John Wise – Page 128 – Dreams, Moments, Travels

The Fruits of Coastal Labor

December 24, 2019 JWise Photo of the Day

John Wise wearing handmade socks in Phoenix, Arizona

While up in Oregon last month Caroline toiled away in the minutes found here and there while out and about, but especially in the evenings when I would sit down to write of the day. Her task was the turning of yarn we’d picked up at Knitted Wit in Portland during a previous visit into custom-fitted socks tailored specifically to my feet; these are those socks. For about a dozen years now Caroline has been making my socks, although they started out with the most conservative of colors as I have to admit that at the time I was reluctant to give in to wearing such things. You see, I’m a product of the 60s and 70s when handknitted clothes demonstrated your commitment to the hippy ethos. The idea of returning to the days of those stereotypes was anathema to my sense of the modern (read: bias). Reluctantly I accepted a gift from my mother-in-law Jutta who made my very first pair, though she needed extensive help from Caroline (and her sister Stephanie, since they were not finished by the time Jutta returned home).

Through the intervening years, Caroline has knitted me 19 pairs of socks with just two pairs needing to be retired due to me wearing them out. How appropriate that in 2020 I will receive my 20th pair of socks made by her labor of love for me. This next pair is already underway being knitted with yarn I picked up at Die WollLust while in Berlin earlier this year. They are difficult and have proven time-consuming as while I was in the shop picking up yarns that she wanted I spotted some patterns I found intriguing and so I purchased the yarn and had it sent to the States. Sitting in our cabinets and shelves where our hoard of yarns gathers dust are at least another dozen skeins of fingering weight in vibrant colorways waiting their turn to be knitted and purled into sexy foot gloves that have proven to be so attractive to the fans I gather once they witness such handsomely dressed feet.

P.S. This is about the closest we’ll ever get to having a Christmas tree, so Ho-Ho-Ho and all that stuff.

Oregon Coast 2019 – Day 9

December 1, 2019 JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Seaside Beach in Oregon

Cannon Beach (not pictured as we were already in Seaside before I took a photo) is where we spent the better part of a few of our previous trips to Oregon and was the starting location for this last day of our visit. With the rain coming down, we skipped the usual beach walk that would take us past Haystack Rock and instead left immediately for Seaside just north of us. This brings up one of the considerations of pre-booking a room, which, unfortunately, is often required on holiday weekends.

Had we woken to nice weather, we wouldn’t have cared about breakfast (and remaining dry) quite so much; we would have started on the beach first thing, and our day would have likely included a walk at Ecola State Park. The premium we paid to be in Cannon Beach would have been justified for our convenience of doing more with the short day under sunny skies. Instead, we incurred an extra $70-$90 for our room but have nothing else of value for putting our heads down here. So it goes, and like all things on vacation, we have to negotiate the variables.

Seaside Beach in Oregon

While it may well be a gray day for the remainder of our time out here, we must consider what we’ve heard about the freeze the rest of the country is experiencing and even take note of the snow blanket on the mountains just east of us. Being lucky enough that we can take this short walk between rain showers makes things quite okay. Three tornadoes touched down in Phoenix a couple of days ago, one of them only about 5 miles away from where we live. The Grand Canyon had blizzard-like conditions, losing electricity and heat, all of this while we walked the seashore with nary a care.

Seaside Beach in Oregon

The photos so far are of the beach in Seaside and were taken after our interesting breakfast at the Osprey Cafe. The wait for a table was well worth it as I can say I’ve never had Nasi Goreng for breakfast; it was even topped with an egg, making it especially breakfasty. While I’m at it, Caroline opted for Huevos Rancheros with a kind of corn cake called arepas. We’ll be back.

Dough Dough Bakery in Seaside, Oregon

It was starting to rain again as we finished our walk for the short drive to the intersection of Broadway and Holladay Drive and a return to the Beach Books store. Last year, we met Alexa, who we learned yesterday is working today. The Seaside Yarn and Fiber store is two doors down, and in between is the Dough Dough Bakery with hot coffee, free WiFi, and some excellent baked goods. After talking books for a time with Alexa, I headed into the bakery to catch up on some very neglected blogging chores.

