After returning from Portland, I received a phone call from a gentleman who explained that as a young lad he was taken under the protective wing of Lila Colwell a prominent Interior decorator based in Portland and had a beach home in Surf Pines. Steve was just 18 when he first came to Surf Pines with Lila and her family in the early 70s. Now 73 he was trying to capture his past. So he called Debbie Eddie our Administrator to see if Lila’s home was still in Surf Pines. Debbie referred Steve to me, since I have been collecting much of the history of SPA and the Clatsop Plains. After over…

Hi all,We are keeping entertained by taking drives on some of the more rural roads around Cochrane and area.  We are using a Southern Alberta Road Atlas which has individual pages of detailed roads — including all the township and range roads.  It is fun to drive to see the ranches, clusters of homes in places, and the occasional photo opportunities. This past Sunday, we joined our daughter-in-law Megan and our 3 grand kids for a walk in the historic Cochrane Ranch (just beyond walking distance from our condo).  We were walking past a small grove of spruce trees and noticed some photographers aiming their cameras up into one particular tree.  It…

Clare Hasler-Lewis is also the publisher and editor of our own Breeze News Letter. Here is an article she wrote and allowed us to share here in SPA. Any items like this are nice for our community. Please send any articles of interest to our Members and we can publish them on our blog and Breeze newsletter. Forward any contributions to spaweb@surfpines.org for our review and potential publishing.

This came from one of our neighbors… Last week as I drove up our Surf Pines Lane admiring the cherry daffodils at the sides of the street, I suddenly saw a woman cross the street with a huge bundle of daffodils in her hands and she was still picking our flowers. There was no car or bicycle at the side of the road, so she must have been on foot. What kind of despicable people live out here? She had a huge bundle flowers in her hands and she was still picking! She was about 45 years old and a bleach blond. I turned at Ken’s and knocked on his door but…

A little over a year and half ago Art and Kay our neighbors introduced us to Ravi Croak. He lives a couple of doors north of the Bakery and had been the helper for the resident who lived there. Although an experienced carpenter and handy person he had been dealt a couple of curves in his life. Art had Ravi doing some jobs for him and let most of us on Shady Pine’s know about him. Although a bit gruff sounding, we quickly found him to be a real help in getting projects done around the Sunset Beach/Surfpines area. He is the hardest worker and honest. Since then he has built at…

Here is some interesting History for Surf Pines. The Krohn’s house at the west end of Horizon and the two homes on either side have something in their back yard! Turns out that the Bark Galena, a ship that ran aground on November 11, 1906, is actually laying in the back yard of all three neighbors. This is based on some old tax maps I found. The reason it seems so far up the dunes is do to the fact that in 1906 the beach actually came up close to where the homes are now. The beach has credited over 1000 feet in the last 70 years. This is mostly a result…

This sounds like a great way to get out of the house and share some safe time with your neighbors .

There is a site that allows all Oregon residents to confirm that their vote has been received and processed. Go to https://sos.oregon.gov/voting/Pages/myvote.aspx?lang=en and click on the Go to My Vote Now button to check to see if your ballot was sent or received. To log in you need your First and Last names and date of birth. As you can see from the two attachments below, that we were registered and the status of our votes. I blocked out personal addresses for this post but thought people might like to see what it looks like. I believe this is similar in most states. Annie and I mailed our ballots out last Saturday…