Dreams, Moments, Travels
Caroline opted in for a second bunion surgery this year, in part due to insurance reasons, but the main reason was comfort. Back in August, we took a month of travel off while she was off her feet for a few weeks, allowing her left foot to heal. Here we are in December, and now the right foot has been repaired, and we’ll be giving it the same consideration.
I’ll never know you, creepy passenger in seat 2A, but someday, an artificial intelligence algorithm will identify you and tell your descendants that it found an old photo of you, and they’ll see you peering our way to see what we were photographing which was nothing more than us on a plane out of Eugene, Oregon.
Last night as I was checking in for our flight, we were offered an upgrade out of peasant class, where the likes of us belong, to sit among royalty for only $92 a person extra. We couldn’t turn down this bargain as our checked bag was now included, we were among the first dozen to board the plane, and we’d certainly have overhead bin space. While waiting for the cattle to load, we were offered coffee fitting our new status with promises of more luxuries to come as soon as the curtain was closed between us and “them.” Once in the air, our three-course white-glove breakfast service was brought out with silver dining utensils. When this part of the formalities was finished, there was nothing left to do but for Caroline to kick back and enjoy her mid-air pedicure.
Eleven days ago, flying over California on our way to Oregon, shamefully, as just two more cows in peasant class, I cracked open Bruno Latour’s After Lockdown. I was certain I’d finish it while out on the coast, but it turned out that I never found a moment to read even one more sentence. As we were taxiing this morning, I was struggling to write legibly, but as soon as I put a period to this paragraph, I’ll be turning back to the book to see where he takes his ideas on metamorphosis.
Providing size comparison that the earth is merely 0.14% the weight compared to the weight of energy the sun emits, Latour posits that, in effect, we live in a thin biolayer of existence much like a termite, though we’ve tricked ourselves into believing we have the autonomy to go where we want. Lockdown thus turned us into the termite and changed our perception of who and what we are.
If women and earth are feminine and men and the universe are masculine regarding our species’ evolution so far, when will we recognize the need for more humans to be caregivers and nurturers? This need to have men accept roles that have traditionally been female roles will change the way men see themselves. Maybe we are already seeing this change.
That’s Lake Pleasant out there, which is at the edge of Phoenix, meaning we are almost home. Time to close that chapter from Latour and put the Oregon coast behind us before settling into a long slog of trying to document another incredible vacation.
Welcome to the tenth and final day of our coastal vacation that saw us waking in this yurt at Bullards Beach State Park in Bandon, Oregon. We watched a rafter of turkeys stroll by, and while I tried to get a decent photo, it just didn’t work out with our car as background, a curb in the shot, the motorhomes across the way, etc. So, with the sadness that arrives at the last moments of all of our getaways, we pack up one last time, say fond goodbyes to inanimate things that don’t care that we were here, and offer wishes that we might return again one day.
Might not have been able to capture a nice photo of a turkey, but Cosmo the Tufted Puffin had no problem keeping a pose until I got something reasonable. Cosmo took up its perch here at Coquille Point back in 2018 in celebration of Earth Day. Made from recycled materials found on Oregon beaches, it was the efforts of Angela Haseltine Pozzi and her non-profit Washed Ashore that brought Cosmo to be a fixture here on the southern coast. This tufted puffin is likely the only 6-foot-tall bird made of marine debris on our entire planet.
In poor light and an angle that doesn’t exemplify what others see, this is Elephant Rock. Don’t bother trying to catch sight of what I’m failing to bring attention to; let it suffice that the arch is the place between its legs. While Face Rock has always been obvious to me, I just learned that this one is officially called Elephant Rock, and I fail to see why.
With the weather holding, meaning it’s not raining, there’s no time left to waste if we are going to get some beach exploration in.
And so, down we go.
This will not be further musings on the world of barnacles, though this is definitely one of the largest clusters of tiny ones. I’m more curious about the blood-red rock sandwiched in the surrounding metamorphic rock. I just learned that the sacred Sae-Tsik-Na (“Grandmother Rock”) that used to stand out here was quarried out of existence for the building of the Bandon jetty back in 1900. Well, that sacred rock to the Coquille people was made of blueschist speckled with red garnets, and if this is some ancient metamorphosized sandstone with a high amount of iron oxide in it, this would be the deepest red sandstone I’ve ever seen. I understand that the red rock is not translucent, so not likely to be red garnet, but could it have been on its way to becoming a gemstone had it remained in the deep miles below the surface for a bit longer?
Looking up the rocks standing out here, I learned that they are called knockers (cue John’s childish giggles) and are formed after the softer rocks and soils wash away. The really cool thing is that some of the rocks out here formed hundreds of miles apart, but thanks to millions of years of subduction, they’ve ended up here.
All of a sudden, the gloom of the sky, in a sense, lifts, and I see the beach here in Bandon in a whole new light. If we might have thought that this trip to the Oregon coast might be our last, it is nearly certain that we’ll have to make a return as there are obviously things that require deeper examination.
Between two sides of the beach is an outcropping with a cut in it that is filled with boulders and large pieces of driftwood. We only need to scramble through it to reach the other side.
Doing so without distraction is another matter, as there are thousands of details here worth scrutinizing.
Once on the other side, we get a better view through the arch between the legs of the elephant, except for the backed-up water that obscures the view.
