The Surrealism Of It All

JWise Photo of the Day, Thoughts, Travels

Sunrise on Highway 138 in California

The act of going on vacation, which I termed Remote Self-Isolation, was fraught with tensions due to the escalating outbreaks and fears that with the colder weather and holiday season that pulls families together, America would experience a massive uptick in COVID-19 infections. For the month prior to our departure, I was never sure if our road trip to the Oregon coast was going to take place. Travel restrictions, lodging cancellations, or lock-down orders were never far from my mind.

When we finally started moving west towards the California border, each mile felt extraordinary because we were actually traveling for pleasure during a pandemic. It felt counter-intuitive. We made it to Fresno, California, over 600 miles from home, back on the first day. I was still incredulous that we’d be allowed to take a room in a hotel, as though we’d be questioned about our travel intents. Maybe if our reason for being on the road wasn’t strong enough, we’d be denied lodging and so I was prepared with some concocted nonsense story just in case we were questioned. That story was never well thought out as I know it wasn’t reasonable that we’d be asked anything as truckers and people moving homes had continued traveling the whole time, but that’s where nine months of self-isolation had put a part of my brain.

Entering Oregon, the place was at once familiar and, at the same time, different. Traffic was lighter; that was probably the first thing you would notice. Restaurants were closed or had prominent signs up telling passers-by that they were still doing takeout or food to go. Sure, we’d known this from our bubble in Phoenix. but this was the distant coast, and for some reason, it felt abruptly different. All the same, this was vacation, and if it only lasted a day or two, we’d try to extract all we could from this opportunity to be out. Staying at locations longer, intentionally booking places with kitchens so we could prepare the majority of our meals to choosing our lodgings, considering that we’d be effectively sheltering in place, so we’d better be prepared to entertain ourselves. While it seemed absurd that we should be doing this during a pandemic, things went smashingly well.

But then it all goes and gets wrapped in the punctuation of surrealism as, about 100 miles from home, our car, with us in it, was hit by someone with no interest in dealing with slowing down and confronting what they had just done. We were already traveling at about 75 – 80 mph when a car came out of nowhere and drifted into our lane doing about 100 mph. That car collided with us (or gently bumped us, I suppose) as they quickly recovered and took off even faster while we continued miraculously forward. It took a second for us to wrap our shocked minds around what had just occurred and catapulted us into adrenalized emotional shock. I hit the gas as our car seemed okay to give chase and try to record the license plate. However, that was futile because the other driver was adamant that today was not the day to swap insurance info. I hit 95 mph and started to realize the other person was not, in fact, going to pull over, so I called 911. I learned for the first time that just talking to the phone in my pocket with, “Okay, Google, call 911,” worked to call some 911 network that quickly transferred me to the Arizona Department of Public Safety, our version of the Highway Patrol. At this point, when I started explaining what happened and what we knew about the other driver, it started to really dawn on me that we’d been in an accident. Emotions started to seep in, and I knew the chase was over and that we needed to pull over; the car was in some state of post-crash status, and me getting wrecked, too, now.

Hit and run of our Kia in the Arizona Desert

We pulled off at Exit 81, the Salome Road offramp. Stepping out of the car we couldn’t fathom how little damage there was to the car, considering how the cars collided.

The DPS officer showed up about an hour after the initial call; we made our report and drove home. The time between was good for the two of us, as it allowed the panic to subside and a sense of normal to return. Getting home, we went through the routine of starting laundry, draining the ice chest, putting stuff away, etc. We’d been home a few hours by the time the last effects of the shock were subsiding. It was then that the whole thing truly seemed unreal, “Had we really been the victims of a hit-and-run accident just before lunch today?” We’d just finished nearly three weeks of travels during what amounts to a plague with people masked up, hurt, and in fear. Food from restaurants is taken home or eaten right in the car in a parking lot. Marijuana can be delivered or picked up in the drive-thru. Limits on how many people are allowed in businesses are in effect, and in some cases, you are greeted outdoors when a person in gloves and a mask comes out to ask what you want to buy. We rarely spoke to anyone, and checking into our lodgings, we never saw anyone other than the couple of times we stayed at hotels. The surrealism of it all was astonishing.

Now stop and think about just how strange the entire phenomenon of traveling is as you course over the surface of the earth at 80 mph. Or maybe you are aloft in the sky, 5 miles over the roads and sea, speeding along at 575 mph before arriving at your destination. A room awaits you with the amenities you desire, most likely with heating and air-conditioning, don’t forget the TV and wifi, but if you are renting a house, you can expect the number of bedrooms you reserved along with a kitchen stocked with the utensils and instruments you are likely familiar with at home. You are at this new location with your smartphone at your disposal, so you start live streaming right away to a friend or relative, possibly thousands of miles away, sharing in your amazement.

We take things for granted, we define our normal by what we are currently doing and we rarely stop to reflect on how peculiar it all is. In some way, we are all playing in madness by doing what we do, unaware of how random it is that we try to create patterns of behavior out of the chaos of any number of directions our lives could be lived. We’ve recently been witnessing a political apparatus in Washington D.C. consume itself with the rationalization that, because things were being done the way they were, that must be the way they need to be in order for things to work. Confronted with a pandemic, we strangely throw our hands up and feign ignorance about what we should be doing when to this lay-person it was obvious that we needed to “Stop, drop and roll,” metaphorically speaking.

In the last few weeks, we ventured out to try and capture a small part of our former normal: vacationing in Oregon. An ongoing pandemic hinted this was insane, but we could justify it by explaining that our current normal had grown stale and that we needed a break from the routine. We’d driven Interstate 10, possibly hundreds of times by now. Our normal was simply driving it; this time, reality crashed into us, reminding Caroline and me that the two bipeds in the steel cage were moving 26 times our normal walking speed while a virus that doesn’t know borders was potentially present in places our eyesight doesn’t have the capability to see. How crazy is all this?

