Out at the fog line between Fogarty Creek and Gleneden Beach, two whales were working the seas early, letting us have one more in the countless number of whale sightings we’ve experienced on this trip. Our first stop was once again at Boiler Bay, where we’ve had such great luck with whale watching.

North Fogarty Creek Beach was the destination where we collected our steps this morning. That we’d be foiled in getting all we wanted wasn’t known just yet.

Little did we suspect it would be low tide and that we’d run into this family of sea stars posing in the hopes of becoming internet famous.

Draining sands leave incredible patterns when the tide recedes into the ocean.

And not all the patterns are the same.

Like I said.

The rock formations way out act as a breakwater for the waves, leaving this part of the shore temporarily calm until the waves return to breaking over the walls.

Choosing what to do and see next requires studied consideration from Caroline.

As for me, I just look for more anemones, mussels, barnacles with large peduncles, and sea stars.

Barnacles on an island deny me an inspection of their clustering families.

This is a very recent rockfall, likely in the past hours, as nearby we saw other footprints and dog paw impressions on this side of the beach which is not accessible during high tide but they were obviously left recently in wet sand close to the waterline. We could see how high the tide had been in other parts of the beach and the sand underneath the fallen rocks was clearly smoothed by its lapping water during the night. The smaller chips and stones were absolutely undisturbed and looked fresh.

A couple of gulls were seen chasing this bald eagle away, and its presence wasn’t enjoyed by the pigeon guillemots who were hanging out on the edges of Fishing Rock. In case you were wondering about the coloring, juvenile bald eagles are dark.

For the duration of this trip and during previous visits over the years, we’ve been calling this general area Boiler Bay, and while that’s correct (the wayside is officially called Boiler Bay State Park), the spit of land that juts furthest into the sea and which we are standing on was, in the past, more commonly called Government Point.

This is not always the easiest shop to visit. We were just about to give up when the owner stepped out of her home and asked if she could help us. That person was Elsie, the proprietor of Elsie’s Discount Roving in Depoe Bay, and those two rugs are going home with us.

On Sunday, Caroline and I stopped in at the Lincoln City Outlets, looking for a few things, such as jeans and a couple of books. My very old pair of jeans that have been worn during many a winter in Arizona, trips to Europe, and here in the cold summer environment of Oregon have given out. Caroline tried performing an emergency repair, but with each squat for a photo, I was putting too much pressure on the crotch that has been hanging low due to my significant weight loss since the jeans were purchased. No luck at the store, so I ordered those online later that night. The books we wanted were The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate by Peter Wohlleben and The Overstory by Richard Powers, also about trees. Unfortunately, here in the heavily forested lands of coastal Oregon, the bookshop didn’t have either. Walking through the outlets on that day, Caroline considered trying a beer at Gilgamesh Brewing, hoping for an Enkidu brew.  We decided to give them a try today since she won’t be around for happy hour with her coworkers on Friday. They missed the opportunity to brand one of their brews Enkidu, and so Caroline settled on a flight. [My favorite were the Mamba ale and DJ Jazzy Hef hefeweizen (I’m not a fan of some of these names), but the IPAs/pale ales were nice and also the coffee-infused beer. – Caroline]

Also, this past Sunday saw us hiking the Lower Cascade Head Trail. I already wrote about my underlying tensions of being on popular trails in that day’s post. This here was the alternative I had wanted to hike; it is the Cascade Head Rainforest Trail that we are getting in before leaving Depoe Bay tomorrow.

Ferns add vibrant green accents to much of what we see in the forests up here, but maybe because they are so ubiquitous, I seem to neglect paying enough attention to focusing on them exclusively.

So often, many of the most beautiful mini-gardens are found growing out of the broken stumps and fallen trees that adorn the forest.

Kind of ironic that this is the biggest banana slug we’ve ever seen, and we didn’t have a banana with us to show the scale of this giant. I could tell you that it was larger than my hands, but for all you know I might have tiny Trump hands.

Salmonberries! This trail is now depleted of these tasty morsels as we ate them all. Seriously, we must have munched on no less than 40 each.

While we’ve experienced plenty of the coast and low tides on this extended stay in Oregon, I’d hardly gotten enough rainforest therapy, so this was just what I needed to balance it all.

At a point, we made the conscious decision to avoid the Carl G. Washburne State Park with its China Creek Loop via Valley Trail on this trip, as that is likely our favorite trail on the entire coast, and we’d like it to remain that way. This decision was based on our experience on Amanda’s Trail south of Yachats and the dearth of mushrooms. We figured it’s too dry a time of year for those fungi and that China Creek Loop likely holds a significant part of its enchantment due to mushrooms and newts that prefer wetter times of the year.

When we were at Gilgamesh Brewing, Brandon, our server, picked up on Caroline’s German accent and consequently shared with her his time studying in Tubingen. When asked about the cost of living on the coast, he told us that he shares a tiny 300-square-foot studio with his wife for $800 a month up in Neskowin (just up the road from Lincoln City), which reminded Caroline that we’d not visited the Proposal Rock area up there yet like we’d wanted to. With the negative tides, the Neskowin Ghost Forest should have been well exposed, too bad we’d gotten carried away with the tide pools. All the same, we decided to visit the beach up there, seeing how the Cascade Head is just south of the area.

Wind on our last full day on this central part of the coast was all the reason Caroline needed to bring Happy McKiteFace out so it might feel the wind one more time under its wings.

This is Proposal Rock on Neskowin Beach, and somewhere behind it are the Ghost Trees that are named such because an earthquake caused a subduction event and landslide that saw the trees drop into the ocean and then get broken off and buried in a subsequent tsunami. The trees are best (or maybe only) seen at low tide and that wasn’t happening tonight. Caroline did manage to find a full can of La Croix grapefruit soda on the beach and that was enough of a reward for us.

Look at these two growing older farts, falling into the subduction zone of aging and getting buried in a tsunami of memories. While this time up in Oregon has been a “remote working” opportunity, both of us feel that the whole thing has been like a vacation.

Of course, we had to stop in at Boiler Bay yet again with the hopes of spotting more whales. Though they weren’t to be seen, we did find this awesome sunset just hanging out, waiting to be appreciated. We offered it what it needed, and in return, it gave us everything we needed before heading back to the house in Depoe Bay for our last dip in the hot tub.