I took more than one photo of these seals, and this was the best of them, which is not saying a lot as they are almost unrecognizable, but they are reminders to Caroline and me that we saw them and maybe for others to gather a hint of what’s to look for while along the coast. I’m pointing this out as one of the other contenders showed a large part of the rocks above them, which to my eye looked incredibly ancient, not as in billions of years, but still quite old. Good old research to the rescue, but also bad for me as there is now ZERO doubt of our return to this area.
There are blueschist knockers out here, and of course, there are chunks of it in the jetty. This stone turns out to be very rare, as in seriously rare. The conditions for its formation are the reason: they must be near a subduction zone, and they can’t go too deep below the surface; otherwise, the pressure and heat will change the minerals into something else. They are typically not old rocks because subduction zones are chaotic places pushing large pieces of earth to and fro. From the Scientific American article I was reading, I learned that it’s easy to find examples of blueschist here in Bandon that were created under 10 kilobar of pressure, meaning these rocks were once 22 to 25 miles (35 to 40 kilometers) below the surface of land we were standing on while here in Oregon. If this means little to you, I’d surmise you have little understanding about time and should get yourself out in the world and question what you are seeing.
In the fog and mist, we move slowly, not really out of caution regarding the driving conditions but more out of the desire to bring to our senses as much as possible due to our event horizon coming to a close.
Knowing that last impressions are what we are gathering, we have to look hard at the gray environment for those things that, in years to come, we’ll hold close from our days in Oregon. These perfect examples of yet another wonderful day full of experiences are worth remembering forever.
Over the 20 years, we’ve been passing up and down this coast, this corner here at Coos Bay has held a special interest that I’ve always failed to satisfy my curiosity about. It seems apparent that at one time, long before we ever visited, this must have been a major center of the timber industry, and while remnants are still here, I get the sense that it had a much more significant presence here.
The old adage “be careful what you wish for” needs to be updated for me to “be careful what you research.” Looking for information about the history of logging in the Coos Bay region, the first thing I learned was there are 41,000 acres of old-growth trees still remaining in 1.15 million acres of Coos County. Trees older than 400 years old have been clear cut, and with that, I’ve read enough; this includes a recent 2019 harvest approved by Anthony Davis, a dean of Oregon State University entrusted with lands under their forestry protection program who axed a 16-acre tract of land because they needed the money due to cost overruns regarding a university construction project. Pardon me, but this is bullshit.
While I’m out in this beautiful place, I only want to enjoy the solemnity of it all. Now, back in Arizona and knowing that our form of capitalism will only continue to exploit everything that can make money, my wish is for either a meteorite to splash down in the Pacific and wash humanity from the surface of our planet or maybe even for a certain Russian megalomaniac to let the nukes fly so our planet can get to the business of repairing the profoundly ugly damage we perpetuate on these lands, waters, and atmosphere on a daily basis.
The presence of humans over the course of history has left impressions for centuries into the future; things like cave paintings, old middens, burial sites, certain buildings, and even some artifacts have been found. Today, though, we consume and throw away everything we touch as though some omnipotent god could wave a hand and repair the horror we are leaving in our wake. While I can pause and appreciate the aesthetic of a rusting nail from a disused dock, I’m also reminded of how little we care about what’s left behind as long as we got ours.
But if I don’t leave this track of destruction and neglect behind me, I’ll be ending this series of blog posts on a negative note, and that’s not really where I want to go.
So, let’s return to the intense pockets of beauty that still exist out here and share those impressions. From here I can hope that others might stumble upon these posts, not only to see what had been but to inspire them to visit and see for themselves an environment cared for and protected where not everything need be fouled for the sake of exploitation.
Certainly, this forest view is one of wonderment, but you might notice there are no old trees here. Maybe others in the centuries to come will be afforded the opportunity to see this place still filled with the trees that were standing here back in 2022.
Maybe instead of telling people passing through that they are entering and leaving tsunami hazard zones, we should have signs in life that we are entering an exploitation-free zone where nature is being allowed to present itself in the rawest format without anything more from humans than pathways through and maybe accommodations that leave no impact.
It’s not lost on me that, in effect, we modern humans are not as “modern“ as we might pretend and are instead half-stupid creatures stumbling through the fog of our own arrogance.
It’s with great sadness that we inch ever closer to the exit.
Then again, maybe, just maybe, there’s enough time for us to capture one other new place we’ve never visited before that is to be found right here at the Oregon Dunes Overlook in Gardiner.
Is it the melancholy of distance that stimulates ideas not realized while I was at a place where I should have tried pulling back from the abyss of being overwhelmed to gather yet a different perspective? In this instance, I wish to see the forest from the level of a newt, between mushrooms, while walking across the moss and sand.
As I said, we are here in the sand dunes, among mountains of sand.
With a lush forest growing on top of it in spots.
While the trail could have taken us to the ocean (you can see the sign points right to it), we are limited regarding goof-off time. Being mindful of that factor, we reluctantly return to the car.
And then, before we know it, we are back in Florence, where our encounter with the coast began ten days ago. By this time at the North Jetty, we’ve already lunched up at the Little Brown Hen, where, for the second time, we shared a warm bowl of the best brown rice pudding you’ll find on the entire coast of this state. The need to walk off that indulgence is part of what brought us out here.