Our limited senses need the occasional reboot, and 2020 is certainly a year where slowly everyone on our planet is getting it that life has variables that are not always predictable. Relative stability has been a luxury for many in the West since the end of World War II, but prior to that, humanity was living every year in 2020.

All of this begs the question, “Why are we not striving to do our best at making life more meaningful and equipping each other with knowledge and tools to have better lives?”

The only answer I’ve been able to come up with is that a downtrodden class of people, unable to question their circumstances, are being led by a ruling class of the privileged, afraid to ask many questions or alter paradigms out of fear of losing their wealthy positions. We are stuck in a primitive situation unable to budge from our Stone Age roots. Yeah, I know that calling us Stone Age is a bit dramatic, so maybe readers would prefer I reference that we are closer to our Bronze Age ancestors. But why would I be so condescending when humanity has made such incredible technological strides?

A subset of humanity has made those inventions, building upon advancements discovered by an even smaller group of highly intelligent creators. While many have benefited from the dispersion of tools of convenience and shelter offered to the masses, we individuals are further out of touch with life survival skills, personal sustainability skills, or even interests not ordained by mass culture that is actually created by a very small population of literate and technologically adept individuals. The average person cannot farm, make cloth, build a home, treat a wound, hunt, fish, write coherently, read at a respectable level, and most importantly, think.

Big claim, huh? If we are thinking creatures, then why is the misery bestowed upon so many? In my own way, I try to think about many things, many esoteric things that don’t impact my own life such as where do newts sleep. Are human networking topologies too rigid, will I ever really understand Gilles Deleuze, and does my knowledge of our environment offer me any insight I could share and inspire someone here on this blog with? In that thinking, I find it repugnant that we have “leaders” who are not, in fact, leaders. Former President Obama nor current President Trump ever took Caroline and me to Oregon or Europe; neither of them is responsible for our passports or our curiosity about places and cultures that inspire our imaginations. They only tend to be distractions for some and maybe attempt for the general betterment of society as a whole, but it is ultimately up to the population at large to want those changes. When a large segment of the population is in fear due to their Stone Age intellect and lack of ability to harness today’s tools, they slip further back into a type of primitivism that is so out of step with where we should be as a society. This begins to appear surrealistic. We are becoming the warped characters and distortions found on the artist’s canvas while not recognizing our role on this stage of absurdity. Collectively, we are the shadow figures on a cave wall, unaware of the others in our proximity. Mentally, we are deficient troglodytes pretending to have a grasp on what any of this is.

Today’s outcome could have been very different. The hit-and-run driver didn’t spin us around, didn’t push us off the road into the gravel, didn’t rear-end us, or shoot us off the freeway. With both vehicles traveling rapidly, we kissed and parted company. Repairing our car will cost us at least $1000, as that’s our deductible. Strangely, this doesn’t seem so horrible considering what the circumstances could have been, and in the end, it offers me something to think about and share nearly 2,000 words inspired by it.

But there’s a larger question that arises out of this episode: At what point in our lives are we shocked by the intellectual equivalent of a hit-and-run driver that leaves us aware that we haven’t recognized our own ignorance speeding along and risking our lives? In being hit, I was jarred by the complacency that I was driving just fine, and while the accident was in no way my fault, it does illuminate that no matter how aware you hope to be, there is always something that comes out of your blindspot and demands you see your limitations. When we come to understand that although we believed we knew how things looked and operated, but are in an instant challenged by our perception of reality, our state of being confounded is what surrealism strove to show us. We don’t really understand all angles, and some things are not as they appear. Do you really know what’s around the corner, or are you just hoping that things will go on as they always have?

End of Remote Self-Isolation is Near

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Sunrise in Trinidad, California

Why haven’t we ever been to Patricks Point near Trinidad, California, before? Having been to the Redwoods National Park and some of the nearby State Parks that also feature redwood trees, I must admit that I might have taken it for granted that we’d seen what was worth seeing. That is until today. Of course, there’s the blight that is Eureka, which in reality is quite beautiful in its own right, but the drug problems afflicting that community create a homeless problem and, in turn, a crime problem that has tainted the area in my eyes. Even at our lodging for the night, we were warned about leaving anything in our car if we were to visit Patricks Point State Park up the street as our host knew people whose cars had been broken into and even her own car had been robbed. With our out-of-state license plates, she felt, we’d likely be targeted. Keep in mind that we are 4 miles north of Trinidad proper and 30 miles from Eureka; such are the problems with California’s current unemployment and homeless situation.

Update summer 2024: I wrote here that this was our first visit. Well, I was wrong, and all I needed to do was check my own blog. In 2024, looking for other information for our visit this summer, I saw that we drove at least part of Patricks Point Road, starting in Trinidad and traveling north.

Sunrise in Trinidad, California

We’re at the end of Stagecoach Road and about to turn left in order to return to Highway 101 so we can begin in earnest our drive into Southern California for our last night out on the road. Instead of taking that turn, Caroline asked for one more detour to the right.

Sunrise in Trinidad, California

This was where she wanted me to go, more or less. Actually, there was a lighthouse shown to be in the area. Well, that lighthouse is about 15 feet tall and hardly qualifies as a legitimate safety beacon for passing ships as it’s more a decorative building hiding behind a hill. We are now endeared to the area though, and make a point of putting it on the mental list of places to return to.

Richardson Grove State Park in Garberville, California

In an age where public toilets are a rare commodity due to the pandemic, these redwoods will suffice in bearing witness to our need to release the waters from within.

Northern California on the 101 Highway

And then we drove and drove and then drove some more. We drove all day with very few breaks for photos, especially once we entered the Bay Area via Oakland on the 580 before hitting Interstate 5, where we’d have to pass the bovine fattening factory zone some call Cowschwitz.

