We are inching ever closer to something akin to hibernation; what else should we call over 10 hours of sleep? I’d like to call it luxury living in yurts! Out of the cocoon, we slink off to the toilet hut; a hint of blue sky sits behind the cloud cover. Got breakfast made just in time for a light rain to start falling. Oops, spoke to soon. Big drops are starting to hit the yurt, and in moments, we are being pummeled. Caroline knits while I write. We sip our coffee and stay snug and cozy here at Sunset Bay on the Oregon coast.

With a break in the rain, we use the opportunity to fill the car with our gear and hit the road. Just when we think we’ve seen the entirety of the coast, a turn in the road proves that we, in fact, have missed something. This time, it is Shore Acres; once home to a wealthy industrialist, it is now a state park. Great location this man chose for his oceanfront home, too. Tilted sandstone with fossilized blobs juts out of the ocean below the cliffside. We head for the observation deck that marks the spot where Mr. Louis J. Simpson’s mansion once stood; it burned down twice. Following the Great Depression and Mr. Simpson’s fortune dwindling, he donated the property to the state – lucky us.

Inside the enclosed observation deck are displays that show what sunny weather visitors might see out on Simpson Reef and the ocean that was once his front yard. Those fossilized blobs are concretions; rocks that formed within the sediment that likely had been collecting around the organic matter. Seals, sea lions, ospreys, cormorants, pelicans, and black oystercatchers are just a few of the species of wildlife living down on the reef, which is a part of the Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge. The big visitors are the gray whales that pass by, though they don’t usually arrive until December on their southerly travels and then again between March and April as they head north with calves in tow.

Up the road a bit, we round the corner overlooking Cape Arago. We don’t linger very long as the wind is whipping against us hard. Another road leads us to South Jetty and Bastendorf Beach, while the next turn takes us to Eel Lake and Tugman State Park, another park with a great selection of yurts. A few more miles and we are in Winchester Bay with a sun that is trying to poke through the gloom. We spot the roof for Unger’s Bay Fish-N-Chips and set our taste buds on drool, wouldn’t you know it, they were closed. I have a vague memory that this is a deja vu from another trip. Remember that Unger’s is closed Monday through Wednesday. Across the way is a cluster of restaurants; we see a sign for Griffs. Turns out that this was the original. No longer owned by the same people, their red snapper is undeniably super yum. Caroline toasts her beer made in Deschutes called Mirror Pond Pale Ale to the Sun, which is making more frequent appearances.

Our intention was to drive through Florence, but it is one of those coastal towns big enough to feature a Dutch Brothers, which sounds great after a lethargy-inducing lunch. Not quite out of Florence, we are forced to pull over at another of those “stop sign” shops where a dealer of yarn beckons us. This one is called Happy Kamper Yarn Barn and is on the north side of town. One of the big motivators for stopping at these shops is that the yarns become projects that become souvenirs from the locations where they were picked up. Those objects then take us back on our journeys when, at other times (most likely traveling), we reminisce about how this scarf, hat, or pair of gloves came from the yarn we picked up in town so and so back when we were in Maine, Oregon, Hawaii, or Florida. This way, our souvenirs no longer take up shelf space and grow dusty; they are worn as reminders of how lucky we are to be able to visit so many places. With the sun still pouring down on us we ponder visiting Heceta Head Lighthouse but opt instead for a walk on the beach, our first in the three days we’ve been up here.

The sun pushes us to drive on and skip our intended campground at Carl Washburne State Park. We’ll go where the road takes us. Beachside State Park is closed for the season, maybe the next park. First, though, we’ll have to walk along another beach.

Just outside of Newport, South Beach State Park has space available; they even have yurts for rent. Lazy, here we come. To heck with pitching the tent, we’ll take another night of indulgence. The clouds are starting to move in, but not before the sun attempts an encore performance and tries to stay ahead of the clouds that threaten to blot it out. We couldn’t have asked for a better day, and all we had to do to earn it was endure a few days of weather that added its own character to our week-long stay on the coast.

Dinner, if you can call this exorbitance, is served at the Newport Cafe in Newport, Oregon. Yelp said that lots of people like the place, we’ll go with that. Famous for their large portions, the burgers come highly recommended. No wonder. We compromised and ordered the Ultimate Monster Burger for only $13.95 as opposed to the heftier 8-pound version called the Super Ultimate Monster Burger for $26.95; ours was only 4 pounds of burger. When the beast arrives, our eyes grow as large as what’s on the plate – this is crazy big. The table next to us lets out a gasp, muffling our own. As it hits the table, we are all smiles until the thud has us utter an “Oh my god!” This burger is amazing, not just its novelty, it is truly a great burger. This thing is piled high with grilled onions, ham, fried eggs, cheddar cheese, pickles, lettuce, and maybe a few other things. Amazingly, we finished it, not that this was anything special. That honor goes to the youngest person to finish their very own, a 12-year-old girl who finished one of these by herself! We are told that no one individual has ever finished the 8-pounder, so the challenge is on. This thing was so good we talked about coming back in the morning for another, and we would have if we weren’t worried about death making an appearance if we had. One more important note, the Newport Cafe is open 24 hours a day.

Settled into our yurt. Dinner, though, was playing the fiddle of guilt; time to walk some of this off. With half a moon out and the first stars we’ve seen since leaving Arizona, we walked out into the dark for a stroll on the beach. Through the coastal forest and sand dunes to the beach, we lay our eyes upon the ocean glimmering in the moonlight. Thin low clouds are darting north, occasionally blotting out the moon, but only for moments. I wonder out loud about how early humans might have seen this world back when few people inhabited these lands and the earth was infinite. The pressure put on our species by self-awareness has had impacts that few can comprehend. Maybe the abandonment of our awareness of the infinite is what keeps us from enlightenment that would be difficult or impossible to attain by the superstitious. At what point in our evolution will the masses be ready to perceive what we know about the complexity of life? Gods are easy, atoms from here to infinity that self-organize to create matter and intelligence; now that’s hard. Will there be a moment when destiny dictates that we come to terms with that? What if we fail? What other species might arise that would be better suited to pick up the ashes of learning to deal with our place in the infinite?

We then walk back to camp. There is hope that tomorrow brings more clearing skies, but how do we tackle clearing minds of fear and hostility when cadres of people specialize in mongering the halting of our march forward? Where are humanity’s lighthouses on this dark shore as our intelligence extends beyond the night it has lived in for millennia?