Armed with more coffee and willing to suffer greater indulgence for the sake of allowing me to extol the virtues of being fully on vacation where the senses should always be operating at full capacity, I had a cinnamon roll. What’s the big deal? It’s just a pastry, right? Not to a person with diabetes; it’s evil incarnate and promises to spit on my cells that cannot absorb any more glucose. More insulin is the solution, you say? Not in my world where exercise, diet control, and Metformin have been able to keep things in check. This form of hedonistic debauchery in the realm of culinary sweets is tightly controlled, but not on vacation, as that would be torture.

Seaside Yarn and Fiber in Seaside, Oregon

Let’s pretend this is just a normal day and that we live here in retirement. This raises my ire as it brings up what is broken with Oregon beyond the clearcutting of forests and overfishing: the cost of real estate. Wealth from outside the area has moved in on the coast, buying up property for vacation homes and investments, thus driving up the cost of real estate for everyone else. You need not point out that this is the norm in cities across America, allowing the wealthy to earn more from their already concentrated wealth. Combine the rising cost of a dwelling, be it a rental or purchase of a home in places with relatively depressed economies where most people make something under $15 an hour, and you have a recipe for pain.

The idea that we could rent a place in northern Italy cheaper than we can two miles inland in Florence, Oregon, strikes me as a horrible deal that doesn’t bode well for the local economies up and down the coast here. Instead of Caroline and I leaving our savings here in Oregon, we’ll likely be spending them across the Atlantic, where our cost of living will be more manageable. What justifies these extraordinary inequalities where a small cadre of wealthy people are able to bring financial ruin to so many? These actions drive the people of lesser means out of the region into bigger cities, but their lack of formal education relegates these transplants to menial jobs. I guess this is one way to curtail Hispanic immigration.

This is not a win-win situation for anyone unless the wealthy, who are displacing the residents of this coastal region, believe their working-class minions will commute 20 to 70 miles from points inland to take the jobs of serving them lattes and walking their dogs. As I write this, I want to blurt out that I think this is just plain old fucked. Maybe you are suggesting I do something about it? Well, what does one do in a country where mediocrity and acceptance of a distorted and broken status quo rule the day? Ayn Rand, with her idiotic Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, was wildly successful in bringing us to a pure version of survival of the fittest, which has translated into everyone out for themselves and be damned those of you who can’t keep up. To this end, I don’t feel we are any longer Americans except when someone asks us for our hopes and prayers, to stand for the national anthem, or somebody brings up soldiers and their sacrifices.

Beach Books in Seaside, Oregon

Out of the bakery and back to the bookshop. This being Sunday, the bakery closes early at 1:00 p.m. due to business fading after the rush of people leaving church services. At the last minute, Caroline decided she really liked the Dough Dough Bird t-shirt too much to let it go, so we have one more item to pack tonight.

It looks like we might have another book or so coming home with us, including The Triumph of Seeds: How Grains, Nuts, Kernels, Pulses, and Pips Conquered the Plant Kingdom and Shaped Human History by Thor Hanson that Alexa inadvertently brought our attention to. She also let us leave with Me and Mr. Cigar by Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers and The Adventurer’s Son: A Memoir by Roman Dial. These two last titles are not due out until next year; lucky us. These would join yesterday’s findings with 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann, SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard, and Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey.

The Ken Kesey book was recommended to us down south while at the Siuslaw Pioneer Museum in Florence due to our interest in the historic industrial side of Oregon and how its past is crashing into the reality of the present. While I thought there was a small chance we’d find this title up here in Seaside, I was surprised that they’d have a title that is 42 years old, even if it is about Oregon.