Sunset on Utica Ave in Kings County, California

The interstate was slow due to holiday traffic, for although California authorities asked Californians not to travel over Thanksgiving, it was obvious that very few heeded that warning. Our excuse for being out here is that we live in Arizona with a Republican Governor who is toeing the line for the President and doesn’t give a shit about life, and we are too stupid to think for ourselves, so we threw out the little caution that eeked into our brains and went on this here Remote Self-Isolation Vacation because we are selfish and self-absorbed, well just like Californians really.

Off the major highway, we found ourselves on a farm road that grew smaller and smaller until Google had us on a dirt road for a short stretch. If an alien spaceship had hovered over us after dark in this vast black plain of nothingness, we’d not have been surprised. Finding Highway 99, we were soon in Bakersfield, and before we knew it, we were pulling into our hotel in Tehachapi. Tomorrow we go home.

Edit: Nearly out of Bakersfield, we got off Highway 58 on Oswell Street, heading to Ben Paca Mexican Grill. I wanted some Mexican food, and as far as joints near the freeway were concerned, this one came as highly rated as one might hope. The Hot Cheetos Burrito for about $10 caught my eye as I’d never heard of such a thing. Should we pass through again, we’ll be getting another one of those!

Exit Ahead

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Heavy, gray clouds obscure the bright blue sky above, but it’s a better view than we were experiencing the first hour of driving south when all was black. Our first photographic pullout is the Winema Lake Viewpoint in Neskowin. When the roads are wet, narrow, and winding, and the sky is dark, the path feels precarious and is only made more so by those who race up behind us, familiar with its contours and obviously annoyed at the person impeding their move forward. I’d like to claim that we were driving slowly to savor our dwindling time out here on the coast, but it was dark, and in any case, we intended to leave in the dark as we’d covered this part of the coast yesterday. Now it’s time to really slow down and take things in, even if the people behind me are shaking their fists in a futile effort to get me to step on the gas.

Dreams awaken soon with our first pitstop at a discreet corner, where we find this sign leading us to a part of a trail we’ve not hiked yet. I’m posting this as a hopeful reminder that while we’ve hiked the other end of the trail at Cascade Head, we’ve not walked this 3.7-mile (6 km) rainforest trail. Something new already for next time.

I must admit a bias while on Highway 101 driving north or south: what is on the west side of the car holds the most interest for me. On the west side of the car, the giant Pacific Ocean is to be found. On the east side of the car are more homes, businesses, forests, lakes, rivers, and boring stuff. Well, until Caroline spots this sign for the Darlingtonia Wayside. First of all, a wayside is nothing like a State Park and is certainly 1,000 miles away from being something similar to a National Park; it is a lowly wayside. Except, this wayside is a spectacular one because it has an enchanting forest trail over to this Darlingtona thing it is pulling our attention into…even if it is on the east side of the road.

Witness the cobra lily, aka the Darlingtonia. Then, like a cobra striking its victim, engaging in further research on my quest to learn more about this plant, I find that the location has a new designation not yet reflected in the signage of the wayside. It is now all grown up and has become the Darlingtonia State Natural Site. I stand corrected about the meek value of this place and am in awe of the mighty Darlingtonia plant.

I think I heard them murmuring, “Nom nom nom” as we stood on the platform overlooking them: they are meat-eaters. Maybe they eat insects, maybe they eat flesh? I asked Caroline to climb over the banister for a closer look and see if they had a nice scent, but she refused. Maybe she knew what evil might lurk in my cold heart?

This is familiar, yet not, and that’s because we are not looking at the boat dock that I’ve photographed dozens of times already. We are looking north on the Umpqua River in Gardiner.

During this late fall Oregon road trip, we learned early on about the pleasures of our seat warmers. Having them in Arizona seemed like a weird indulgence when we bought the car back in December 2018, and last year’s trip up here was had when we were still flying places so our own car wasn’t present. This brings me to another luxury we eschewed in our old Prius: the maps on the dash screen. This time around, we’ve grown somewhat accustomed to looking at the maps instead of purely relying on our phones and this has proven to have great utility. By zooming in on the map so that it moves along with our driving, we are able to spot small side roads that don’t appear in a wider overview of the route. Seeing those small roads approach, we can move around on the map to see if there’s a connection to our highway further ahead or if we’ll have to turn around. This road pictured is called Wildwood Drive and winds its way along the 101 for about 2 miles. It’s a beautiful little path in the woods south of Reedsport.

The next small road led to Saunders Lake and brought us to a fork in the road that, while a dead end, we decided to drive in any way just to see what was out along it. Houses and cabins were about it.

And this old train track that’s grown over and rusting.

Arriving in North Bend, we are now 188 miles (302 km) south of where we woke this morning and more than halfway down the state of Oregon.

A few minutes later, we seamlessly merge into Coos Bay, the largest city along the coast with a population of 16,415 (I think I shared this last year, too), but we are not sticking around long. The yarn store Caroline wanted to visit is closed, though it’s supposed to be open, and then on the way out of town, she spots a burger spot that she says we’ve enjoyed before. Lunch was had at the Shake N Burger, and sure enough, upon getting home, Google’s timeline showed me that we last visited the place on November 25, 2019. I may not share it a lot here, but Caroline’s memory is impeccable; it’s a trap where nothing escapes, except where she just set something down a few minutes before.

Bandon has one of the greatest rocky coastlines in all of Oregon. It’s no wonder that this place has taken on a kind of luxury vibe akin to Cannon Beach, 231 miles north.

Sure, we’d like to live here in retirement, but you’d have to be a millionaire these days to put roots down in Bandon. In November, the average sale price of a home in this area was $422,000, which, with utilities, insurance, and maintenance, is going to cost about $2,100 a month, while rents are not that much lower. Fortunately for those wealthy enough to call this place home, they have a workforce of nearly 30,000 in the area just north from which they can pull in labor.

Horseback rides at sunset among the monoliths are one of the amenities of life on this corner of the southern end of the coast. I shouldn’t be too whistful as at least Bandon hasn’t turned into the famous 17-mile Drive in Carmel By The Sea that charges people for the right to pass through.