That, and Caroline’s need to bring out Happy McKiteface for a final flight in the cool coastal air we’ll soon be missing.
If I can’t take a multi-hundred-pound souvenir with me today, I can bring a reminder.
Speaking of reminders, who doesn’t want to be reminded of that day 52 years ago when too much dynamite was used to remove a whale carcass from a nearby beach but instead blew car-crushing, possibly life-extinguishing chunks of rotting whale in all directions?
This warning sign at the Exploding Whale Memorial site regarding soft sand and mud should include some text that the incident did NOT happen here but somewhere on the other side of that dune. I didn’t want to visit some random place for a moment of remembrance; I wanted to stand on ground zero where said whale failed to vaporize and instead was sent off to chunkidom.
With a bunk memorial site behind us and Dutch Bros. coffee along for the ride to Eugene, we have now left the tsunami zone.
Good morning, Steller’s jay! I hope you enjoy your morning meal courtesy of the vanlife guttersnipes that squatted here overnight. Caroline and I have been visiting the Oregon coast for about 20 years now, and I can say with certainty we’ve never seen so many roadside freeloaders who don’t have the respect to pay attention to the “No Overnight Camping Allowed” signs. I can only surmise that their sense of being free to roam America’s roads allows them to feel a sense of entitlement that arrives with their chosen form of homelessness for the sake of social media status. Regarding the homeless situation, it has spilled out of the bigger cities and now shows up on the coast in ways we’d not seen before. From more people living in cars (not in the aforementioned vanlife configuration) to people struggling with loads of stuff being moved through town and those who will join the ranks in the coming year due to the problem of rising rents, the situation is one of ugly proportions. Back to the vanlifers, Caroline and I used to pull into overlook parking lots where we might be the only people, but when we pull in, and there are people just waking, finishing their ablutions, or putting away the cooking gear, I try to imagine what our experiences would have been like if people in motorhomes had exercised the same liberties, especially considering two large vehicles could fill up a pullout and stop anyone else from stopping for a moment. Just because we didn’t park at an ocean overlook doesn’t mean our waking experiences are any less valid or someone else’s even greater because they flaunt convention. Enough of that, I look forward to the day that vanlife is no longer a thing or I’m dead and gone, no longer able to witness the arrogance.
Normally, waking near the shadow of a lighthouse is a terrific thing, but driving into someone’s temporary bedroom sure puts a damper on that. Fortunately, they were soon gone after we spoiled their perfect isolation with our intrusion. Oops, I said I was done with all that, but the truth is that I’m never done once something gets jammed in my craw.
When we travel on weekends, it’s often been difficult for Caroline to connect with her mom in Frankfurt for her weekly call, but it just so happens that our brother-in-law Klaus is visiting Jutta as we were packing up the yurt and is going to bring us into a video chat. While my mother-in-law has certainly been here at the lighthouse, we have some skepticism about how much she remembers or whether she simply learned to just go along with things and agree to fond memories rather than admit these things are largely gone from her book of memories. It’s really not a problem, though, as she smiles a lot, and we know she’s still very aware that she’s been to the United States many times, even if many of the details are lost to the passage of time.
Do you remember how years ago there was a floating restaurant off in the distant corner here in Winchester Bay? We fondly do and have often wished to visit again, but it’s been closed for years. We first dined there back in 2006; such is the good luck of having blog posts to remind one of something that might have been forgotten otherwise. Today, we sit next to the Umpqua River for breakfast after choosing the place with more cars parked outside, figuring the locals know something.
Never believe in 10-day forecasts, or better yet, simply don’t look at them because would they really change your travel plans? This is probably bad advice because at least they offer some idea of how to dress for potential weather conditions. As for the location, we are on the other side of the restaurant for a post-breakfast walk under perfect skies.
This isn’t just any old forest; it is the forest that goes back…
…back to the Umpqua Lighthouse because without Tillamook Creamery around for breakfast dessert, this will have to do.
We are looking across one small part of Coos Bay from the vantage point of the David Dewett Veterans Memorial in North Bend. It almost never fails that the reflections of the Oregon Dunes catch our eye, and poetically, it makes sense that a place of such great reflection should be the site of a veterans memorial.
In the opposite direction, you’ll find the McCullough Memorial Bridge.
In all the years we’ve been passing through here, we’ve yet to see this rail bridge in any other position or to see trains crossing the bay. We can only guess that this is a relic of the age of forestry as it existed in the past.
From this fascination with bridges, one might think Arizona doesn’t have any, but it turns out that Arizona and Oregon are nearly equal in that department, which suggests that the bridges in Arizona are not remarkable in any way. Before you object: yes, we have the Navajo Bridges over the Colorado River and the London Bridge that was moved from the U.K. to Lake Havasu, along with the Black Bridge down in the Grand Canyon, but other than those, I cannot think of any other memorable crossings in Arizona. [May I suggest Roosevelt Lake Bridge? Caroline]
For 86 years, people have been using this bridge, but has anyone else taken so many photos of it?
I’m always trying to remind myself not only to stop and take photos of the most iconic things but also the mundane ones along the way, as they are just as important a part of the attraction that draws us back year after year.
In addition, we try to turn down side roads we might have missed on previous travels, and today, that worked in our favor when we turned onto Riverside Drive. At first glance, this might look like an outhouse to those of us not accustomed to living in rainy places, but upon looking closer, it was obvious that this was a long-neglected bus stop for kids who needed shelter while waiting for their school bus.
