Disclaimer: This post is one of those that ended up being written years after the experience was had. Sadly, there were no notes taken so whatever is shared here must be extracted from the images and what memories they may have lent us. Fortunately, there was an itinerary still in my directory of travel plans, so that will help with some details. As to why this wasn’t noted or blogged about, I was in the throes of writing/editing my book Stay In The Magic and felt that any other deep writing would derail that fragile effort.

Wheeler, Oregon, caught our eye the very first time we passed through. but it was going to be another eight years before we finally got around to booking a stay here along the bay. Who am I fooling? Everywhere here in coastal Oregon has caught our imagination, and we’d gladly pull up a spot of damp earth every 500 feet along the 363-mile length of the coast if we could. Why 500 feet? If we had ten years to do nothing but dwell in the beauty of every inch of this coast, that would be the distance between our campsites to cover the 1,916,640 feet that stretch from north to south.

Lucky us that late afternoon yesterday, we had some glorious weather for our two-hour kayak adventure as here we are the next morning under some heavy skies, a good time to turn inland.

Looking at the map of our Forgotten Oregon trip here in 2011, I wonder what thinking went into the idea that we’d go from Portland to the coast back again to just south of Portland, and then we’d head up the Columbia River to Long Beach, Washington, and once more to Portland? We had about two hours on the road, passing through Cannon Beach before turning east on Highway 26 to make our way to Canby, the home of the Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival.

Died fiber waiting to become yarn. As a relatively new spinner, Caroline used this opportunity to stock up on a variety of spinning fibers, covering many sheep breeds such as Shetland, Romeldale, and CVM (California Variegated Mutant).

Spindles waiting to grab hold of fiber to make yarn. Ken and Carol Ledbetter (KCL Woods) actually hail from Southern Arizona.

Sheep waiting to be shorn to offer up their fiber so humans can make yarn that will make wool clothes.

Example of wool after it’s passed through the hands of a spinner and knitter.

There goes a sweater on the left and a warm couple of beanies on the right.

Stuff your face in this and soak up the smell of lanolin; you’ll be addicted to the magic of wool.

Fiber porn at fiber fest is just what anyone would expect, but then all of a sudden things went seriously hardcore. On this very loom (itself a naughty word!) is the exotically lust-inducing fiber art known as Chilkat weaving.

Yeah, just look at that and drool. How this can be shown out in the open is beyond my imagination. For years to come, Caroline would come back to the Chilkat style, fetishizing it with wicked intentions of someday dipping her fingers into creating such sensual designs. If you cannot begin to understand this almost erotic situation, you’ve simply not learned the way of falling into those things that are perfect hand-crafted pieces of art.

We needed some fresh air after all that frolicking in fiber, and so up to the river we went. That’s the Lewis and Clark Bridge out there over to Longview, Washington, but our sights are set on a different crossing further west.

Yep, she’s spinning on her brand new Turkish spindle instead of looking out at the scenery, and of course, I’m photographing her while I’m driving because we are those kinds of idiots.

We’re here. No, this isn’t the full breadth of the Columbia River, but it is near the spot where we will board the Wahkiakum County Ferry over to Puget Island in the main river channel. From there, we’ll pick up the highway and cross a bridge to get us into Washington proper.

We’ve just left Westport, Oregon, for our 15-minute ride across this arm of the Columbia.

That’s Puget Island in the distance.

On the right is Puget Island, and on the left is the mainland of Washington State; we are on a bridge over the middle of the Columbia River, looking east.

Only in Washington minutes, and it already looks totally different than anything to the south in Oregon.

Here we are out at the North Head Lighthouse at Cape Disappointment. The lighthouse wasn’t open to visitors, we are disappointed.

But we are not disappointed with the sunset out here, not looking at it from here…

…or here.