This makes me wonder about resource depletion going on 100 years ago and how the wealthy are depleting the working class today by harvesting every penny they can from them through owning their homes and apartments and wrecking their participation in acquiring a quality life for themselves. But who cares about the unwashed masses who made their bed and are now being forced to sleep in it, right? I care because Caroline and I could easily be priced out of our vacations. Right now, we are privileged to have the means to bring ourselves into these kinds of experiences and are well aware of the fact that the majority of people along this coast do not have the ability to take themselves even down to Arizona, forget about the expense of heading to Europe for a few weeks.

Moss is allowed to live a better, more symbiotic life here on the coast, where, from its vantage point near the ocean, it lives free. Its descendants inherit its place tax-free and do not require an expensive university education to make a living. The birds take a place on the beach or on a tree branch when not darting about the sky without a license or rules they have to follow as they travel freely on their quest to find food along the way. Only when humans come along to displace their habitats do these creatures and plants find their existence threatened.

I’ve probably made this exact lament at least one other time here on my blog, but I feel it bears repeating. I’m supposed to feel free. To the extent that Caroline and I have the education and economic ability to bring ourselves into these adventures, I certainly feel lucky, but I also appreciate that so many more people in Europe have the same opportunities and means to share in the extraordinary. I attribute this perceived disparity to giant differences in health, education, and business practices in Europe that have at least some bias favoring the common individual. Europe’s population is twice that of America’s, and yet they can afford free university, great public transportation, and a humane amount of paid vacation for the individual to find a quality of life that better justifies the sacrifices made for the state and for big business.

Astoria–Megler Bridge between Oregon and Washington over the Columbia River

Bridges are interesting in regard not only to transportation but to human endeavors, too. In practice, they make moving between two geographical points easier, saving us time and allowing us better access to things and people that might otherwise be out of reach. In society, we use bridges as part of our social networking, which is supposed to offer us access to opportunity, but as we become electronic shadows of our former selves, we are increasingly irrelevant as part of the intellectual highway system. In that sense, it’s as though this bridge over the Columbia had been built for birds that would just fly from shore to shore. So why is this human-to-human bridge failing?

Is it because of our dismal view of one another? Is it because we no longer feel like an integral part of a larger thing and instead are isolated electrons in orbital positions around a nucleus of the ego existing in a void? Are we nothing more than a transaction with an IP number moving about like some anonymous packet of data? While hydrogen and oxygen are almost inextricably entangled in a water configuration, it is as though we humans are on a path towards oblivion, believing we can be on our own alone in a universe where the execution of financial transactions is the apex of being. Community and belonging to a larger something is going extinct.

Dismal Nitch in Washington

Our act of becoming nothing was being recognized by the early 1980s as Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari were writing about our deterritorialization in the book A Thousand Plateaus. In the ensuing years, we’ve accelerated the process and broken free of all territories on our way to full dematerialization. While those authors were seeing the hints of losing cultural meaning they could never have predicted that the personal electronic economy would not only remove any vestige of personal territory but that it would reject the physical existence of the individual.

As we become electronic puppets on the stage of parody where consumerism has replaced survival, we no longer have a need to be human in the sense that we are an evolutionary species seeking meaning. In another age, we learned to brave the elements, were taught about our environment, we sought symbiosis with a hostile world. Becoming nothing more than information, are we casting the die that suggests that without meaning, the course of evolution may have little need of us?

In an otherwise symbiotic system where death and growth found balance, maintaining relative harmony, we humans discovered ways of subverting nature while destroying our life support system. Simultaneously, we have been dispatching culture and turning ourselves into binary anonymity. Where we used to be a family, community, town, village, state, or country, we are quickly approaching that of being nothing.

Not that any of that really has relevance here, as the larger issue is why we ever believed that the proliferation of information was going to act as a great equalizer by making the wider distribution of knowledge something empowering. Greater access has had the contrary effect in exposing the depth of the individual’s proclivities towards debased idiocy. Collectively, we pander to the lowest common denominator in the name of individual choice under the guise of freedom. We are bullshitting ourselves at the expense of our continued existence but are rendered too narrow-minded to understand our predicament. A dismal situation indeed.