That, or it was a hiding place from a marauding Big Foot and its daughter.
Also from Riverside Drive, a view of the Bandon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge we’ve never seen before.
The same cannot be said of the Wool Company yarn store in Bandon, which we’ve visited countless times and must have bought 50 skeins of yarn by now. Yes, there is new sock yarn there, destined for my feet.
Another place becoming a regular stop on our journeys is found here at the famous Langlois Market, best known for the more than 1,000,000 hotdogs they’ve sold from their little roadside market in a town of only 370 people.
Not being able to remember offhand the last time we visited the Cape Blanco Lighthouse in Port Orford, we decided to drive down the road through the state park to have a gander.
Oooh, it’s windy and cold out here, but the sky demands that we take the short walk in the elements to nab a photo of the lighthouse should it happen that I’ve never taken one in such nice weather.
Apparently, Neptune has raised his Sword of Damocles against those who live above the surface of his vast ocean, threatening all of us should we not heed our own knowledge that we are ravaging his seas.
And to our right, as we walk out on the spit of land that is home to the lighthouse, is this view of the deep blue sea that just yesterday was dark green.
At this time of year, nothing is open; the season is over. No matter, as the tower itself is not currently visitable even during the summer.
As I said, it’s windy out here, which Caroline thought was as good a time as any to break out the new kite and test how it compares to the one it’s replacing. We’ll just call it love.
Our car is out there in front of the tree line, and looking at the photo above this one, you might have noticed that Caroline was standing in the old parking lot. Even if the road to the lighthouse was still open, you should be reluctant to drive it as the adjacent cliffside is eroding.
This is still part of the Cape Blanco State Park, and to the left is the Historic Hughes House built in 1898 that is visitable.
There are a lot of places I can say with certainty we’ve visited before, even multiple times, but this pullout looking north towards Port Orford seems to me to be one of the surprisingly many new sites we’ve stopped at during these days.
Looking southwest from the same vantage point offers up a crisp sky and a horizon nearly devoid of any fog. Of all the times we’ve been asked if we’ve been here or there, this country or that, nobody has ever asked if we’d ever had the opportunity to be out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
While our yurt at Bullards Beach State Park in Bandon is now 30 miles behind us, we have a date with a rock 35 miles ahead.
Persistence paid off in my attempts to figure out where the heck we were on the road, but it is mislabeled on Google Maps and is not identified at all on Bing; the address is roughly 35690 Oregon Coast Highway, identified with Port Orford, and it is NOT Foramen Arch.
Turn and look south, and this is your view from the photo above. To the left of the image, you can see Euchre Creek spilling into the ocean.
Moving down a hill and between the bushes, we were offered this view of Wedderburn Bridge in Gold Beach. I wanted to snap a photo from the road, which gave a much better view; stopping for a photo would have been too dangerous though, so this one will have to do. It’s yet another bridge designed by the famous civil Oregonian engineer with a Hitler mustache named Conde McCullough.
Meet our southern date here at Meyers Creek Beach, the Shark Fin. This visit, though, now comes with 100% more kite.
No more disappointment trying to fly the previous pathetic little kite that was reluctant to take to the sky, as this one is a natural.
Caroline is so happy with this new kite that she’s named it Happy McKiteface. Cute name and all, but I think it actually describes her.
Until next time, Shark Fin, it’s been great.
There we were, driving north as though we were doing so with purpose when, not even two miles away from our last stop, a steep road up a hillside on my left seemingly demanded that I pull a quick U-turn to investigate. Why hadn’t the Cape Sebastian sign caught our attention before?
Seeing how we are now up here, we should check out what is down the hill, not this way but the one in front of us.
Nope, this is the view to the north, but in a second, you’ll know what I’m speaking of.
This is the trail I wanted to bring your attention to.
It apparently brings us out to the edge of Cape Sebastian, here between Pistol River and Gold Beach.
Where exactly it’s going is uncertain as there was no trail map at the parking lot, and at this moment, we’ve not passed anyone else who can tell us anything more about where we are. Checking our phones is not an option as we have no signal.
If this were as far as we’d been able to go, it would have been worth every moment and more. Around this time, we’d met a couple coming at us on the trail, and we asked how far they went; they’d gone all the way to the beach but warned us it was too late to try that as it would certainly be dark by the time we got back to where we were talking with them. Something to come back to.
With that, we turned around for our walk back through the forest until we found a slightly different view north.
In the distance to the south, way out there, that’s Arch Rock.
Back at the Cape Sebastian parking lot and ready to tackle the last 65 miles to the evening’s yurt accommodations.
We’ll still have 60 miles left after this “last” stop, but who could blame us? We’ve stopped at the Gold Beach Visitors Center, which appears to be the name of the beach, but that can’t be.
While I busied myself photographing the last moments of the setting sun, Caroline quietly pulled out Happy McKiteface and threw it aloft before I could protest. With that smiling face beaming at her new kite high above the beach in the fading light of day, there was no way I was going to rain on her moment of finding yet more joy.
Stars were out in force last night, but here at dawn, the sky is overcast.