The tide is seriously low today, offering us a great look at rocks we’ve not been able to see before.

More evidence of our mad-dash race to collect more experiences here on our last day on the coast.

By now you should see the attraction of what has drawn so many people to Bandon. Besides the cold, blustery days of winter, there’s the issue of heavy fog in the summer, but by and large, the coast of Oregon is our dream climate. It’s probably a good thing we’ll not be making this home as it can forever remain the fairy tale place where, for a week or two a year, everything is perfect.

I’m pretty certain we’ve seen this witch’s claw of rock before, but I can’t be certain. Maybe part of it broke off in between visits and it is only now this shape? Out of curiosity, I searched Lightroom for all photos that have been tagged “Oregon,” though I can’t be sure I’ve done the best job tagging them, and I see that I have 19,623 images to look through to make an accurate determination if this has already been seen. Well, today, it is one more detail to throw in the grab bag of blogged-about memories, hoping that it might be part of the magic key so that when I look at these images again in some years, the whole picture of where we’ve been and what we’ve done will all snap into focus.

Or maybe it’ll be this reminder from Port Orford, only 62 miles from the exit from Oregon, that will produce the sigh of satisfaction that during our time here, we succeeded in seeing all the major sights during all weather conditions and variations in lighting. There’s a thought of hanging out until sunset right here, but that’s an hour away, which leaves enough time to drive another 35 miles south to capture the sun dipping below the horizon at Meyers Creek Beach near Gold Beach, where our vacation of Remote Self-Isolation began 16 days ago.

The shark tooth towers over the sand. This prehistoric fossil of an ancient predator remains as a reminder of the giants that once ruled the earth.

Denial is a powerful tool for remaining delusional about reality. I look at the two people in this selfie, and I know that one is approaching 60 years old and the other in her mid-50s, but I can’t help but know that their inner children are still looking out, albeit with some sense of maturity and a small amount of knowledge. Someday, we’ll likely feel old and tired; it seems to be the way of people, although there are those who just up and die, forever content that they were living with vigor until they never woke again. By the way, I know I’m an irrational romantic and that life and death are a lot messier than I choose to see them, but with time short for all things indulgent, I believe I can allow myself the opportunities when they arise to seize perfection and go with it.

As we were walking around the base of the shark tooth and the surf pulled way out, Caroline was able to pass between it and another large rock jutting out of the sand. In the golden radiance of our setting sun, her silhouette walking through the temporary passage struck me as one of those moments of perfection where I can see her in a light that will frame her in just this way but once in my lifetime. While this is true regarding every photo I’ve ever taken of her, this adds to those treasured images of her riding the bow of a dory in the Grand Canyon, camping in the wilds of the Yukon, snowshoeing in Yellowstone, and smiling at me in her jammies while knitting a pair of socks for me late one night in a yurt just up the coast.

While the low tide is great for us who find it endearing to walk amongst the sea life that should be underwater, these barnacles might be looking forward to the return of their natural environment that has temporarily disappeared. I try imagining what it would be like if, on occasion, the air was pulled off the earth for a few hours, and we’d have to hold our breath and wait for its return. Come to think about it, I already feel this way about far too many people’s intelligence, it was pulled away and is yet to return.

Linger to see it all. Walk around to capture every angle. The view from one location is not the same as from another.

This small crack consumed the sun. We can attest to the truth of this as we were on hand to witness it fall in. How it will find its way back to us tomorrow is one of life’s mysteries. Without the benefit of our nearby star, we drove south to California finding shelter along the sea, but our hearts still walk in dreams along the beaches of Oregon.

Nature is Love

JWise Photo of the Day, Thoughts, Travels

Manzanita Beach in Oregon

There’s so much to see on this coast and so many things we’ve seen before, but even more remains elusive. We return again and again and are never really certain about the deeper quality of things we try to study, but our curiosity brings us back in the hopes of finding the key to the mystery we are trying to comprehend. There are many pieces competing for our attention as we are torn between sky, sea, creatures, plants, sounds, weather, smells, and the myriad of sensual pleasures that caress senses hungry to explore the unknown. We never really gain familiarity.

Caroline Wise and John Wise on Manzanita Beach in Oregon

What is it about familiarity that dulls that desire? We live in an amazing place in its own right, the Sonoran Desert, and yet we don’t wander with the same intensity as we do when outside our ordinary. I say this, but do I really believe it? We are charmed by the birds, cactus, lizards, smell of the wet desert, thunderstorms, arid wide open spaces, exposed jagged rocks, and the bursts of color that come and go. Maybe it’s the barbaric state of the metropolis we live in, with its labyrinth of cinder block fences isolating angry and pretentious people. How does money sterilize a place to remove the free flow of happiness and joy? To explore an environment unencumbered by a grim understanding of the meaninglessness of its inhabitants is a luxury, and so, visiting places we are unfamiliar with gains precious bandwidth within our sense organs to absorb it all. Being an outsider has its advantages.

Manzanita Beach in Oregon

Our lives are too short to have them intertwined with the nonsense of others who are selling you their meaning or, worse, their appearance. Allowing one’s self to dive deeper within is hampered by the superficial curiosity of other people’s dramas, politics, and celebrity. The famous become the worst exemplars of this parasitic culture: The more we are interested in them, the richer and more powerful they become. They continually strive to draw the spotlight on themselves with ever more absurd acts of intellectual barbarity. While not on par with the spectacle of the Roman Circus with fights to the death, the modern gladiators battle one another, producing madness in the audience.

