We were at the Oregon coast this Spring (my favorite place). After an invigorating hike, we went back to our motel to change from our hiking clothes to go out to dinner. As we came out we saw it had rained briefly, but hard, and as we drove to the restaurant, I spotted a rainbow through the trees and felt excited. Approaching the mouth of the Coquille river, I got more and more excited because I saw that the rainbow was huge ... you could see almost the whole arc of it. We got to the parking lot and before Joe even stopped the car I was out and running down to the riverside to see the complete rainbow.

There I stood at the mouth of the wide river where it reaches the ocean waves, watching this beautiful sight. The sun came out briefly, low on the horizon, and its rays hit squarely on the stark white Coquille lighthouse across the river. The rainbow arose out of the ground several hundred feet east of the lighthouse and curved all the way across the wide river, where it disappeared behind a white Victorian house. It was rather faint, and faded to almost nothing within a few minutes. Joe wanted to go in, so we entered the restaurant and sat at a table overlooking the lighthouse and river.

Fifteen or twenty minutes later, after we were served our soup, I looked up to see that my friend the rainbow was back! And far brighter than before! I said to Joe "it's back, I'm going out" and ran outside into the biting wind forgetting my jacket.

I ran past some startled folks coming in (how could they come in when they must have seen the rainbow when they parked their car!) and ran back to the riverside. I sat on a rock, watching fascinated and joyous as the rainbow showed itself like a male peacock displaying all its glory. The full arc shone vividly over the whole river like a bridge. The color at the bottom was a royal blue, then an Irish bright green, then a canary yellow and finally a scarlet red. It shone out brilliantly against the grey of the heavy clouds behind it. Seagulls flew past me and I saw some seals in the river below. I sat there for over 20 minutes watching this wondrous sight, saying to myself how grateful I was that I could notice this wonderful gift of nature and really appreciate it. People walked by barely giving it a glance, or drove by not noticing it at all. I said a silent "thank you" to whatever higher powers there may be that I could really see this gift when most people don't. I didn't notice the cold wind ... I only noticed the overwhelming beauty all around me.