Late yesterday, Caroline put the finishing touches on the new socks she’s been knitting for me. Strangely enough, it was just this past September, on our way up the California coast in Cambria, that I chose this yarn that would one day become socks. This is the shortest turnaround time ever from acquisition to socks of love, ready to wear.
It feels as though it was just moments ago that I wrote of our day that took on fairytale proportions, and here we are leaving our yurt when I spotted this fairy land-salmon snailfish poking its head out of an ancient tree. I tried capturing it, but in an instant, it was gone, and so were we.
The car is packed up but before we take to the open highway, we’ll revisit the beach we walked on last night.
Had a stream too wide to cross at the south end of the beach not turned us around, we wouldn’t have gone north. From a distance, I pointed out this sea lion to Caroline, but she wanted to believe it was driftwood until she saw the driftwood moving without the help of the ocean. Something was wrong with this poor creature, though. It dragged its hind legs, and we didn’t know at the time that this was a sign it might be suffering from a disease called leptospirosis, which is described with symptoms including dehydration, increased drinking or urinating, vomiting, depression, and a reluctance to use the hind flippers. We already know to keep a safe distance from wildlife, especially those that might be distressed; this photo is a cropped image taken with a 200mm lens.
As a matter of fact, the lens used to photograph the sea lion was the same one used to capture this great heron on Netarts Bay.
Caroline voted to head inland to Tillamook, but I failed to take that advice and brought us to Oceanside at the end of the road.
The hordes are emerging from their turkey-induced mal de puerco and are cluttering the serenity of the beach on this foggy day; just look at them all.
Fine, we’ll just go this way where the beach will be all ours, probably because it’s raining on this side.
Welcome to the Blue Agate Cafe, where we took refuge from the cold and wet to warm ourselves, have our first coffee of the day, and get something to eat. I can’t tell you how many times on this trip alone when our breakfast involved seafood and this day was no different as we both ordered their seafood scramble. We sat next to the front windows, watching the rain fall and enjoying the gray from our cozy spot. Sipping our coffees, we met Aspen and Sarah, learning that Aspen was a member of a band called The Helens with a new album on the horizon called Somewhere in Nowhere.
With the first meal of the day over and our drive to Tillamook having reached its zenith, it was time to head into the Tillamook Creamery and Cheese Factory, as we had serious business to tend to.
It was time for breakfast dessert because, on a gray, rainy day, nothing says cozy indulgence like hiding from the elements to enjoy a bit of ice cream. I should point out something that’s been nagging me this entire trip: things don’t feel as busy out here as they have during previous years. Of course, 202o wasn’t busy, but that was due to the pandemic, and after a booming summer for vacationers, I thought things up this way might have returned to normal. These days around Thanksgiving at the creamery, you’ll usually find the place packed with long lines for sandwiches, ice cream, or to check out in their gift store, but not so this year. For that matter, the beaches haven’t seen the same numbers of visitors, at least from our vantage point.
We left Tillamook and headed right back out the way we came, through the coastal range.
From there, we went further in order to keep going deeper into the mists hovering over the landscape.
Under the gray cover of the day, we approached the Clay Myers State Natural Area at Whalen Island and saw very little. The calming effect of so much solemnity winked at our yawns and suggested that we pull over in Pacific City to replenish our waning caffeine levels. Stimulus Coffee, that’s the name of the shop, was where we pulled in for some of their steaming hot java. With the rain comes the temptation for baked goods, and no good temptation is worth a thing if it doesn’t have at least some power over you and the power it had over us. The barista asked, “Take it for the road?” Are you crazy? The weather etiquette must be honored, and that means that we’ll sit down by a window and use the opportunity to sample our indulgences posthaste. Refreshed by pastries and coffee, we depart for the remaining 123 miles still ahead of us.
Maybe calling one of the earth’s shortest rivers Tiny D (although, compared to other things, it might be considered quite the Big D) became too rude and obvious comparisons, and so the people of Lincoln City called it D River in a compromise to not appear vulgar. That, or I’m reading too much into things.
While a king tide is in effect and it’s raining, it’s not necessarily stormy, so places like the Spouting Horn and Boiler Bay here in Depoe Bay are not spitting and roaring. While the raucous ocean we love to witness is relatively calm today, the dark green color carries its own intrigue.
Over the previous days, Caroline’s attempts to bring her pocket kite aloft were met with mixed results. She was never quite happy with how things were going. Earlier today, while in Tillamook, I was assured that the shopping aspect of this vacation was finished, in large part due to the most expensive candle we’ve ever purchased, though it’s a cute one. This little candle sits in a glass bottle shaped like an old-fashioned milk bottle, albeit a small one about the size of venti coffee. The scent is listed as Trees of Tillamook, and it cost us $33. Getting home, the smell might be better compared to Pine Sol. Okay, back to The Kite Company in Newport, Oregon, a young woman, upon listening to Caroline’s sad story about her sad kite, took her over to what would become her new kite. I tried insisting it would never fit in our bags, but when she started crying, I had to relent while informing her I’d just have to throw away my underwear to make space.
Maybe it was due to the large breakfast, breakfast dessert, and the pastries, but somehow, we skipped lunch, which worked out in our favor as we were able to take a late lunch/early dinner at Ona in Yachats. This being our third and final visit of this vacation, we revisited those things that quickly became favorites, such as the smoked Maitake mushroom pâté, beet salad, and the seafood pasta in saffron cream sauce.