Manzanita Beach in Oregon

Trees, mushrooms, newts, and crashing waves will not enrage you. Lichen, billowy clouds, raindrops, and grand vistas only cost you time to fall in love with them, allowing you to revel in what they might mean to you. Never will you need to raise a fist at the vibrancy of moss-draped over rocks and on the branches of trees. Nature, in some ways, is free, and it’s always unbiased. We humans with our egos are afraid we are missing out on something amongst ourselves because we’ve been conditioned to desire wealth and fame. Knowledge from witnessing the natural world cannot become personal wealth as the age of Humboldt is dead. Instead of feeding the mind and imagination, we yearn for adoration as we strive to do something that will have us recognized. This is not being human; it is being a shallow facade that places us in the insect kingdom or worse.

Manzanita Beach in Oregon

What does it mean to enrich our sense of wonder by walking along the ocean, watching the light change over and over again as clouds and the sun compete for our attention? The jellyfish on the shore is a corpse when we encounter it, but we can imagine it floating effortlessly in the current while it was still alive. The grasses up on the dunes might be invasive, but they look soft and warm to our eyes as they gently outline the contours of the land. These visions of beauty join a wealth of gathered knowledge and memories. They are the currency of venturing out and exploring. I should point out that this form of cash is also collected when going within because books, too, bring us into our imagination and help paint the way we see the world around us.

Manzanita Beach in Oregon

These pieces of nature make a composite whole, the scale of which only grows larger the more we see of it. Try to reconcile just a fraction of what you might see in a lifetime, and you’ll be hardpressed to understand the tiniest of elements, their relationships lost in infinite connections. Trying to understand the atoms in the universe, how each of them relates to others, and what roles they play in every molecule they belong to is a fool’s task, so it is trying to comprehend this 338 miles (544km) of Oregon coastline. And yet, we keep returning, trying to figure out something profound. What our intentions really are, we cannot easily explain.

Manzanita Beach in Oregon

We are running out of time up here, and as usual, we will make a last-minute race to points along the way, thinking that if we could just pull those things together in some comprehensive manner, they would succinctly give us the keys to the universe and we could start to focus on something else. Maybe our investment with so much time up here is giving us some familiarity, but deep understanding will always remain elusive as our quest is too far beyond our grasp to ever satisfy this yearning.

Manzanita Beach in Oregon

Today should be the day when I concede defeat that I might ever know Nature. But if I cannot know Nature, how might I ever truly know my place in it? Are we wasting our precious lives chasing the dreams others place in our heads so they might live their own dreams of having it all? The newt gives me nothing in return for my appreciation. On the contrary, it gives me everything that is intangibly unimportant in our current world. The same goes for the rest of my life I witness on these all-too-brief journeys into coastal Oregon. Yet I leave far wealthier and happier for having shared this time within this massive ecosystem of love. I’m claiming it is love, as I derive as much joy from it as I do in the most romantically intense moments with my wife.

Nehalem River in Oregon

So, when we are outside of Nature, are we outside of love? Of course, we are never truly outside of Nature in the literal sense, but we are in the intellectual constructs of a media-driven circus that has monopolized far too many people’s identities and souls. In this sense, we are in our own simulation or, let’s say, the simulation of creators and capitalists. Ask yourself, who really built the filters of how you perceive your world? Do you dare challenge your role, your god, your career, your biases, or what entertains you?

Nedonna Beach between Rockaway Beach and Nehalem Bay, Oregon

I know the discomfort of challenging all of those things, and it comes with a good dose of isolation. Ask any nerd who grapples with identity and self-perception how difficult this pandemic-induced self-isolation is, and by and large, I’m certain they will tell you the same thing, “I’ve been living like this most of my life.” It’s not that we ever wanted isolated lives, but we’ve been outside the embrace of love for so long that sooner or later, we must accept our role. Not only did our peers find us different, likely due to our abundance of extraordinary curiosity, but our parents, too, felt alienated from the child they found bookish, eccentric, gay, tomboyish, peculiar, or seemingly uncomfortable with themselves since their interests were their own instead of their parents. We grew up without the confidence that love brings to people.

Nedonna Beach between Rockaway Beach and Nehalem Bay, Oregon

I suppose my impossible goal while in the wilds of nature is to see more of more, to hear all that is unheard in the silence, and to find the scents beyond the capability of my nose. That, by my definition, is love; it is intimacy. If we are lucky in life, we might find that partner who also cherishes the quiet moments of soft touch, delicate smells, and the sounds of heartbeats and breaths. In a sense, this is what I’m looking for in my relationship with the outside world. In our close and personal moments, when love is dictating the soft passion of being lost in discovery, we find our most magnificent time of being mindless and largely outside of thought. If we are thinking about work, politics, sports, rumors, or the heavy drama of a TV show, we will not find ourselves caressing the shoulder, neck, or arm of our loved ones, lingering timelessly while locked in a reassuring embrace.

Nedonna Beach between Rockaway Beach and Nehalem Bay, Oregon

When we race to have it all, neither we nor our partners are quite satisfied. It is the same in Nature. We cannot arrive, see, and have conquered the place. Seeking the relationship of love, we’ll want to know more. We’ll have no choice but to know more, or we’ll be left wondering what the attraction was. Rarely does love at first sight work unless we are passionately self-aware and happen to stumble upon someone or someplace else who is also beholden to this quality. Yes, I just wrote “someplace” as I want to believe that just as I fell in love with someone who was looking for a similar type of person, able to love, Nature must have an abundance of love intertwined within its complexity for those who are attuned to finding it.

Tillamook Bay between Garibaldi and Rockaway Beach, Oregon

So, if Nature is embracing me in love, it would make more sense to me that as I wake, I find this desire to explore and touch its softer, more subtle corners, allowing me to bask in a day of sensual discovery. This is the hallmark of love.

Bayocean Peninsula Park in Tillamook, Oregon

Maybe Nature is love? And while there is a fierce side of it, discompassionate for the comings and goings of all that is required to sustain it, there is that time, if we are lucky enough, in which we might find a window of opportunity to roam within the freedom of love. To always seek intellectual meaning in life is to negate the thing that is right in front of us, but love is also the thing that might require the most rigorous analysis from a species that has gotten caught up with labels, utility, wealth, and status. Moving through the complexity of science, function, philosophy, religion, consumerism, and other distractions that busies our minds, what is left on the other side is love.

