him. But it is nice to think he would have made an exception for Cannon Beach, as long as he got to glimpse the power of the Colombia River, and got to share with me all he knew about the Mississippi River that so intrigued him as he showed me the books he surely would have bought about the history of the Colombia and the towns it winds itself through.