Cannon Beach at sunset, the edge of Oregon’s madness. Haystack Rock loomed in front of us like a monolithic god, a chunk of volcanic violence frozen in time and thrown into the sea just to remind us how small we really are. My wife and I stood on the sand, battered by salt air and the unholy glow of an orange-purple sky that looked like it was painted by lunatics on peyote.

The tourists wandered in and out of frame, tiny silhouettes against the stone. But none of them mattered. The Rock was the show, the anchor, the beast. I swear you could hear it breathe if you stood still long enough, whispering about shipwrecks, gulls, and the dark chaos of the Pacific that gnaws at its base every hour of every day.

We weren’t just visiting a beach, we were trespassing in the court of giants. The tide crawled out like it had someplace better to be, leaving streaks of silver across the sand, while the last light of day slid off the clouds like gasoline on water. That’s the beauty of the coast: it doesn’t care who you are. It’ll spit you out the same as driftwood, chew you up the same as kelp, and leave you staring slack-jawed at a rock that’s been laughing at humanity for thousands of years.

That’s what Haystack Rock does, it resets the madness. For a moment, the noise of the world went quiet. Just me, her, the ocean, and this volcanic monstrosity against a sky that looked too wild to be real. A reminder that no matter how far off the rails life gets, there are still places where the universe grabs you by the throat and demands you look at something bigger than yourself.