We left before we gave into dessert, as one dessert a day is all that’s allowed, even on vacation. What we can never have too much of, though, are lighthouses, and with this one at Heceta Head and the one we’ll be staying next to near Winchester Bay, we make do with the eye sweets.
We reached our yurt, made our bed that will certainly be the coziest ever, and headed over to our favorite lighthouse on the Oregon coast. Why this one? The red and white light pattern is the answer. When we first visited Umpqua, I thought the lighting configuration was something special for the holidays, so its festive display instantly became a favorite. I’m sure Caroline knew that this kind of red/white signal was something normal as she knows everything, but it was magic to me, especially how the silently turning fresnel lens throws spotlights on the surrounding forest behind the towering beacon.
Falling rain, short days, cold weather, all the makings for prodding one to an early sleep. Instead, we fell into conversation and talked away the void of nothing to do. Caroline had finished my socks and I wasn’t feeling the compulsion to write. The rain continued as it mostly had for the previous 11 hours, but this only added to the comfort of being in a yurt, as nothing sounds as nice at night as the pitter-patter of raindrops hitting the canvas.
Up before the sun and the tide, up before Caroline, who’s not ready to unwrap herself from our lair, and up before the place opens where we’ll be stopping for breakfast once we begin our trek north. It’s Thanksgiving today as we bail out of the Shags Nest for our next destination, Cape Lookout, up near Tillamook. With merely 95 miles (150km) to cover, we’re confident we might accomplish this in under 10 hours and before the sun sets.
Somehow, there was some miscommunication between the staff and ourselves at the Drift Inn Cafe yesterday. We understood they’d be open for breakfast today, but it turns out they are serving brunch starting at 11:00. To offer more than 3 hours to the time gods would likely mean we’d be arriving at our yurt well after the acceptable check-in hours of 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. and so we’ll skip this first meal of the day to cover the 24 miles between us and Newport where we are certain to find the Newport Cafe open, but will we be there for breakfast or lunch?
By now, the routine is well known: the best of intentions will be tossed right out the window after that blinking billboard of a sign imploring us to stop right here at the Governor Patterson Memorial State Recreation Site in Waldport proves to be an effective tool and gets us to leap out of the car for a stroll on the beach early in the morning. [Private note to my editor, Caroline: please do not fix this slight exaggeration and tell the reader that the sign is small and that we’re simply unable to avoid any empty beach that catches our eye. – Duly noted, CW] From the size of the crowds amassing here on Thanksgiving morning, you can tell that we only choose the popular places to explore as the intelligence of the crowd is undeniable.
What may not be evident to the casual reader is that the Governor Patterson beach and bridge (pictured here) are already 16 miles up the road, meaning what would typically require a couple of hours has been accomplished in a quick 20-minute spurt of solid driving. We call this “Vacation Discipline.”
I must cop to utter failure as the pullout for Driftwood Beach just south of Seal Rock means we only made it 3 miles before the distraction of desire intruded upon those intentions I just claimed were thrown out the window. If one were to think an intervention right about now was appropriate for Caroline’s and my obvious addiction, I wouldn’t be able to deny that we probably have issues.
Imagine my astonishment when, after walking out onto the beach here at Driftwood Beach, we spot this giant piece of driftwood that’s almost more of a giant chunk of tree but with barnacles attached to its bottom side (not unlike on my wife’s by this point in the trip). It’s easy to see that it’s been out to sea and probably just drifted in for us. What makes this so peculiar, it’s kind of like those roadside signs that tell of the wildlife in the area that’s never seen.
You must be thinking at this point, “Hey John, nice that you stopped here at this wide open beach so I can see with my own eyes that I, too, must one day visit Driftwood Beach, which appears to only have one piece of its namesake, but that’s okay as like so many of the other places you stop at, there is nobody out there with you.” Right about then I start backpedaling to explain that this is not reality but a simulation, a private AI-generated vacation for people who like to be alone with each other.
With a dearth of driftwood on Driftwood Beach, Caroline is relegated to looking for stones, which, as you can see, are ubiquitous.
I know I’ve seen this somewhere else: this alien form of 3-dimensional sand braille that can also be deciphered using an advanced Morse Code tool whose name we forgot at home.
No, say it isn’t so, “Are you guys stopping yet again? Have you even driven 6 miles yet?”
Wow, these questioners really know their geography, as we’re almost exactly 6 miles further up the road. But please believe me when I tell you that if my hunch was working on overdrive, we’d never have stopped. The sign said something or other about Lost Creek, and my intuition screamed at me, “You can find this lost creek that’s been missing for the better part of a century.” Sure enough, here it is, the long-lost creek of infamy and lore so big that if I attempted to share it now, we’d never reach breakfast in this story.
With plans as fluid as the ocean, we arrived at the Newport Cafe for a Thanksgiving Day breakfast of seafood, eggs, and potatoes at 10:00 sharp, an excellent time for breakfast. And while we wait, don’t waste a brain cell thinking we might find some simple conversation when we are prepared to engage in crafting, me with pen and paper, Caroline with needles and yarn.
