Welcome to Day 6! The first five days of the vacation are behind us, and in 5 more days, we’ll be arriving home, but I’m getting too far ahead of myself. This was a crazy day for taking photos, but fortunately for you and me, I was able to avoid using the nearly 1,000 I shot and am presenting you only 63 of the best ones. By this time, unless you are going in reverse chronological order through these posts, this image should be starting to look familiar; it is our view south of the Shags Nest at Ocean Haven.

All my original notes about this day were handwritten in the evening and have found their way to the bottom three images of the post. After nearly 20,000 words penned for the previous days, I might like to tell myself I’ve reached an impasse, but, like the waves of the ocean, things must keep going forward and arriving at the shore.

Even rocks do not stand in place forever as the elements of time work to disrupt them, nudge them, and break them down to the point that upon their return one day, they’ll be but a part of the sand others will walk upon.

If reincarnation was a thing, one might wish to be brought back as a rock. Imagine you were cast out of the earth from a firey volcano 70 million years ago at the Black Rock Desert volcanic field in Utah. Through heavy rains and flooding, you are carried into the Great Basin and stepped on by dinosaurs until one day, a cataclysm kills them and buries you in ash but not so deep you can’t make friends with microbes and bacteria. You are submerged for millions of years until further flooding deposits you in a river bed where you watch fish swim by, and mammals arrive on your shore for a drink. In the 1920s, you are scooped up and transported to the Oregon coast, where you (and many more rocks) are used to reinforce the area next to a highway. One day, you fall into a ravine and are carried to the shore, where you sit on a beach, waiting for the ocean currents to pull you into the deep sea, where another million years will pass before you are sand. Knowing your existence is fading fast, you hold your ground, denying the ocean your presence, but it’s just a matter of time before you disappear to be reincarnated as a bristlecone pine tree.

Right there in the watery mist, moves along John the Neutrino, passing through a droplet on his journey elsewhere. Reincarnated in the sun 8 minutes 3 seconds ago, was just passing Earth when he bounced through the atmosphere on his way to distant galaxies. Having already been a tree, a rock, a mussel, a man, and a molecule, it was time to try out being an exotic particle. If it were possible to choose our next iteration, what might we pick? I think most would lean towards becoming the same thing they were last time as we are creatures of habit, stuck in routines that hopefully don’t present us with too much uncertainty.  However, I believe that our very lack of intentional energy creates uncertainties that lead to emotional turmoil and great unhappiness. But if that’s what we’ve normalized, then that’s our reality. I’m out here normalizing dreams, fantasies, designs on the interpretation of realities, thoughts about the lives of things we don’t consider sentient and love that’s bigger than the moon.

Just imagine there are 57 more images I have to write to following this one; I’d wager you are riveted by the anticipation of what comes next.

In a normal universe, this road would be busier than the line for Pirates of the Caribbean, but we live in a kind of Fantasyland, which is ironic because Caroline and I are currently in a real Adventureland, although my reference points to the book by Kurt Anderson titled, Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History.

Into the enchanted forest, they ventured, not knowing what they would find.

Oh, is this an emerald-covered fountain of wealth or just a long-neglected drinking fountain covered in moss?

His and hers?

After our brief forest interlude, we took a look at Neptune Beach South, which had been our destination in the first place.

Slowly meandering north, we’ve made it to the Devils Churn yet again. While walking down the path, we came across three golden hairs we’re taking with us in case they come in handy.

It is a finicky thing, the Churn, because it has a bit of Goldilocks nature and needs all conditions to be just right. If the water is too low, the surf just washes in and out, too high, and while it’s splashy the crazy foam being randomly shaped into psychedelic form misses the mark.

From the nearly 100 photos I took hoping to capture something I could call art, this was the best I got, and while it shows some minor potential, it’s nothing compared to when this work of the devil is producing perfection.

The reward for biding our time down below, waiting for the perfect wave, was this display of crepuscular rays.

Hey, is that a leprechaun over there? No, you are confusing your folktales, but I did catch sight of a dwarf; remember to be nice to him.