Bayocean Peninsula Park in Tillamook, Oregon

While I’ve not been everywhere, from the places I have been, I cannot say I’ve ever met a biome I didn’t like. Stand at the ocean, and you’ll see it push things out of it. Bits of life disgorged from this vast sea set out on land; sometimes, it even crawls out, but most of what comes ashore is pushed by the force of the current. At some point, these shells, plants, crabs, shells, and the algae foam chasing across the slickwater sand in the Annual Foamberg Reggata will all just disappear. You also were pushed into life, you only have minutes to look up at the sun unencumbered and free to bask in the warmth of the sunshine. Don’t waste that precious time, as you’ll not gain another second when the end comes.

Dead Bird at Bayocean Peninsula Park in Tillamook, Oregon

The impressions have been made, but they’ll have to linger in the pot of memories melding with the myriad of other human ingredients collected in my head. If I’m lucky, they’ll emerge in future writings; otherwise, they go to the grave with me someday, my existence wiped off the beach, dragged back into the ocean of life. As this journey unfolds, I can only hope my shared words so far capture something of what I was able to distill along the way, but I will have to wait to learn what filters through my mind as I work on sorting what may have held importance. What are people waiting for? We cannot grasp the joys of love and discovery in chasing dead and hollow icons. Our minds and emotions are the temples that are supposed to be filled with the treasures of experience. These can only be collected through a kind of vulnerability where we recognize our ignorance of most everything and our need for the embrace of love found in others willing to share with us while we give of ourselves.

Caroline Wise at Bayocean Peninsula Park in Tillamook, Oregon

Love is right in front of you; it’s all around you, below and above you. Again, I have to think about the Navajo Beauty Way Prayer with beauty all around us. Isn’t that just another way of saying love is all around you and that we walk in love?

Bayocean Peninsula Park in Tillamook, Oregon

Our day represented in this blog entry doesn’t follow my usual narrative of photo, impressions, photo; these words are more about the arch of our trip through my perception, as thoughts bring on new ideas and conclusions that were somehow part of the time I contemplated aspects of moments.

Bayocean Peninsula Park in Tillamook, Oregon

As for the day itself, we started with a long walk on Manzanita Beach before heading south and crossing the Nehalem River, which is the broad panorama nine photos down from the top. Our next stop was at Nedonna Beach between Nehalem Bay and Rockaway Beach. The third location is right next to the Three Graces near the mouth of Tillamook Bay between Rockaway Beach and Garibaldi. After returning to Tillamook, we headed out to Cape Meares but never made it as we detoured out to Bayocean, where a townsite once stood before being claimed by the ocean. Our afternoon walk brought us up to 12 miles (19.3km) of steps for the day, with the majority of them accumulated on a deserted beach with no one else in sight.

Bayocean Peninsula Park in Tillamook, Oregon

For the third night running, we lounged in the hot tub under a moon, inching ever closer to fullness. I nearly forgot to mention that our Cozy Cottage also has an outdoor shower, which, of course, we took advantage of. The place was cleaned up tonight, and the car was mostly packed, so we can get an early start in the morning as we start our drive southeast towards home.

Bayocean Peninsula Park in Tillamook, Oregon

In the calm of the early evening on still-reflective waters, our sense of awe draws us in to pause and sigh at our good fortune. We have the time, inclination, ability, and resources to venture into ourselves while simultaneously moving out of the potential trap of being cozy at home. We do not wish to grow old in the sense of becoming bitter and fixed in our ways. Growing old to become majestic like a Sequoia or Redwood while still branching out seems like an apt metaphor as we age. The clouds reflected in the waters are how those who reach maturity and wisdom should be reflected in those younger people who are still gathering experience. This is the image of tranquility, where the transition from day to night, water to sky, and earth to heavens waits with limitless opportunity for us to discover how we fit into the whole.

Thanksgiving – Coastal Style

JWise Food, Photo of the Day, Travels

The Cozy Cottage in Nehalem, Oregon

Let’s start with being thankful for last night’s dinner. Before dipping into this very American holiday today, we feasted last night on German grilled bratwursts from Heidelberg Bakery in Phoenix, Arizona. Our brats were wonderfully paired with some Mildessa sauerkraut. Two of the five brats from dinner and nearly half a can of the kraut ended up in our scrambled eggs this morning. We checked the internet last night to be sure we should try something that sounds kinda weird, but others were gung-ho about mixing these awkward ingredients together, so we gave it a shot and can assure you that we’d do it again. Pictured is the kitchen from the Cozy Cottage we found on Airbnb.

The Cozy Cottage in Nehalem, Oregon

This was our bedroom last night before we pulled off the blankets and pillows to make room for our comforter and pillows from home. But we weren’t ready for bed yet, not even close. We had a hot tub outside waiting for us, timed to bring it to peak temperature at 8:00 in the morning and 9:00 at night. Even before we got into that under a moonlit sky, we took a pastry-wrapped brie loaded with huckleberry from the Blue Heron Cheese Company out of the fridge and threw it in the oven. With apples left from the dozen we picked in Gold Beach, Caroline sliced some up for our dessert extravaganza of baked brie, compote, and apples. How we didn’t pass out right then remains a mystery, but somehow, we found the energy to venture into the cold evening air to bask in the hot tub. Andre, the owner of our accommodation, even provides an outdoor shower for rinsing off after getting out of the chlorinated water.

The Cozy Cottage in Nehalem, Oregon

This brings us to the here and now. Over to your right, and hardly visible, is our little red gate, which is a private entrance. To the right of that is the hot tub, which I hope to get a good photo of before we leave. Our turducken is thawed and ready for the oven; it will require 2.5 hours to bake, and we might be meeting a friend from up here later today, too. Right now, though, we are going for a mile-and-a-half walk (2.4km) each way down to the beach. The next photo you see is from that walk.

