Deep down, I was hoping for poor weather with bland gray skies after I saw how cold it was outside. Instead, I need to bundle up and brave the elements in order to capture a view I want to remember forever. While difficult to make it out in this image, there is a ton of ice on those docks, the matter of fact is that everything is covered in frosty ice out here.
This is the opposite view of where I was just looking; I hope you can sense the appeal we feel when we are passing over the road out of view on my right that we typically keep driving over as we pass through Wheeler. Enough of the great outdoors for now, as the fireplace in our room is required to bring me back to that toasty warmth and comfort of our room with a view.
We had to wait for the clock hands to approach the nine o’clock hour as our breakfast joint didn’t open till then. Even so, it was difficult leaving our spot next to the fire compared to the previous days in slightly chilly yurts where once outside of our down comforter, most of our sense of the cozy was broken, and we had more to gain by bailing out of the yurt and heading for breakfast or just accepting the cold and going on a walk next to the ocean.
I suppose for someone who lives in a location where winter is a normal occurrence, photos such as these are well understood and are simply a part of your normal. For Caroline and I, they are extraordinary appearances of something not well understood and even somewhat forgotten.
Ice crystals sprouting off of leaves, is this magic or what? What should have only been about a 5-minute walk to the bakery takes more and more time as we pause to investigate this phenomenon known as the approach of winter.
Handy Creek Bakery here in Wheeler was our breakfast stop. We have to blurt out that this place is noteworthy and that it will become a regular stop on future visits to this corner of America. If you are in a hurry, this is not the place for you, and you should go elsewhere. How slow? We spent a total of 90 minutes here before paying our bill. Of course, we complicated things by starting with coffee and a warmed homemade cinnamon roll, followed by our breakfast proper before total indulgence set in, requiring us to share a brioche with strawberry mascarpone. A type of pastry that I believe I could survive on for the rest of my life. I will forever now ask my wife why I let her talk me out of taking a half dozen of them for the road.
Regarding the frozen puddle pictured above that intrigued us so much with its weird patterns, it took a bit of thinking, but I think I figured it out. As the temperature drops overnight and the edges of the shallow puddle start to freeze, it pulls in water from the deeper section, creating a ridge of ice that appears as a ring. This pattern continues toward the center until most, if not all, of the water from the puddle is absorbed by the ice above.
Our shadows are bundled up and snuggling, trying to stay warm as they explore the shore, free of the whining owners who are waiting in the car with the heater on.
If you are wondering how we got this crab to stop and pose for us, you’d be mistaken. It is dead with its life force sucked right out or pecked, depending on how accurate I should be. The shell was upside down with NO legs attached whatsoever, just another victim of a seagull that plucked it from its watery reality and used it for sustenance. A bit further down the beach, we spotted the legs scattered about, probably distributed by waves that were moving them around. We collected the puzzle parts and Frankenstein-like tried putting it back together, but without a heart, this crab wasn’t continuing its journey down the yellow brick road. It was a dead end.
While patterns are everywhere in life, there are some that are more appealing to the aesthetics of each human being. Caroline and I happen to be in lockstep when it comes to tripping out of crazy patterns left in the sand by things such as water flowing over its surface or footprints left by some creature or other.
We rarely find an intact sand dollar on the shore, though that doesn’t stop us from looking for the next perfect exemplar of its species that I’d want to carry home with me.
We’ve been exploring Manhattan Beach here in Tillamook County on our way back south. Why are we backtracking? We arrived last night in the dark, and our destination to the north is only 18 miles from the lodge, so we might as well be certain if we’ve seen all that we should have. This particular beach is just north of Rockaway Beach, which is another location we’ve stayed at along the Oregon coast, but this stretch of the ocean didn’t register with either of us as having been walked next to before, so it was certainly deserving of our gaze.
From Rockaway Beach all the way to Garibaldi, I tried getting a decent photo of this old steam train we’d never seen running before, and we’ve been here countless times, so you’d think we’d get a glimpse of it if even for just a second, right? Well, it turns out that here in the town where the train originates, I would capture the image that would satisfy me. There are no electricity lines, street signs, or cars, but what’s more, is that there are logs in the background and with Oregon being known for its forest products 100 years ago, this seemed fitting.
On our last night in the yurts, we’d noticed when packing up our bedding that our pillowcases were wearing thin. No, we do not have a second set we could change into when we get home, as our particular pillowcases were handmade by Caroline and are quite special to us. Knowing they’d have to be retired, we spoke of needing to buy fabric so she could make us new ones. Well, it turns out that a small shop in Garibaldi called Swift Stitches sells fabric, and they’re open. Our new pillowcases now have the fabric that is destined to rest under our sleeping heads. Bubbles will be on one side, and the crabs will be on the other. Our current pillowcases were yellow with tiny snails, but they’ll soon be retired for these reminders of our vacations to Oregon.
Hungry again, we looked for something to eat out at the Port of Garibaldi but didn’t find anything that caught our eye.
The scenery out here at the port though certainly enchanted us, getting us out of the car to walk around and inspect the world from this point of view.
From here, we had a little further south to drive before arriving in Tillamook with the hope of lunch. Fast food was our choice as it was a mindless decision in a city notoriously difficult for us to get something good to eat. Yes, we’ve eaten at the Blue Heron French Cheese Company, but on holiday weekends, that place is packed, so we’d rather not deal with that side of traveling over Thanksgiving.
We knew that the Tillamook Cheese Factory would be inundated and was out of consideration for a stop this trip. Ice cream from the place, though, is hard to pass up, and after already having passed Tillamook, we said to heck with impatience and turned around to indulge our vacationing selves. We found parking right away and were certain we’d be partying with marionberry pie ice cream just minutes from now. The two lines were both at least 30 minutes long, which convinced us simultaneously that we didn’t need this as badly as we’d been thinking minutes before.
Silver Point Interpretive Overlook south of Cannon Beach is a good indicator of what was going on with our weather. By the time we were going to reach Cannon Beach proper, it would be almost dark, and there was not going to be a chance for a spectacular or even mediocre sunset, so we headed to Seaside to visit a favorite bookstore and the yarn shop next door. I’m going to save those stories for the last day of our trip to Oregon, as we spent a good amount of time there. That last day is the one that follows this one.
This really is a photo pointing at the beach and surf in Cannon Beach, not just a black rectangle. We needed a walk as our step count was not yet at 10k. Though it was cold and windy with a good amount of darkness, we headed out into the unknown. Not expecting rain until later in the night, it had already clouded over, so there’d be no help from the stars and moon for lighting our way, but that didn’t stop us from getting in a good mile and a half walk. The trail took us south of our lodging out to Tolovana Beach. Tomorrow’s forecast is calling for rain for the majority of the day; here’s to hoping they were wrong.