Our last visit to Gleneden Beach for this trip to Oregon was had, so it will be with everything else we do over the next 72 hours before we head for the southern exit. Building a dramatic and desperate finality to better over-romanticize the perfection, rarity, and good fortune we’ve been afforded is just the recipe we indulge with every time we leave a place where we find incredible happiness. By the grace of June and Marvin sharing their home, we’ve been able to set down roots, if only for a few wonderful weeks. Our silliness will have us taunting each other about the ‘last’ this and the ‘last’ that, right up to the point we know we are hopeless idiots, making our departure all the more bittersweet. In most honesty, I don’t know that I can say we’ve ever been happy to leave a place. I mean, we are typically overjoyed by the experience, but I don’t believe we were thrilled to have a bad experience come to an end because we don’t have bad experiences. Maybe getting home is the crash landing with a reality that isn’t the best, but that’s okay, too, as it’s only a regathering point to set things up for the next adventure. However, on this trip, it was 58 degrees (14 Celsius) out on the beach this morning; at the same time, before 8:00, it was already 101 degrees (38 Celsius) in Phoenix, Arizona. I’d like to tell you that sounds exotic; the truth is that it’s blistering.
Always looking for something special, that little thing that says, pick me up!
A vertebra and a bone we can’t identify; they just have to come home with us because they look so interesting.
For years, we’ve wondered about agates and thought we simply couldn’t figure them out from all the stones on the beaches we comb, and then blam, all of a sudden, we start seeing them. The angle of the sun helps a lot by illuminating them, so it’s easier to see which stones are translucent. The sand we’ve placed them together on may be more small gravel than sand, but it is tiny, and we hoped it would work for others to see the scale. Sorry, we didn’t have a banana handy. The best keepsake, though, is the tiny sand dollar; we’ve never seen baby sand dollars.
Following our lunch at Sticks, likely for the last time this summer, and enjoying halibut yet again, we made a quick pit stop up the overlook at Boiler Bay, which to local fishermen is known as Government Point. While there, on a spectacular blue sky afternoon, we saw whales, and so did the other dozen or more people who were there too.
Getting back to the house, Caroline needed to attend a conference call, and I cleaned some things. We didn’t specifically make a mess of it, but I’m determined that we’ll leave this house as tidy as can be, should it work in influencing a return visit someday when June and Marvin need to head to France or down to Phoenix to visit family.
With less than 48 hours left in Depoe Bay, but one night in Gold Beach, Oregon, before hitting California, we finally got around to making an old favorite of ours, Slovenian Apricot-Almond Bread, for which we had brought the ingredients with us from Phoenix. This will be the salve for treating the sadness of leaving, so at least we have that.
In my head, I’m inventorying everything that must be done. Some kitchen-related things are already packed into the crate they arrived in as most of our cooking here is finished; breakfast tomorrow will be it. I just plugged in the vacuum battery so it doesn’t die on me as it did the first time I went to vacuum the rugs. We replaced some of the staple things we used while here. Why should June and Marvin supply our paper towels, toilet paper, eggs, and butter? Gotta say that I really fell in love with the Amish Country Roll Butter June left.
We’ve gone south to Newport for a 5:30 reservation at Local Ocean Restaurant and were sat with a perfect view of the harbor. The drink is called a Strange Beast Old Fashioned and is made of Suntory Toki Japanese whiskey, pandan-infused Plantation 5-year rum, banana peel + pandan syrup, macadamia nut, and Angostura bitters. Our appetizers were all worthy, but it was the main course that carried us away. We opted for the vegetarian version of a dish that otherwise would have been served with halibut, which is called Lion’s Mane & Peaches. Using grilled lion’s mane mushrooms, grilled peaches, roasted poblano pepper, mozzarella cheese, and a perfect cilantro vinaigrette, we were swooning at how absolutely amazing the dish was. As a matter of fact, we made reservations to have it again tomorrow, but who knows if hiking or some other sightseeing doesn’t get in the way.
Our feast necessitated that we get out and walk, and with a pier open to the boat docks, what could be nicer than walking amongst a bunch of stinking fishing boats?
There was a boat for sale, about the size of the Robin Ann here, probably a little bigger and certainly in worse shape. With much of it made of wood, the old boat that didn’t photograph well would need considerable work. Maybe that’s why it’s only $200,000, plus it appeared to come with a crabbing license, which might have more value than I can imagine.
It was 9:00 before we started our drive out of Newport and back up the coast to Depoe Bay. I’m consumed by the laundry list of things I have to tend to tomorrow before we pack up and start our slow four-day meander on small roads back to Arizona, well, except for one thing I have in mind, and that is we will be getting into the hot tub when we get back to the tiny house we have to leave behind shortly.