Forest floor in Nehalem, Oregon

We’d been back from our walk a few hours before I could muster the energy to start writing this stuff; maybe I needed a break after 15 straight days of writing. After lunch, I was able to load up the photos. And an hour later I managed to prepare them for posting and even uploaded them. Then they sat here neglected while I goofed off entertaining myself. Caroline’s been sitting behind me on the couch, knitting my socks while watching a documentary series about how we see things.

As for the walk, it was brilliant, perfect, wonderful, and every other superlative that I could list as I try to convey how much we appreciate these Thanksgiving Day walks along the ocean. Just take a look at the beauty of the sea and imagine yourself here on this gorgeous fall day.

Beach in Manzanita, Oregon

The other day, Caroline suggested we create a kind of “meta entry” about our trips to Oregon where we post an image taken from the 18 years we’ve been coming up here and feature them sequentially by location instead of date so we can see the extent of our stops. Today, we extended this to a meta entry about Thanksgiving, where we feature an image from all of the Thanksgivings we have photos for.

True, this little segue has nothing to do with this photo of Caroline cresting the grassy sand dune that will take us out to Manzanita Beach, but I’m at a bit of a loss to share anything else. I’m also aware enough that it isn’t so much what I write today that will be important as much as how it reads in the future when we are reminiscing about our longest-ever trip to Oregon. Minus drive time to and from Phoenix, Arizona, we’ll have been up here for 16 consecutive days. I wonder if this is possibly longer by twice than our longest previous vacations on the Oregon coast?

Beach in Manzanita, Oregon

A faint rainbow but a rainbow nonetheless. This could portend rain coming soon or that it’s moving on. Our positive vibe produces a feeling that whatever the weather did, it would have proven to be the perfect scenario for creating memories that will stand out as having helped form the best vacation ever. Until the next vacation to wherever it is, we go will win the mantle of Best Ever.

Beach in Manzanita, Oregon

To the south and from the north, the sky looked foreboding, but right overhead, the happiness of John and Caroline created a bubble of delight that everyone else on the beach was able to enjoy with us. How do I know it is us that are responsible for this phenomenon? Just ask Caroline for proof as she’ll join in my story that somehow, when we travel, we seem to have the perfect conditions and that a day rarely goes by, even in the cold seasons, when the sun doesn’t come out and smile upon us. To be honest, while probably needing to knock on wood, we never really understand other’s vacations where they complain that seemingly everything went wrong.

Beach in Manzanita, Oregon

Okay, there was this issue of too many people on the beach, but that happens every Thanksgiving. We can be out for a walk along the ocean the day before and the day after, and there won’t be a lot of people with us, but just before the feasting begins at midday, the throngs come out to build their appetites. You can see from the density we were all quite aware of the social distancing requirements.

Jellyfish at Beach in Manzanita, Oregon

There were a few jellyfish onshore and some tiny little baby jellyfish. You can see the individual grains of sand, so I hope you glean an idea of just how small this transparent bubble of jelly was.

Caroline Wise at Beach in Manzanita, Oregon

Taking a moment to think about the time we brought Jutta, Caroline’s mom up here, we checked to be sure it wasn’t too late in Germany and gave her a call from the beach. After that family connection, we called Caroline’s father, Hanns, on WhatsApp and were able to show him our location. I wish my mother-in-law was even a little tech-savvy like my father-in-law, as there’s so much more we could share with her. All the same, it’s always nice to hear her voice.

Oysters at Beach in Manzanita, Oregon

We saw a guy inspecting something on the beach; from afar, it looked like the carcass of a fish. As the surf came up, he dragged it ashore. We still couldn’t tell what it was, but we were heading right for him. He was on a video call showing a friend what he’d found: a large bag with hundreds of oysters in it. We asked for a peek into it as we’d never seen such a thing, and with that, he offered us all we’d like to take with us. Thanking him profusely for sharing his treasure, we only nabbed five of them, but before we got further down the beach, four of them found their way back into the sea. One came to the cottage with us.

We’ve had great oysters along the way during our travels, places we’d go back to because of the oysters. One thing we’ve never had is to eat an oyster that’s only been out of the ocean for an hour. For Caroline, this was a milestone because not only did she eat this mollusk, but she pried it out of its shell. No hot sauce, no lemon, just a bit of the seawater that was still in the shell, and she loved it.

Beach in Manzanita, Oregon

We were over 5 miles (8km) on our walk by the time we got back to the cottage, hungry and ready for some lazy time. Around 3:30, our Creole Pork Turducken Roll from the CajunGrocer in Louisiana was placed into the oven. At four pounds, it was recommended we cook it for 2.5 hours. Caroline nor I have ever had Cajun pork sausage stuffed into a chicken, stuffed into a duck, stuffed into a turkey, but we were willing to try it.

It’s 6:00 p.m. as I write this, and our Thanksgiving meal is sitting on the stovetop, resting for the recommended 20 minutes. It smells great, just like a traditional turkey dinner, really, but a taste test will need to happen before I can offer more. Yesterday, we made a Cranberry Jello Mold, an old recipe from my mom that features chopped cranberries, celery, and walnuts, with shredded apples, a bit of orange juice, a box of raspberry Jello, and while it may sound strange, it’s an all-time favorite of ours. Lastly, we also have a sweet potato to add a veggie to our dinner.

Cajun Sausage Stuffed Turducken from CajunGrocer in Louisiana

We’d do this again; the same cannot be said about the Tofurkey we tried years ago. The only thing missing was some gravy but we weren’t that prepared out on this journey for getting that detail-oriented. We have enough leftovers to add to our scrambled eggs with the last packet of Chinese pickled veggies for breakfast, and we have four slices for sandwiches. Come to think of it; maybe we’ll have open-face turducken with melted smoked brie for lunch if we are near the cottage.