If you are thinking that the name Newport Cafe sounds familiar and somehow it is associated with a kind of ecstasy, you’d be 100% correct. It was just two years ago when I finally convinced Caroline that it was time to graduate out of the little leagues and go big or go home, and with my victory at hand, we ordered the 8-POUND SUPER ULTIMATE MONSTER BURGER from Newport Cafe and almost finished it with only about 6 pounds remaining…that we used for leftovers for probably 3 or 4 days max. Should you be curious about what a thing of such grandeur looks like, visit my old post here and see for yourself, especially Caroline’s look of wonder and delight.
With only 62 miles to go before checking into our yurt, maybe we should slow down or consider longer walks along the beaches we’re bound to stop at anyway. Just then, while spacing out looking at the ocean, a food-coma-induced flashback has this hummingbird flying up, hovering, and telekinetically speaking to Caroline and me, saying, “Indeed, you are moving much too fast, and if you really think a hummingbird is talking to you, maybe your breakfast included a tasty magic mushroom; this is after all Oregon.” Whoa, I’m tripping, was my thought, just as Caroline took on the shape of an anemone and was about to start feeding the hummingbird, yet suddenly whipped out her fighting tentacles for battle.
“Tsk-tsk,” sings the song Sparrow and laughs at the silliness of us listening to a hummingbird.
This is Moolack Beach with Yaquina Lighthouse off in the distance, and sadly, we didn’t return to the old blog post regarding the monster burger because it would have reminded us that earlier on that particular day, we had come across a recent landslide with a bunch of exposed fossils that were just incredible. It would have been dreamy to visit that spot one more time.
This is the Devils Punchbowl near Otter Rock. This is not our first time here, yet I was foiled again on getting a decent photo down in the punchbowl itself as shadows, and the balance of light are difficult to balance at the best of times, or downright impossible as it was on this visit. No matter, the surroundings are just as extraordinary.
For example, this is the view south of the Punchbowl.
And this is the view north, nice, huh?
We are not at Grassy Knoll Beach; there isn’t even something called that in Oregon. We are at the Rocky Creek State Scenic Viewpoint near Depoe Bay.
If you’ve read the posts from the previous six days, you are likely noticing that I’m making mince meat of this post and getting through it without being quite so verbose, and that’s because I’m afraid I’ll still be writing about this trip to Oregon in early 2023. It’s the day after Christmas when I finally got to write about this day.
Tranquil sandy beaches couldn’t be cast in greater contrast to these rocky coasts where waves don’t simply break upon the shore; they claw at the craggy escarpment, always threatening to pull the land back into the sea.
Wherever that creek is located that Rocky Creek is named after, it’s good that this section of the coast is hard rock instead of sandstone as this place takes a beating.
Hard rock or soft sandstone, the ocean will ultimately win as it’s relentless in the work it performs at the edges of lands we live upon and visit for recreational purposes [or to be mesmerized – Caroline].
The allure of big water is inexplicable as, in many places, it can be seriously dangerous, but still, it draws me into its seductive maelstrom.
Countless times, I’ve witnessed these watery eruptions where waves crash into a rock or cliff, and the explosive energy shoots water 50 feet and higher into the air. It’s what I see in my mind’s eye happening when people stand too near the edge of a cliff.
This being Thanksgiving, we were fairly certain that there’d be no stopping at the Spouting Horn here in Depoe Bay due to crowds and traffic. However, we’ve seen more traffic at other times and are pretty surprised that more people aren’t here, especially during a king tide event. There was no need to hunt for parking but an abundance of spots everywhere. You might also notice that, yet again, the forecasted rain has not materialized.
Saltwater can be harmful to us and our plants, but it’s also the main source of rainwater that feeds our plants and aquifers, thus supporting us. It is so profoundly beautiful that I never tire of trying to photographically capture it in its wild state, though I also admit that writing about it so frequently can be daunting.
Understanding the importance of this vital natural resource seems to have been largely overlooked by previous generations, who apparently saw it as an infinite self-healing body that allows humans to dump what we’d like into it. Not only were our ancestors, and those currently still exploiting it, happy to take as much fish out of it and kill as many whales as possible, but they have also been responsible for dumping millions of pounds of trash into the ocean.
If others treated our personal homes in a similar way, coming in to collect what they could for food and then depositing trash in our bedrooms before spilling harmful chemicals in our kitchens, we’d suddenly have a different relationship with those who are violating our living space, and yet this is in essence exactly what we are allowing.
When the crabs and sea stars are gone, when plastic trash piles up on every beach, and swimming is no longer allowed, might we recognize that the ocean was never ours to deplete and poison?
We’ve reached Siletz Bay in Lincoln City, a place I don’t believe we’ve ever just driven past.
I can’t say that this spot on the coast has ever been anything other than one of tranquility, but the tree trunks we walk over to get closer to shore have obviously seen life in the water, meaning something like a tempest has thrown them up here.
The smell of something grilling piqued my homing skills, and in a quick second, we pulled a fast right turn into the parking lot of the El Torito Mexican Meat Market and Grocery here in Lincoln City. How in the world is this place open today and just as strange, how have we missed this on previous visits? We hadn’t missed it, as they only opened in April of 2021. The man performing the grilling duties informed us to go pay inside and that with our receipt, we’d be able to collect our spatchcocked chicken. Wow, this store is the single greatest ethnic store on the entire coast of Oregon, a treasure.
