We should have known just how cold it was going to be on the coast overnight when we found a second heater in our yurt. Both heaters ran all night, and by morning, when we ventured out of our cozy little den by the sea, the car was frozen over. The grasses on the way to the bathrooms were crunchy, and ice was everywhere. While waiting for the sun to show its face and the temperature to rise above 30 degrees, we took the opportunity to hang out for a while. I wrote, catching up a bit on filling in details about our second day out here, and Caroline continued knitting my next pair of socks using yarn she had bought in Portland on a previous trip.
Well aware that we were choosing comfort over clear skies, we pulled our tails out from between our legs and, like big dogs, left the nest to find adventure in the great unknown. Okay, so it isn’t really all that unknown by now after so many visits, but with my aging memory, almost everything I do these days feels like the first time ever. I’ll give you a tip about this strategy because it is, in fact, a strategy and not just the way things are for the old guy. You see, years ago, back when I was but a young man, I’d read from Herr Friedrich Nietzsche that the hardest thing for a person to learn is how to forget. So I’ve practiced this fine art of doing just that, forgetting. What advantage does this have, you probably are not asking. Bad restaurants continuously have the opportunity to be good, people I don’t really like are considered multiple times for friendship, and the really stupid shit I’ve said and done is relinquished to the good philosopher’s abyss where the monsters live.
Once we were out on the road it was over to our old standby Newport Cafe, opened 24/7, 365 days a year. This place has one of the best-mixed seafood scrambles. With far too much food in us, we needed an equal amount of walking to burn off some of the gratuitous calories. Out to the ocean at the Yaquina Bay State Recreation Site for a stroll on the ocean.
Silver sparkly reflections of our star bounce off of small pools of water while ripples in the sand cast shadows into the water, creating this kind of scene. The sun does many other amazing tricks with its commanding expertise of bedazzling us bipeds who have eyes and brains tuned just for this kind of pattern hunting where things out of the ordinary beg for us to examine them in great detail. What better way to carry something forward for further research than to snap a photo, take it home, and try to figure out just what it was that I saw in this scene that obviously enchanted me? Otherwise, why did I take 41 photos of essentially the same thing?
OMG, all this beachcombing has finally paid off with us finding this pristine and intact ancient crystal sea tentacle. We’d read about them in an old Assyrian papyrus scroll that, while of Middle East origin, was actually found intact in Pompeii, Italy, during World War II by Caroline’s marauding Nazi great uncle Siegfried Handarbeit and brought back to the Fatherland (now known as modern Germany). I know it’s hard to believe, but he brought back a couple dozen of these scrolls, one of which talks of a recipe for a kind of lamb taco that was a Turkish invention; who knew? Yet another speaks of predictions that were to happen in the coming 4,000 years, but that stuff is kind of sensitive, and we’re not ready to share that yet. Anyway, back to the crystal sea tentacle, it is said that the person(s) who come into possession of this Akkadian mystical relic will forever experience pure love. I can attest to the power of the myth as that is surely just the way it’s happening as I write these very words.
By now, I might have thought Caroline and I had already walked every major stretch of beach here in Oregon, but it turns out that there are large parts of it that are unexplored. Last year we had this recognition at Moolack Beach just north of here in Newport. The mouth of Yaquina Bay has a jetty we are walking towards as I look for an angle of the Yaquina Bay Bridge to photograph. Caroline is not bothered by this errand as she’s in love with bridges as much as she is with walking next to the surf, picking up small pieces of trash on the shore, staring at the birds eating crabs or those that run next to the edge of the pulsing shoreline or admiring the clear blue skies without a cloud in sight that seems to be a good indicator of what kind of weather we’ll have today.
This is the moment when I realized that these grasses that are always brown, in my experience, may not always be so. I wonder how different things would look if, instead of the warm browns, tans, and orangish colors of fall, things were in the vibrant hues of spring or early summer.
As we make our way down the jetty, we follow the rocky shore that continues along the bay ultimately passing under the bridge before a path on the other side brought us into the Newport Historic Bayfront. Many of these iconic bridges, such as this one right here, were designed by Conde Balcom McCullough back in the 1920s and ’30s. Sadly, in looking this information up, I learned that one of his designs, the Alsea Bay Bridge between Waldport and Bayshore, was stricken with fatigue as it aged and was replaced, which has me wondering how many of these iconic parts of the landscape will still be standing 20 years from now? There are remains of the old Alsea Bay Bridge at a wayside on the north end of the current bridge that I didn’t learn about until after our trip, and neither of us has seen it on the many crossings of the new bridge. Yet another reason to return to Oregon.
It’s Thanksgiving Day morning, so the streets of Newport here in the old town are empty. This works out perfectly for me as we can window shop, but there is no dipping into shops, or is there? These crab pots are ready to go to sea; just stuff in some bait before throwing them overboard, and the crab climbs in. Time for cranky old John to make an appearance in drawing a metaphor for the similarities between crabs and people as when you look at the box of plastic we call TV and fill it with the bait of some stupid show, watching the viewer crawl right in, trapped and ready to be used.
This is not a sea lion, not even a little bit. While to my right and just below us are at least a couple of dozen of the grunting, bellowing giants, most of them dozing on some floating docks. They are catching glimmers of the sun but are mostly in the shade. This makes photographing them particularly difficult, so instead of sharing a bad photo (yes, I am aware that any photo I post here could be seen as bad), I’m offering up this image of the ubiquitous seagull. I was surprised by its patience after I asked it to hang out, and it let me come closer to snap its photo. While it kept a close eye on me before heading aloft, I was able to get the sense that it might have been posing.