Right here, through this window across the way and above the mirror image, are the loaves of bread that will fend off the grumbly lions of hunger, allowing you to return to the Water of Life in order to save yourselves. While the flock of birds to the right in the shallows might be easy to spot, can you see the sea hare? Probably not.

There’s a narrow road that runs along the seashore on the south side of Yachats. We were desperate to find it because, according to a sign a couple of hundred feet south, it would lead us to a state park. Unsure if we found the right place while turning on the unmarked road, it was just a bit further down that a sign showed us we’d reached Oregon Coastal Site 77, a.k.a. Yachats Ocean Road. I’m guessing it’s now unmarked due to the high-priced homes with their snooty residents that sit behind the road who’d like it to be a private drive for their own enjoyment and not us tourists. We stopped for a minute at the water spout, happy that we had managed to see it at the right time.

Not only are we on the other side of the inlet, but we are also on the other side of breakfast. Across the way in the left half of the photo is the Yachats Ocean Drive I was just writing about; as a matter of fact, you should be able to make out the spray from the spout I captured in the other image.

If you know us, you know that we love Yachats, so how is it that not only had we never driven the Yachats Ocean Road, but we also failed to visit the Yachats State Recreation Area north? Today, that has been rectified.

For our efforts to see it all, we are rewarded with the view of a pod of dolphins surfing waves. Not having time to change lenses as they traveled south, I snapped off a few images, but even with the best one I got, I had to zoom in so far that the inclusion of this photo was in doubt. Caroline insisted that I include it as a reminder that not only were we experiencing more blue sky days than we’d counted on, but we were gifted the opportunity of seeing dolphins, too.

Should we one day become witness to a sea maiden, we’ll be sure to strike no deals as we have no sons to promise her, and we are now too old to bear children, even for a plentiful harvest of fish or certain knowledge. This is in reference to The Sea-Maiden, which in its original Scottish Gaelic language is A Mhaighdean Mhara. This fairytale has two versions, one by John Francis Campbell and the other told by Joseph Jacobs; both effectively tell the same story with minor differences. In Ireland, the tale is known as Tom Fisher and John Fisher; in Canada, look for Mac an Iasgair Mhóir  (The Big Fisherman’s Son), while in the United States, a version is titled The Witch From the Ocean Waters. All of the stories are about someone seeking something, a sea-maiden offering assistance, followed by trials to retrieve or gather what was desired.

Returning to the ocean with my sea-maiden Caroline, the quests of what we seek are relatively identical from year to year, but the narrative of the fairytale changes ever so slightly in each subsequent visit. The seeds that are planted within us bring us back to the shore in an attempt to discover what deal our imaginations have made with this force of nature. Certainty of what tasks must be completed to reveal truths is never fully revealed, maybe to keep our own fairytale alive.

Excuse me while I go collect my Pot o’ Gold.

If Cetus were not already stone, I could imagine that sea monster walking right out of this corner of the ocean in an attempt to destroy my very own Nereid, Caroline the Hag Fish Queen. And before you history buffs get started, I don’t care that we are at the Pacific Ocean and the myth I’m referencing is from the Aegean Sea; this is my story.

Meanwhile back in reality, we are at Cove Beach at Cape Perpetua and were about to visit an old shell midden that’s protected by a wood housing while surrounding vegetation is allowed to grow over and around it, probably to better hide it. It appears that a proper trail once brought people out to the midden; a fading sign tells of what’s being protected (hence, we know it’s a midden), but learning anything else about its history cannot be had as it is mostly illegible.

The trail continued, and we had little better to do than continue our exploration on a path we’d never traveled before.

When the trail forked over on the left, we were offered this view of the Spouting Horn, only to be seen at high tide. Thor’s Well is nearby; if you look closely at the shadows on the right, you can see someone standing near the famous “Drainpipe of the Pacific.” What we didn’t know at this time was that we were starting to move past high tide and that by the time we got over to that side of Cape Perpetua, the Spouting Horn would be done performing for the day.

