Settling In

JWise Thoughts

Phoenix, Arizona sky in fall

The trees are giving up their leaves late this year; not that that means it’s true, it’s just my impression. A calm morning breeze is busy cleaning the tree in front of me, and although it’s only 13 days until the official start of winter, I’ve taken up my place on our balcony enjoying the pleasant 73-degree temperature (23c) that promises to not go above 77 (25c). It’s just beautiful out here today, with me reflecting on the calm of both the weather and the hoped-for relief from stress that accompanies the end of vacation.

The falling leaves often create two sounds: the first is the collision with other leaves on their way to Earth, and the second is their landing on it. Those sounds are preceded by the swoosh of wind in the leaves that are staying attached to the tree for an indeterminate length of time, holding fast against the air that is playing a kind of Jenga with nature. The other background sounds are the ever-present road noises from tires that roar while speeding by and the occasional songs from nearby birds. To some extent, I’m able to blur the traffic sounds into my memories of the ocean crashing onto the shore. For that moment, I have another bit of time in Oregon, next to the sea.

Punctuating the din is the passing motorcycle or the aggressive exhaust of a car that breaks the spell of meditation I am indulging in when I should be writing. Then, a dove with its distinctive whistling-while-flying sound flutters by to land for a second before taking off again, carrying its whistle along as it goes. A lone grackle bleats out its screech and then falls silent as nothing responds to its call. Similarly, my mind seems to fall silent following my call to head out here and write.

The carniceria at our corner has stoked the fires of its charcoal grill and its distinctive smell wafts over on the wind; just thinking of what might be cooking has me thinking of food and not words. I know that this is somewhat futile, but on such a beautiful day, after realizing that I could be sitting out here working, I’m determined to give it a go until I figure out how my time could be better used.

Maybe the fact of it all is that I want this time to charge my batteries by feeling the breeze on my face and arms as I listen to the little clicky sounds of the leaves dropping in on me. For the entire week after our return from vacation, I was catching up with the tasks that are required to keep life flowing at home. Today can be considered my day off. Then, just as I think I’m out here for daydreaming, Caroline lets me know it’s time for lunch and that I need to offer the kitchen my attention.

Gochugaru

JWise Food, Photo of the Day

Korean Red Chili Flakes or Gochugaru

A side effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, which I’m sure is the same for me as for others, is the amount of cooking we have been doing. We’ve always branched out of the foods we are familiar with, which over the years has brought us to eating things such as grasshopper, horse, donkey, veal nerve, duck tongue, bullfrog, javelina, pig eyes, brains, and ears, and most recently a Cajun Turducken.

Back in June, I made our first bowls of kimchi sundubu-jjigae and we fell in love with it. How in love with it? We just finished our second pound of gochugaru chili powder. At the base of this hearty Korean stew lies sundubu paste and that paste relies on a large amount of chili powder. I wasn’t very discriminating the first time I bought gochugaru; I went to a nearby Asian store and grabbed what I thought was “the real thing.” Getting back from vacation this week, I needed to make a fresh batch of sundubu paste which required me to revisit the YouTube video that got all of this going. I knew I would be finishing an opened bag of chili powder (our second bag this year), but I was prepared as I’d bought another bag at H-Mart some time ago just for this moment.

Watching the video the guy suggested going through the trouble of getting “real” Korean gochugaru. I thought I had the real thing as it had Korean writing on the package, so what else could it have been? It could be from China which was exactly what I saw on the older package and the new one I just opened. I consulted Amazon to rectify this and found out that authentic Korean chili powder is not all that easy to obtain. When I did find it the price made me think twice. The new “Korean Origin” chili powder costs $30 a pound compared to $10 a pound for the Chinese stuff. I had to remind myself that Asians pack and price spices different than the American market and on checking out my local store with the name-brand stuff on offer I discovered that a pound of regular old ground chili costs between $20 and $55 a pound when bought in those small bottles.