Caroline Wise and John Wise at Dismal Nitch in Washington

Caroline’s and my situation, on the other hand, is anything but dismal when I consider that we have options, can travel, read, write, explore our minds, develop skills, and contemplate the deeper corners of the ocean, the cosmos, and our emotions I realize our inventory of wealth is overflowing. We continuously try to build bridges with everyone and everything we encounter. While I have embraced our deterritorialization on a path to better knowing our world without any personal allegiance to any particular state, we are at the same time cultivating a global reterritorialization where we work to develop a kindred spirit with everyone. Our path doesn’t see us fading into dematerialization and nothingness as we do not lead a passive life of observation but are out here trying to find the things we do not know, understand, or fully comprehend. On occasion, we stumble into the profound and magical, dressed in moments of love that bring sunshine to the most dismal of days.

Oregon Coast 2019 – Day 8

November 30, 2019 JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Wheeler, Oregon

Deep down, I was hoping for poor weather with bland gray skies after I saw how cold it was outside. Instead, I need to bundle up and brave the elements in order to capture a view I want to remember forever. While difficult to make it out in this image, there is a ton of ice on those docks, the matter of fact is that everything is covered in frosty ice out here.

Wheeler, Oregon

This is the opposite view of where I was just looking; I hope you can sense the appeal we feel when we are passing over the road out of view on my right that we typically keep driving over as we pass through Wheeler. Enough of the great outdoors for now, as the fireplace in our room is required to bring me back to that toasty warmth and comfort of our room with a view.

Wheeler, Oregon

We had to wait for the clock hands to approach the nine o’clock hour as our breakfast joint didn’t open till then. Even so, it was difficult leaving our spot next to the fire compared to the previous days in slightly chilly yurts where once outside of our down comforter, most of our sense of the cozy was broken, and we had more to gain by bailing out of the yurt and heading for breakfast or just accepting the cold and going on a walk next to the ocean.

Wheeler, Oregon

I suppose for someone who lives in a location where winter is a normal occurrence, photos such as these are well understood and are simply a part of your normal. For Caroline and I, they are extraordinary appearances of something not well understood and even somewhat forgotten.

Wheeler, Oregon

Ice crystals sprouting off of leaves, is this magic or what? What should have only been about a 5-minute walk to the bakery takes more and more time as we pause to investigate this phenomenon known as the approach of winter.

Wheeler, Oregon

Handy Creek Bakery here in Wheeler was our breakfast stop. We have to blurt out that this place is noteworthy and that it will become a regular stop on future visits to this corner of America. If you are in a hurry, this is not the place for you, and you should go elsewhere. How slow? We spent a total of 90 minutes here before paying our bill. Of course, we complicated things by starting with coffee and a warmed homemade cinnamon roll, followed by our breakfast proper before total indulgence set in, requiring us to share a brioche with strawberry mascarpone. A type of pastry that I believe I could survive on for the rest of my life. I will forever now ask my wife why I let her talk me out of taking a half dozen of them for the road.

Regarding the frozen puddle pictured above that intrigued us so much with its weird patterns, it took a bit of thinking, but I think I figured it out. As the temperature drops overnight and the edges of the shallow puddle start to freeze, it pulls in water from the deeper section, creating a ridge of ice that appears as a ring. This pattern continues toward the center until most, if not all, of the water from the puddle is absorbed by the ice above.

Manhattan Beach, Oregon in Tillamook County

Our shadows are bundled up and snuggling, trying to stay warm as they explore the shore, free of the whining owners who are waiting in the car with the heater on.