Lucky for us a couple of people came walking around the rocky coast, which gave us the idea that we could go a little further and maybe have a gander to the north.

Whoa, we are at the mouth of the Devils Churn on the oceanside, and while we’ve seen crazy people venture out this way from the Churn side of things, we’d never seen people walk in from this side, but that’s exactly what we are getting to do this afternoon.

Seeing I already shared a couple of photos from the Churn earlier in the day, I opt to share what the turmoil at the mouth looks like.

Instead of returning the way we came, we chose to close the loop on the paved trail that would take us back to Cove Beach.

We now return you to the regularly scheduled programming.

Right over there, can you spot her? She’s a little whispy shadow of a fairy, ephemeral and rare, but if you look real hard, you just might catch a glimpse of her, and with that breath, she was gone.

And with a slightly bigger wave, I think those two guys standing at the precipice of Thor’s Well might have been quickly gone, too.

This is the vantage I prefer, far away and with nobody out there triggering my anxiety that casualties might be part of the sights we took in today.

And, of course, Caroline needs a closer look, and in keeping with my feeling that she’s responsible for her actions and that she’s not careless, I gird myself, cross my fingers, and hope she doesn’t get too close.

I present you with Wanderer above the Sea of Ocean, which is not a painting by German Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich.

Mirror Mirror on the Ground, Who’s the Fairest of Them from All Around?

We searched high and low to no avail; the promised troll or ogre we anticipated finding was nowhere to be found, not that we thought it would come with a Pot O’ Gold, rainbows, unicorns, or magic, but still, it’s about time to see a troll or ogre out of folklore after having had to encounter so many human versions.

If darkness was descending right now, I’d be nearing the end of this post, but we’d returned to Rock Beach for a reason, and it had a little something to do with all of these rocks you are seeing.

Yep, it’s low tide, seriously low tide and we are not ones to miss the opportunity to further push our adventure into the realm of mythological experiences.

Did you know that a round cluster of dragon toes is called a bordello? Yeah, I just made that up, and not just the bordello part; these are not dragon toes.

I wonder if tiny barnacles tell each other folk stories on ancient barnacles that used to rule the oceans back when they were bigger than whales and could eat an entire school of fish with a single flick of their feeding apparatus instead of being relegated to eating plankton down here in their tiny barnacle gardens.

While searching if there’s a condition afflicting certain people with a need to always be on the search for beauty, I came across some writings about Stendhal syndrome, where people become ill when taken in by too much beauty. Named after a French writer who is quoted as, “My soul, affected by the very notion of being in Florence, and by the proximity of those great men whose tombs I had just beheld, was already in a state of trance. Absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty, […] I had attained to that supreme degree of sensibility where the divine intimations of art merge with the impassioned sensuality of emotion.” Followed by, “As I emerged from the porch of Santa Croce, I was seized with a fierce palpitation of the heart (the same symptom which, in Berlin, is referred to as an attack of nerves); the well-spring of life was dried up within me, and I walked in constant fear of falling to the ground.”

So if he can have a syndrome named after him, I’m offering the world a new condition to be known as the Wise Malady, where one is refreshed anew in the ecstasy of aesthetic awareness, budding knowledge of the world, and a searing desire to learn more.

Regarding the persons afflicted by this incurable Wise Malady, you will notice their need to overshare about their adventures; they may show you minor iterations of images that, to the normal person, appear quite similar, but the sufferer can distinguish vast differences that create significance. Take this image, two photos below you’ll notice that the sky is almost identical, but because this one shows sunlight reflecting on the beach and the other shows the reflection of the man’s wife in a pool with larger rocks before her, he felt that this distinction warranted the inclusion of both images. Obviously, this man is in the throes of being ruined by the Wise Malady.

Take this scene here: just stupid barnacles that have no economic value, an arm of a sea star pokes out of salty water that is undrinkable, and a background that the photographer cut off, thus depriving viewers of the opportunity to appreciate the greater landscape. I’d go so far as to call this photo a perfect example of la merde, thus proving the contempt of the person capturing this and their blindness to the fact that not everything can be beautiful.