So, obviously, I was making sundubu paste because we were looking forward to our first bowl of kimchi and tofu stew since getting back home. For that, I needed to head out to H-Mart to get the rest of the ingredients but this time I decided to also stock up on about a month’s supply of silken tofu. The tubes are 11oz each or 312g; I bought 10 of them which will let us make 5 portions each of sundubu-jjigae. Come to think about it, we’ve eaten more than 25 pounds of tofu during this last half of the year. I needed another quart of kimchi, our 4th this year which is probably 4 times more than we’ve bought in our first 50 years on Earth. While this may sound mundane, I bought some fresh American- and Chinese-grown shiitake mushrooms; they were sold out of Korean shiitakes. My local “American” grocery stores don’t carry fresh shiitakes. If you sense a bit of incredulity in that, you’d have heard it right. Yes, my cynicism sometimes has me feeling like the local stores only sell Wonder bread, peanut butter, hamburger, chicken, frozen pizza, Ragu pasta sauce, and 94 types of sugary breakfast cereal.

Regarding the sundubu-jjigae with the “fake” chili powder: It turned out great, and now, with about a pound of paste in the freezer, it’ll be a few weeks before I can make a new batch but when I do, I’ll be using Korean-grown gochugaru. Maybe I’ll blog again about our experiences with this fantastically umami stew once the new chili powder comes in but how much can one write about this stuff?

Oh, there’s a downside to this return to blogging about normal life, each new post moves down my masterpieces of eulogistic praise regarding our recent trip to Oregon. I sure would like to recommend that you take the 2 hours to read the 32,956 words of my screed, but short of that you could also just check out the wonderful photos. I can’t emphasize how much more interesting that other stuff is compared to writing about kimchi and tofu stew.

High Value Targets

JWise Photo of the Day

Parking lot mobile security camera in Phoenix, Arizona

I had to go shopping today, not Christmas shopping, just grocery shopping. You read that right, I went grocery shopping at a regular grocery store, not Whole Foods either. When I walked in, masked-up of course, I didn’t think twice about anything other than that we are just back from vacation and need food this morning so we can eat today. Having been gone for 19 days, we came home to the empty fridge, just as we left it. I grabbed a few things moving quickly to minimize my time in-store, used the self-checkout, and had placed my bags in the car when I realized what I was looking at: a security camera.

I told myself, “Hey, wake up John, that’s a mobile security camera setup….at your grocery store!” It’s the holiday season so I remember from way back when the sheriff’s department putting cherry-pickers in mall parking lots to monitor the safety of shoppers, but back when malls were a thing people might be walking to their cars carrying hundreds or thousands of dollars of goods. If some nefarious type person wanted a good haul robbing someone, a mall would be the place to target some easy victims. BUT I’M AT THE GROCERY STORE!

I had to go take a closer look at the solar-powered D3 Edge Security Platform from LiveView. Three hundred and sixty degrees of view, infrared camera, lights, speaker, microphone array, and its own power source driving this thing wirelessly so someone in the store can have their eye on the parking lot – I was somewhat impressed. Thinking harder about it, I started questioning, why is this really here? A couple of answers became clear: 1st, during a pandemic and hoarding there are things that have greater value to those that can ill afford them such as toilet paper, diapers, sanitizers, etc. and 2nd, we have a serious unemployment problem and reduced wages that put pressure on people to acquire foodstuffs in any way possible. So instead of heading to the mall, which nobody does anymore anyway, head to the store and rob someone of their $300 in groceries because beef and eggs are expensive these days.

Now I have to stop and give some hard thought to this. I think about what we saw in the Bay Area of Northern California where some freeway offramps are appearing like trash explosions, but when you look closer you spot encampments of homeless people in ramshackle tent communities. Bizarre eye-sores have spread across hillsides, among the brush along the freeway, and are nestled in tight spaces under bridges. It really is astonishing to see the level of homelessness spread from slum areas to the edges of major highways. If these are the signs of those who are at the end of possibility, what of those who are struggling and at risk of falling to the edge? They have to pay rent; food becomes a secondary expenditure if you can find things at Dollar Stores. When those are too expensive you head to the food bank, but what happens when food banks are running short due to holiday demand? Head to the grocery store parking lot and snatch a couple of bags from someone’s cart who looks vulnerable, that’s what you do. Grocery stores must be aware of this and hence Robo-D3 Edge Security Officer is on duty and standing by.

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.