If you are wondering how we got this crab to stop and pose for us, you’d be mistaken. It is dead with its life force sucked right out or pecked, depending on how accurate I should be. The shell was upside down with NO legs attached whatsoever, just another victim of a seagull that plucked it from its watery reality and used it for sustenance. A bit further down the beach, we spotted the legs scattered about, probably distributed by waves that were moving them around. We collected the puzzle parts and Frankenstein-like tried putting it back together, but without a heart, this crab wasn’t continuing its journey down the yellow brick road. It was a dead end.

Manhattan Beach, Oregon in Tillamook County

While patterns are everywhere in life, there are some that are more appealing to the aesthetics of each human being. Caroline and I happen to be in lockstep when it comes to tripping out of crazy patterns left in the sand by things such as water flowing over its surface or footprints left by some creature or other.

Manhattan Beach, Oregon in Tillamook County

We rarely find an intact sand dollar on the shore, though that doesn’t stop us from looking for the next perfect exemplar of its species that I’d want to carry home with me.

Manhattan Beach, Oregon in Tillamook County

We’ve been exploring Manhattan Beach here in Tillamook County on our way back south. Why are we backtracking? We arrived last night in the dark, and our destination to the north is only 18 miles from the lodge, so we might as well be certain if we’ve seen all that we should have. This particular beach is just north of Rockaway Beach, which is another location we’ve stayed at along the Oregon coast, but this stretch of the ocean didn’t register with either of us as having been walked next to before, so it was certainly deserving of our gaze.

Steam Train in Garibaldi, Oregon

From Rockaway Beach all the way to Garibaldi, I tried getting a decent photo of this old steam train we’d never seen running before, and we’ve been here countless times, so you’d think we’d get a glimpse of it if even for just a second, right? Well, it turns out that here in the town where the train originates, I would capture the image that would satisfy me. There are no electricity lines, street signs, or cars, but what’s more, is that there are logs in the background and with Oregon being known for its forest products 100 years ago, this seemed fitting.

Garibaldi, Oregon

On our last night in the yurts, we’d noticed when packing up our bedding that our pillowcases were wearing thin. No, we do not have a second set we could change into when we get home, as our particular pillowcases were handmade by Caroline and are quite special to us. Knowing they’d have to be retired, we spoke of needing to buy fabric so she could make us new ones. Well, it turns out that a small shop in Garibaldi called Swift Stitches sells fabric, and they’re open. Our new pillowcases now have the fabric that is destined to rest under our sleeping heads. Bubbles will be on one side, and the crabs will be on the other. Our current pillowcases were yellow with tiny snails, but they’ll soon be retired for these reminders of our vacations to Oregon.

Garibaldi, Oregon

Hungry again, we looked for something to eat out at the Port of Garibaldi but didn’t find anything that caught our eye.

Garibaldi, Oregon

The scenery out here at the port though certainly enchanted us, getting us out of the car to walk around and inspect the world from this point of view.

From here, we had a little further south to drive before arriving in Tillamook with the hope of lunch. Fast food was our choice as it was a mindless decision in a city notoriously difficult for us to get something good to eat. Yes, we’ve eaten at the Blue Heron French Cheese Company, but on holiday weekends, that place is packed, so we’d rather not deal with that side of traveling over Thanksgiving.

We knew that the Tillamook Cheese Factory would be inundated and was out of consideration for a stop this trip. Ice cream from the place, though, is hard to pass up, and after already having passed Tillamook, we said to heck with impatience and turned around to indulge our vacationing selves. We found parking right away and were certain we’d be partying with marionberry pie ice cream just minutes from now. The two lines were both at least 30 minutes long, which convinced us simultaneously that we didn’t need this as badly as we’d been thinking minutes before.

Silver Point Interpretive Overlook south of Cannon Beach, Oregon

Silver Point Interpretive Overlook south of Cannon Beach is a good indicator of what was going on with our weather. By the time we were going to reach Cannon Beach proper, it would be almost dark, and there was not going to be a chance for a spectacular or even mediocre sunset, so we headed to Seaside to visit a favorite bookstore and the yarn shop next door. I’m going to save those stories for the last day of our trip to Oregon, as we spent a good amount of time there. That last day is the one that follows this one.

