This is my step-brother Jake looking handsome at Buldocs Meadow near Sutton campground. Above is a picture of all four of us boys taking a hike over the dunes from Tahkenitch campground to the beach. Jake is two years younger than me and became part of our family when he was  about two months old. He was an unwanted pup that was turned in to the pound. Then Kim came and rescued him and we all love him very much, even though sometimes he's a butthead.

Here is my step-brother Ralph playing with Jake.  Ralph was also a stray that was turned in to the pound. He was about a year old when he came in to the family, but that was before I was born. Ralph was about four years older than me. Ralph passed away when I was nine and we sure miss him.

This is a picture of Ralph and Kim at the beach. Ralph loved to swim. He would go out through the surf and swim with the Sea Lions. He also liked to eat dead crab legs.

Here is Jake and I at the beach. This was a very special day. There is an old ship wreck buried in the sand south of the Siuslaw River jetty. It was a sailing ship, a three masted schooner, named the Bella. It drifted ashore during a calm as it was trying to go over the river bar in 1906. The Bella carried lumber and salmon from Florence to San Francisco and brought back supplies for the town.

Here is Jake and I playing at the Bella. The wreck only surfaces on rare occasions. The last time anybody had seen her was in the 1970's.

The Bella was 135 feet long and 35 feet wide. It had a retractable keel so it could go over the river bar. She was built at Cushman on the Siuslaw River in about 1898 and was one of the fastest ships in the Northwest. Now she makes a good swimming hole.