With our macheted chicken dismembered into eight individual pieces, we took the bagged bird over to nearby Road’s End and enjoyed our grilled poultry that amounted to our Thanksgiving dinner. A beachside picnic with nothing to clean up except our greasy fingers was a dreamy way of creating yet more indelible memories. The beach access path was half-heartedly barred because of the king tides expected these days, but plenty of people ignored and circumvented the obstacle. Knowing our time was running out, we opted not to join them down below and instead continued north.
Looking at the map, Caroline found a Ghost Forest on the beach near Neskowin. I admittedly didn’t understand what this meant at this point on the trip. If you’ve read the previous day’s posts, you might have seen that I wrote of Ghost Forests back on the third day of this journey but that was due to other research about some of the geological features found out here. Had I known here on Thanksgiving the specifics of how these occurrences happened and what we might expect to see, we would have made a greater effort to see the ghost trees.
There’s a bit of a problem reaching the often submerged remnants of the forest: you have to arrive during low tide, and since four creeks meet here, you’ll have to walk through the main combined stream. Maybe there isn’t so much water during the summer months, but the times we’ve been here, the “creek” is a minor river. The trees are on the south side of Neskowin Creek, a private community, so crossing the creek is the only way there.
On this day, the tide was exceptionally low due to the fact that when the coast is experiencing a king tide, it often sees the opposite effect with a negative tide, meaning that this would have been an ideal time to see the 100 or so tree stumps poking out of the sand if I had only known back then what I know today! All the same, as you can see for yourself, there was plenty of beauty to be had.
Looking across Nestucca Bay towards Chief Kiawanda Rock in Pacific City.
That is Chief Kiawanda Rock out there, sometimes known as a haystack rock. The other things are people, and as you can tell, this beach was quite crowded compared to those we visited earlier.
If you only could have heard Caroline’s laughter at seeing this sticker, that hadn’t caught my eye in the least. This was/is a meme that went globally viral, at least for Germans. It reads Nice Here. But have you been to Baden-Württemberg? For those who don’t know, Baden-Württemberg is the state in Germany where Stuttgart is located (home of Mercedes-Benz, the carmaker) as well as the Black Forest and apparently a healthy dose of self-confidence.
See those tire tracks leading out to the beach? We are at McPhillips Beach in Cloverdale, just north of Pacific City, and Caroline was having nothing to do with my idea of driving on the beach. And that just because a long, long time ago, I got our rental car stuck in the sand since I don’t know how to safely drive on a beach. Sometimes, that German logic stops the potential epic fun [stupidity], we might be able to gather from being spontaneous because “one” of us believes they know better.
So, instead, we walked out onto the beach, and I had to fake this smile of happiness.
All I could think of looking at this scene was how much better it might have been had we been barreling down this part of the beach with the windows wide open, water splashing as though we were on horses riding bareback, crushing all of those poisonous jellyfish in the shallows, while hooping and hollering at the immense enjoyment we were experiencing. But no, all we did was stand here going blind, looking into the sun.
Ultimately, I had to just leave with Caroline still standing there, blind and unable to move.
Right down there is Cape Lookout State Park, our next and final stop of the day.
Checked into our yurt, made the bed, and took off for a quick walk along the beach. We are only 10 miles from Tillamook, meaning the Tillamook Creamery and Cheese Factory, and we are already dreaming of picking up an ice cream there tomorrow, but with 145 miles of driving ahead of us tomorrow, is it a good idea to stick around until 10:00 when they open? By the way, that drive takes us south, which might beg the question, why’d we drive so far north today if we just have to turn around and drive south already?
Back in May when this trip was being planned, we were going to drive from Phoenix, Arizona, to Brookings, Oregon, which takes a solid day and a half. According to that plan, we’d hit Cape Lookout and do some hiking up this way before visiting Tillamook for lunch at the Blue Heron French Cheese Company for smoked brie sandwiches and taking a few packages of smoked brie home with us in the ice chest that would have been traveled with us in the car. In May, the flights and car rental were just too expensive to reserve, but when checking on a whim in early November, I saw the prices were now a lot more reasonable, and I even found a non-stop to Eugene, Oregon, that is only 75 minutes away from the coast, we booked flights. The problem was we also had all of our accommodations reserved, and yurts are not easy to come by around the holidays.
The original plan had us enjoying our last night in Oregon at the Umpqua Lighthouse, where we are driving tomorrow. Seeing we were no longer staying the night in Trinidad, California, I canceled that and hoped to book a second night at Umpqua, sold out. Had we canceled Umpqua, there’d be no refund, and while it’s only about $50, we love that place, and a second night at Cape Lookout wasn’t available either. Carl G. Washburne Park only has two yurts, and those are in high demand, so that was sold out, too. I found availability in Bandon at Bullards Beach in the south, so that would have to do, even though it meant a lot of yo-yo driving.
Going to sleep only lasted seconds before something that was irritating my lower leg earlier in the day really started to bother me. I reached down to investigate and realized I either had the biggest zit at a place on my body where I’d never experienced one before, or it was a tick. Panic riveted me out of bed. I grabbed a headlamp, and – the horror of horrors – I found a tick embedded in my leg and nearly wanted to throw up. Wow, Caroline packed the tweezers and, to the best of her ability, grabbed hold of the ugly monster and yanked most of it out of my leg. Now I have to try sleeping with its mouth parts still attached in the depths of its burrow; this is the stuff of nightmares.