Obviously Photoshopped in order to serve the delusions of a Wise Malady sufferer. Tragic.

As the guest narrator of this part of the blog and an expert on the described condition we are discussing, I am free to inform you that should I share with you the reasoning behind the author/photographer believing this was worthy of posting; you’d request the Société pour l’Application de la Laideur to make an immediate arrest.

They really do kind of look like dragon’s toes, don’t they?

Photo number 4 in the long sequence of “Sunsets That Last an Infinity.”

Yesterday, I was wondering out loud about what appeared to be a place where barnacles once lived and that it looked as though they were scraped off. Here I am today, looking at something that appears similar, and I’m left thinking that this is fungi.

Sigh, my fairy queen of the hagfish, magical empress of snails, bewitched goddess of the banana slug, and precocious princess of the wandering anemone taking a moment from her mission of non-stop coastal discovery to smile at me; such a treat.

Now, excuse me, my terrific wife; there are moments of the sunset that demand my attention.

There are 916 mussels, 1742 barnacles, 121 anemones, and five sea stars living on this rock. I know because we counted them.

Give me a second while I calculate the decreasing number of moles of photonic energy that are reaching us and thus cooling the air. I’ll return as soon as the math is finished, which will give us a good idea of when we need to seek shelter from the encroaching night.

Bidding adieu to this type of day is a long process as the eyes have grown greedy by now. We are not willing to turn away and risk missing a moment, knowing that not everyone is afforded the luxury of witnessing such things, so we must see it for them.

And then, just as you think it’s about to end, something shifts, and it all starts again.

You look to the north and sure enough, incredible beauty that way.

Look to the south, and astonishment drills the senses with magnificence that can only exist in fairytales.

Once upon a time, there was this perfect day when, under a glorious sky, a couple allowed themselves to get lost, first along an azure shore followed by a meandering path through a verdant forest. They were not on their way to grandma’s house; they were not looking for gingerbread; they thought they were on their way to breakfast.

For nearly four hours, they walked along without a care, with the magical sea and enchanted forest delighted to lead them astray in mesmerization. Each successive turn demanded another step forward as forces beyond their imagination pulled them into this day.

Big waves at high tide and big trees with the radiant sun dispersing its light into the mist were working insidiously to distract the pair from their goal of reaching food. The glistening waters offshore threw millions of sparkling points into their eyes, as though nature knew that the two wouldn’t be able to turn away and consequently could not leave. While the trees painted the way forward in shades of green from which humans find it nearly impossible to turn away.

When they finally break away, another sign from the heavens (or was it the Oregon State Parks?) throws up a figurative stop sign with subliminal directions to again turn towards the sea. It starts dawning on this naive nature-loving duo that they’ve entered a puzzle, maybe of Twilight Zone gravity, that inexplicably is only allowing them to cross the 8 miles from their cliffside nest to breakfast in the nearby village at barely a walking pace.

Out on beaches, trails, through the forest, over bluffs, and careful steps across treacherously slippery rocks, the more they hold hands, tell one another of their love for the other, and exclaim their appreciation of the beautiful morning, Old Mother Nature starts to lay down the breadcrumbs that led the twosome to the Drift Inn Cafe where breakfast was had. Utilizing the lowly razor clam, Dungeness crab, and shrimp they were provided with such glorious treats that fairy tales cannot compete with such opulence. Even had it not been perfect, and according to legend, they both agreed that it was far better than being eaten by wolves or baked in an oven by an old blind witch.

No, this is not the story of Hansel & Gretel but the love story of John and Caroline, who, now well-fed, were ready to discover the second half of the day under the sun, in the woods, and along the shore.

In the 10-mile stretch between Yachats and Rock Creek, we visited nine sites requiring 10 hours and nearly 964 photos before we were able to find our way back to the Shags Nest for our last night living in this part of a fable.