Say hello to Mr. Victor Firebear, originally of Montana but now a man with a wandering nature where anywhere might become home for a spell. Singing and playing violin streetside here on Thanksgiving, I gave a nod while raising my camera, silently asking if it was okay to snap a photo; he obliged me. Caroline and I hung out for a few songs of his spontaneous concert. This nomadic busker was incredibly gracious and enthusiastic about knocking out the songs for an appreciative audience that included us and a couple of women who were here representing Jehovah’s Witnesses. Mr. Firebear is half Northern Cheyenne and half Crow, with both parents having been full-blood Native Americans from their respective tribes. You should be so lucky to have the opportunity to hear this guy sing on a street corner some cold fall day; you can rest assured we extended our thanks to him for giving us this serenading.
By now, we were 4 miles into our walk, and it was well past noon. Back up the hill, over and around the old lighthouse, we returned to where we parked the car so we could go find lunch.
It seems fitting to me in our non-traditional pursuit of Thanksgiving experiences that we should forego the staid old turkey and stuffing dinner and instead go back to the Newport Cafe for a Monster Burger. Weighing in at a puny 3 pounds, I let Caroline talk (coerce) me out of ordering the 8-pound Super Ultimate Monster that I’ve been wanting for YEARS!
Having had a late giant breakfast, we weren’t all too sure we were even hungry enough to finish the 3-pounder, yet we polished it off, leaving the bun as the only evidence that there had been a burger on this plate. With post-feasting naps typically not appreciated at restaurants and an abundance of great weather, we waste no time getting back on the road.
Ah, Moolack Beach by Moolack Shores Inn has fond memories for us. No time to walk this stretch of coast today, though, as we have some unscheduled unknown date with someplace up north that we’ll figure out when we get there should we find what it is we are looking for today.
This is the Otter Creek Loop that runs parallel to Highway 101 offering better viewing opportunities of the ocean. Did we find what we were looking for here? Not exactly, although places like this on days like this can come close to filling the gaps or refreshing memories of places we’ve been before, so there’s that. By the way, can you tell from the position this image was taken just after the curve on a one-way road that I might be “that guy” who doesn’t use a lot of caution when seeing a photo I must have?
Still on the Otter Crest Loop enjoying quiet roads with the majority of Americans safe at home with their families, watching football, getting stuffed, napping, and ultimately arguing before heading home, swearing off another Thanksgiving with all the accompanying drama.
While at Rocky Creek State Scenic Viewpoint, we failed to find the creek, but this was our first time here, so we’ll simply have to make a return visit to pay closer attention to the finer details that skipped us by.
It is through Rocky Creek that we got to this overview of Whale Cove. Some years ago, near the edge of this cove, construction began on what would become a hotel called the Whale Cove Inn. It’s a great-looking place with a spectacular location, but at $500 a night and above, it remains out of our grasp. Sure, we could splurge and grab a couple of nights, but let’s get serious, as the $1,000 would pay for 21 nights in yurts up and down the coast. I guess this is where I should share our motto, “Live frugally and live large.”
Heading back through the Rocky Creek wooded area, there would be no glimpse of the Buffalo Bills, Detroit Lions, or Dallas Cowboys, who were all playing football today. How do I know what teams were playing? I had to look it up after the fact. There were glimpses of the ocean, a happy face on Caroline, a rich palette of colors basking in the sun, and walking with more walking that kept bringing us to a ton of ooh and aah moments. As I sit in a coffee shop writing this, I wish to feel the forest floor under my feet again.
Following some small roads through a residential neighborhood, we came across a small parking lot for Fishing Rock. There was no doubt that we’d have to take the walk. I can’t emphasize enough that Caroline and I are surprised by the number of places we’ve not visited yet. After so many trips up and down this coast, we feel that by now, we’ve likely seen the majority of locations where one can get out to gain a new perspective of the scenery, and yet that’s just what we’re doing over and over again.
A still wet, muddy, and steep segment of the Oregon Coast Trail heads down to the beach in front of us here at the Fishing Rock State Recreation Site. While we couldn’t walk this particular stretch of beach right in front of us, if you look well into the distance, we’ll be out there on Gleneden Beach, though we didn’t know it yet.
The trail here offers some great views, or maybe they’re only great to us because we’ve never seen them before. There are other parts of the trail that are falling into the ocean, which asks the question, how long until Fishing Rock is in the ocean swimming with the fishies?
Any other twisted gnarl of wood would be just that, but this is Oregon Coast Gnarl being bleached by the sun, salt, and sand, so in my eyes, this rises to the level of art.
Gleneden Beach was another one of those wandering around residential neighborhood finds. If the shadows don’t clue you into the time of day, the next photo will.
For the first time ever, Caroline and I are present at Gleneden Beach to watch the sunset. Of the multitude of places we could have been, this is where we ended up. One has to ask, how lucky was that?
Arriving at Siletz Bay for the remaining glow of sunset is a dream. I often wonder how these serendipitous moments just keep occurring in our lives. Make yourself available for life’s surprises and rewards, and the universe delivers. If you are smart, you’ll try to grab your fair share of the extraordinary as all too soon, it will all be extinguished as our fleeting encounter of knowing time comes to an end.
Dinner at Maxwell’s was meh in comparison to everything else that happened today, but Caroline was satisfied with her turkey dinner and craft beer. The yurt at Devils Lake State Recreation Site was kind of meh, too, as it is the one park on the coast that’s within city limits. The Lincoln City police were far too aggressive with the use of sirens here on Thanksgiving, disturbing the tranquility of the evening; maybe it was their anger at not being allowed to enjoy the day with their loved ones.