Cannon Beach, Oregon at night

This really is a photo pointing at the beach and surf in Cannon Beach, not just a black rectangle. We needed a walk as our step count was not yet at 10k. Though it was cold and windy with a good amount of darkness, we headed out into the unknown. Not expecting rain until later in the night, it had already clouded over, so there’d be no help from the stars and moon for lighting our way, but that didn’t stop us from getting in a good mile and a half walk. The trail took us south of our lodging out to Tolovana Beach. Tomorrow’s forecast is calling for rain for the majority of the day; here’s to hoping they were wrong.

Oregon Coast 2019 – Day 7

November 29, 2019 JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

This answers the age-old question: “What does a yurt in a city look like?” Well, in Oregon, it looks like this. So this isn’t really an age-old question, but should anyone have been wondering, they now know the answer. What would be more helpful for me personally would be to have an index of trip notes per state that we’d check prior to leaving for a place with warnings of where we don’t want to return to. As I lamented in yesterday’s blog post, the police sirens put a serious damper on what should have been a better visit to one of Oregon’s state parks.

Do you see that pristine blue sky? It was accompanied by below-freezing air. The idea of being out here alone as people recovered from yesterday’s festivities proved wrong, with some hearty individuals braving the cold with us. Shortly after starting our walk north, we came upon a guy standing in the surf fishing this early Friday morning. Not far past him, though, was a really tough guy: while the first fisherman was wearing waders, this second one was in shorts and neoprene booties. Now, we were thoroughly impressed and maybe a little embarrassed that we were bundled up for a snowstorm here on a sunny day.

Incredulous is the only way to describe Michael, who is wearing nothing more than shorts and a healthy dose of determination. He strode with obvious intention to head into deeper waters. Without a second of hesitation, he was aiming for the waves. We stood there, gobsmacked that he had the cajones to play the role of Iron Man. There was a woman nearby who seemed to be waiting for him, so we struck up a conversation. It turns out that she’s his mom, and he does this every morning in order to start the day stress-free. We were impressed with this idea of tackling the most difficult moment of the day head-on and by choice.

We can only scratch our heads as to why the jellyfish that wash ashore do so without tentacles. A couple of days ago, we had to Google the toxicity of dead shore-bound jellies as Caroline wanted to touch them, and no matter whichever idiot in my youth convinced me that even onshore, they are poisonous, I carried that and insisted that my wife leave them alone. Upon finding out that it is mainly the man o’ war and bluebottle jellies found in warm tropical waters that can be problematic (yet rarely deadly) and that cold water jellies, while they may act as an irritant, are never deadly. With this knowledge, we take license to finally know how gooey, slimy, and jelly-like these animals from the Cnidaria phylum are.

This creature hails from the Phylum Mollusca in the Class of Gastropoda. In German, she is known as Schnecke to those who love her. I effortlessly celebrate her most every day – unless she’s being truly difficult, but even then, I am never very far away from knowing how symbiotic I feel with her. It’s as though she’s the snail’s body and I the shell.

When I told Caroline that I wanted to walk to the houses down the beach, she balked at the distance, but that was nearly where we made it. A call of nature at the Road’s End State Recreation Site had the requisite facilities become our turnaround point on this all-morning 5-hour walk up and down the beach.

Remember I told you it was freezing here on the coast? Where freshwater was running over the beach to the ocean, we would occasionally pass ice, but in some places, we’d see these crazy crystalline patterns created by the frozen water sitting atop the sand.

Also, on the sand, we found more jellyfish glistening in the sun. A family trying to examine these specimens was leery about getting too close, so Caroline picked one up and handed it to their teenage son, assuring them it was safe. The kid was delighted, begging his sister to make a video of him holding a jellyfish.