Cranberry Jello Mold

Other than using cranberries for scones, this is the best dish ever for cranberry lovers. Because we’ve been doing our best to self-isolate on this trip, we brought our frozen cranberries with us instead of picking up fresh local ones. We couldn’t even be certain we’d find local cranberries as although the Oregon coast is a popular place to grow them, we don’t know what’s found in the local markets. Next up, a dip into the hot tub before heading to the bedroom where the TV is; we’ll be watching My Octopus Teacher and sharing a bag of microwave popcorn. I’m sharing this because all three of these activities are out of the ordinary for us.

Is This Vacation Or Did We Move?

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Starting the day with an outdoor shower was incredibly invigorating. Our previous experiences with cleaning up in the great outdoors have been in Hawaii, on the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, on the Alsek River in the Yukon, and in Alaska. This was a two-person operation as I needed Caroline to hold my towel and change of clothes due to the heavy overnight rains that left every surface within arm’s length dripping wet. While I held her stuff, I also managed to nab a couple of discreet photos that allowed modesty to be maintained. If you were wondering if it was cold out, of course it was. The temperature was about 46 degrees (8 Celsius) this morning, but we were not going to miss this opportunity.

We are checking out of our Airstream at Hart’s Camp today as we’ve only booked a couple of nights. Good thing we chose our first night to burn through all of our complimentary wood as it rained for a good part of the night but obviously only intermittently, as I’m sure you saw that amazing steak we barbecued on the grill. The last thing we did here was feed a few of the neighborhood rabbits some apples we had picked back at the beginning of our Oregon adventure when we were staying at Gold Beach.

This is us looking south on the Nestucca River, which is only important for your orientation when I point out that the next photo is us looking north up the Nestucca River. We are still in the Cape Kiwanda area and just on the edge of the Bob Straub State Park. Last year, at nearly the same time of year to the day, we made our first visit to this state park sandwiched between this river and the Pacific Ocean, but back then, we had a perfect sunny day.

As I said, the Nestucca River north, as seen from the other side of the bridge.

I mean, you saw it with your own eyes, north and south; the weather looked grim, but look to the west and its sunny skies. This doesn’t change our decision to skip the park; we’re just getting a look at the ocean from this really tall sand dune.

I believe this is right at the transition where the Nestucca River turns into the Nestucca Bay. Or maybe it’s where depths of forest represented by shades of gray fade into the distance, and we find that the mystery of what is hidden in the fog makes for an intriguing visual story.

It’s well into the afternoon as we enter Garibaldi, passing this old smokestack that used to belong to a lumber mill back in 1927. We took the inland route through Tillamook so we could stop once more at the Blue Heron Cheese Company, sharing a grilled bacon and cheese sandwich. We skipped the ice cream. This being the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and the chaos of COVID, many shops have peculiar hours. One of the yarn stores Caroline wants to visit closes today at 3:00, and we aren’t wasting time to get there besides stopping for this 1 photo.

Okay, so we had to stop for this other photo on Tillamook Bay as the sun’s reflection demanded to be captured.

Seriously, I’d forgotten all about the Three Graces here on the south end of Rockaway Beach. Everybody has to stop for these iconic rocks here near the inlet of Tillamook Bay.

We made it with an hour to spare, meaning we had just enough time to shop for yarn. While I posted a bare-shouldered photo of Caroline earlier, it’s this one that feels naughty. I asked her to pull down her mask while we were the only customers in a shop so I could capture her smile while she was fondling the yarn for one of my next pairs of handmade socks. “One of them,” you ask. I picked two skeins of yarn today. While I seriously DO NOT believe her, my wife is trying to tell me that I’m approaching a dozen skeins already. That’s ridiculous because, at the rate she toils over making me the most perfect socks, it would take nearly 12 days to make me that many socks, and that would be asking way too much. Hmmm, now I can’t remember if it takes about a day to knit my socks or about 40 hours stretched across a month. Well, all I really know is that she needs to get busy because a man can never have too many hand-knitted products. My kingdom for wool squawked the Wise King.

I didn’t share it, but Coastal Yarns in Cannon Beach was our first destination; our second was the beach itself and its big draw, Haystack Rock. The next images may seem absurd to a reader, as one would be right to ask, “Isn’t one enough?” Yeah, well, clearly, you’ve never been to Cannon Beach at sunset, so your question would be misguided. The more appropriate question would be, “Just how many photos did you take before whittling the choice down to less than six? My sad truth is that I might be approaching a total of 400-500 photos of the Haystack shot over the years. If I learned I had twice that, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Thought I mixed things up a bit by looking south beyond that rock just out of view on the right, and I’d stare into the gloom of the stormy shore that was so threatening I was certain we’d be gone in 15 minutes.

The light here doesn’t need to change much to create the next iteration of astonishing. Just after taking this image, the rain picked up, and a bunch of us started heading back up the shore, as that was that. But as Caroline and I were just feet away from leaving the beach, we looked back and realized the rain had stopped, and there was a small break in the clouds. Could there be hope for a sunset?

Lowtide at the Haystack on a stormy fall day. The drama is photographic heaven for a person addicted to hitting the shutter button. By the way, you need not even ask, “Which smartphone do you shoot with?” I am not a cretin; I use an old man’s camera by way of 24 megapixel DSLR. Funny, but 15 years ago, when I got my first DSLR, there were a bunch of old grumpy men at the camera shop (a place where they used to sell lenses and film for analog cameras; that’s a long story I won’t cover here), and those guys were extolling the virtues of their film cameras. I just know that there’s someone out there shooting this exact scene today on his Apple iPhone 12 Pro and will win awards for it while I win the Curmudgeon of the Day trophy.

Who really cares how these scenes are captured? It’s the memories and how long we can hold on to them that’s important. These monoliths sit right next to the Haystack, and I find them as beautiful on their own as the giant on their side.

I’m stopping here and leaving you with this serenely romantic fade to evening.