By the time we were done examining everything on the beach, including every jellyfish we came across, it was time for coffee and lunch. Sadly, this might be the one trip to Oregon where we have to forego a Dutch Bros. as they have been incredibly busy yesterday and more so today due to so many people enjoying the great weather on the coast over the long weekend.

A German place called Autobahn 101 was our lunch spot, and just as we’d expected, it was fairly mediocre, but we’d eyeballed it on previous trips through the area and knew sooner or later we had to give it a try. We followed this up with a trip to the giant corporate bully of a coffee franchise that was downright slow compared to Dutch Bros. We were now ready for one of the longest drives of this leg of the vacation, with nearly 70 miles to get us to our destination in Wheeler Bay.

Don’t think for even a minute that during our relatively long drive (said with maximum tongue-in-cheek), we wouldn’t pull over at every location we could. We took a break in Neskowin with the intent of mailing postcards when, in the small parking lot at the end of Neskowin Resort (location of the post office), there was a sign pointing to Neskowin Beach and Proposal Rock. We’d never stopped here before, so that’s all we needed to demand a look.

While the time of day worked against getting a good shot of Proposal Rock, this flock of plovers was a great alternative. I could watch these fast-footed shorebirds for hours, but they are never in one place for more than a few seconds, and if I get too close, they’ll fly away.

In this photo, our next destination is shown, though we didn’t know it at the time. For now, we are content walking on this beach and being in this moment.

It was Caroline becoming enchanted by the rippling sun and shadow playing on the sand of the freshwater in Neskowin Creek that had her pull me over to see it for myself. The rapidly changing scene didn’t let me capture the nearshore parallel lines that would pop up, lengthen, and just as quickly dissipate, morphing into other shapes.

The thumb of the rock (Cape Kiwanda) sticking out of the ocean that can be seen here is the same one I took a photo of from Neskowin; see two images above. We are now standing on the Dune Ridge Trail segment of the 4.8-mile loop known as the Nestucca Spit Trail at the Bob Straub State Park in Pacific City, looking north.

This path started on an arm of the Marsh Trail segment, which, due to its deep sand, is a bit of a slog to walk over. The problem with the depth of the sand is that it’s a very fine powder with deeper pits carved out by the hooves of horses that are obviously frequent visitors to the park. The thicket we are walking through up here on the dune ridge is quite overgrown in parts, making us question if we are still actually on the trail. We’re not too worried, though, as there are plenty of places to dip down to the beach to walk it back to where we parked the car.

Beach circles made by alien spaceships because there is no other explanation.

Grass lines were also impressed upon the earth by alien spacecraft.

Looking out a dry marsh that continues off to the right and over to the brighter green trees. On the other side of that tree line and before the hillside is the Nestucca River that flows into the Nestucca Bay. We couldn’t make it all the way to the end of the spit on this visit, but we’ll be sure to take the full 4.8-mile loop on a subsequent trip to Oregon so we can make our way to the mouth of the bay, see more of the marsh and hopefully walk a bit of the river trail. Across the bay is Porter Point which also has my curiosity and is one of the stretches of beach we’ve yet to explore.

I’m fairly certain these are Sitka Spruce pine cones, which makes me think of the Spruce Goose seaplane built by Howard Hughes that we visited in McMinnville, Oregon, back in September 2011. It was called Spruce Goose even though the plane was made mostly of birch. Thinking about this had me go on a detour to find the blog entry for that particular trip to Oregon, but it turns out I never posted anything as I was neck-deep in writing my book about the Grand Canyon. So now I’ve been over-checking out that six-day vacation that saw us flying in and out of Portland with a ton of reminders of places I’d enjoy revisiting. There can never be enough time and money to do all the things Caroline and I would like to do in life. It probably would have been easier being born as a Sitka spruce pine cone and living in one place to one day just drop to the ground and have a horse hoof grind my remains into the sand before pooping on me.

Those deep holes are from the hooves of horses that passed this way before Caroline and me.

What is it?

Update: I’ve since learned it’s likely from the willow family, one of the Salix varieties.

Heading out towards Whalen Island, looking north. Click here to see a different perspective from 2008 and what is likely my favorite photo I’ve shot from the bridge we are on.

Turn around on the bridge, and this is the view looking to the area that constitutes the largest part of Sand Lake. We’ve not explored this area very well as the island itself is a popular destination with the OHV crowd, and hence, hippies on foot looking for quiet and solitude are probably misplaced.

After making our way up the coast, the road was about to take us inland on the way towards Tillamook. Instead, we opted for the scenic route instead of expediency. Our hope was to capture a glimmer of sunset, and while we didn’t get to exactly where we might have hoped for, we were in for an indulgent surprise. The view is of the Netarts Spit and is a clue about our upcoming stop and why this tiny detour is being made.

Passing Netarts Bay with barely a hint of sun on the horizon, we are about to enter the town of Netarts. Caroline breaks out the old memory machine to start reminiscing about sharing an incredible dish at the Schooner Restaurant and Lounge we’d enjoyed on a previous visit. As a matter of fact, we had already driven by when we decided that an appetizer and a drink wouldn’t hurt our dinner plans, so a quick U-turn was made. Ahh, the joys of spontaneity and not finding disappointment when you walk into a place you have great memories of. Caroline started with a cocktail called Three Gingers and a Red, which was made of Yazi Ginger Vodka, New Deal Ginger Liqueur, ginger simple syrup, and cranberry with a fresh cranberry garnish, while the Oysters Rockoyaki was the only food option for us. What exactly is this appetizer we are so fond of? From the Schooner’s own menu: Netarts Bay oysters wood oven roasted with pork belly, greens & garlic motoyaki sauce. This, of course, asks the question, what is motoyaki sauce? From Wikipedia: Motoyaki is a style of cooking involving baked food topped with a mayonnaise-based sauce served in an oyster shell.

Time to finish the drive to Wheeler Bay and get more dinner at the Salmonberry Saloon. When we started the day, we didn’t know we’d be eating at a saloon for dinner; that idea came after I called the Wheeler on the Bay Lodge to let the owner, Martha, know we’d be there a bit later if that was okay. You see, we’d been through Wheeler many other times and had spoken of staying here. So far, we’d always forgotten; this time, we didn’t. What we weren’t sure of though, was does Wheeler have a place for dinner? Martha told us that there was a great place next door, and without hearing about the menu, we decided that no matter what the fare, we’d support another small business in this tiny roadside town. What a great treat the Salmonberry is, we’ll be back for a second round for sure.

Martha at the Lodge is an amazing host and might be the most enthusiastic person on the Oregon coast you’ll likely meet. Her place is right on the bay, and had we known then what we know now, we’d have booked room #9, which has to be one of the most romantic rooms out here. Room 9 is the Mermaid Room and has the best view, a deck overlooking the bay, and the greatest bathtub in a cedar paneled room, while the bedroom also has a fireplace. Seriously, it doesn’t get better than this. Actually, it does because the Handy Creek Bakery and Cafe is a 5-minute walk away, but that’s for breakfast, and I’ll get to that in tomorrow’s blog entry.

Oregon Coast 2019 – Day 6

November 28, 2019 JWise Food, Photo of the Day, Travels

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.

Caroline Wise burger in Newport, Oregon

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.

Oregon Coast 2019 – Day 5

November 27, 2019 JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

John Wise at our Yurt at Carl G Washburne State Park in Florence, Oregon

If I’ve got to be an old man, I’m happy to be this one in the photo. Gone from those eyes are the angst of youth. I see a guy happy and comfortable where he’s at, cozy too, with all that wool wrapping him up warmly. Like many others have said before me and have done so with a flair, while the youth may be gone from my appearance, it still rages hard within my spirit. Of course, my wife might interpret that as me still being half an idiot or that I’ve forgotten that I’m technically the age of a grandpa, though she’d also insist that I’ve mastered the poor humor of such an old guy.