Good morning, Steller’s jay! I hope you enjoy your morning meal courtesy of the vanlife guttersnipes that squatted here overnight. Caroline and I have been visiting the Oregon coast for about 20 years now, and I can say with certainty we’ve never seen so many roadside freeloaders who don’t have the respect to pay attention to the “No Overnight Camping Allowed” signs. I can only surmise that their sense of being free to roam America’s roads allows them to feel a sense of entitlement that arrives with their chosen form of homelessness for the sake of social media status. Regarding the homeless situation, it has spilled out of the bigger cities and now shows up on the coast in ways we’d not seen before. From more people living in cars (not in the aforementioned vanlife configuration) to people struggling with loads of stuff being moved through town and those who will join the ranks in the coming year due to the problem of rising rents, the situation is one of ugly proportions. Back to the vanlifers, Caroline and I used to pull into overlook parking lots where we might be the only people, but when we pull in, and there are people just waking, finishing their ablutions, or putting away the cooking gear, I try to imagine what our experiences would have been like if people in motorhomes had exercised the same liberties, especially considering two large vehicles could fill up a pullout and stop anyone else from stopping for a moment. Just because we didn’t park at an ocean overlook doesn’t mean our waking experiences are any less valid or someone else’s even greater because they flaunt convention. Enough of that, I look forward to the day that vanlife is no longer a thing or I’m dead and gone, no longer able to witness the arrogance.
Normally, waking near the shadow of a lighthouse is a terrific thing, but driving into someone’s temporary bedroom sure puts a damper on that. Fortunately, they were soon gone after we spoiled their perfect isolation with our intrusion. Oops, I said I was done with all that, but the truth is that I’m never done once something gets jammed in my craw.
When we travel on weekends, it’s often been difficult for Caroline to connect with her mom in Frankfurt for her weekly call, but it just so happens that our brother-in-law Klaus is visiting Jutta as we were packing up the yurt and is going to bring us into a video chat. While my mother-in-law has certainly been here at the lighthouse, we have some skepticism about how much she remembers or whether she simply learned to just go along with things and agree to fond memories rather than admit these things are largely gone from her book of memories. It’s really not a problem, though, as she smiles a lot, and we know she’s still very aware that she’s been to the United States many times, even if many of the details are lost to the passage of time.
Do you remember how years ago there was a floating restaurant off in the distant corner here in Winchester Bay? We fondly do and have often wished to visit again, but it’s been closed for years. We first dined there back in 2006; such is the good luck of having blog posts to remind one of something that might have been forgotten otherwise. Today, we sit next to the Umpqua River for breakfast after choosing the place with more cars parked outside, figuring the locals know something.
Never believe in 10-day forecasts, or better yet, simply don’t look at them because would they really change your travel plans? This is probably bad advice because at least they offer some idea of how to dress for potential weather conditions. As for the location, we are on the other side of the restaurant for a post-breakfast walk under perfect skies.
This isn’t just any old forest; it is the forest that goes back…
…back to the Umpqua Lighthouse because without Tillamook Creamery around for breakfast dessert, this will have to do.
We are looking across one small part of Coos Bay from the vantage point of the David Dewett Veterans Memorial in North Bend. It almost never fails that the reflections of the Oregon Dunes catch our eye, and poetically, it makes sense that a place of such great reflection should be the site of a veterans memorial.
In the opposite direction, you’ll find the McCullough Memorial Bridge.
In all the years we’ve been passing through here, we’ve yet to see this rail bridge in any other position or to see trains crossing the bay. We can only guess that this is a relic of the age of forestry as it existed in the past.
From this fascination with bridges, one might think Arizona doesn’t have any, but it turns out that Arizona and Oregon are nearly equal in that department, which suggests that the bridges in Arizona are not remarkable in any way. Before you object: yes, we have the Navajo Bridges over the Colorado River and the London Bridge that was moved from the U.K. to Lake Havasu, along with the Black Bridge down in the Grand Canyon, but other than those, I cannot think of any other memorable crossings in Arizona. [May I suggest Roosevelt Lake Bridge? Caroline]
For 86 years, people have been using this bridge, but has anyone else taken so many photos of it?
I’m always trying to remind myself not only to stop and take photos of the most iconic things but also the mundane ones along the way, as they are just as important a part of the attraction that draws us back year after year.
In addition, we try to turn down side roads we might have missed on previous travels, and today, that worked in our favor when we turned onto Riverside Drive. At first glance, this might look like an outhouse to those of us not accustomed to living in rainy places, but upon looking closer, it was obvious that this was a long-neglected bus stop for kids who needed shelter while waiting for their school bus.
That, or it was a hiding place from a marauding Big Foot and its daughter.
Also from Riverside Drive, a view of the Bandon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge we’ve never seen before.
The same cannot be said of the Wool Company yarn store in Bandon, which we’ve visited countless times and must have bought 50 skeins of yarn by now. Yes, there is new sock yarn there, destined for my feet.
Another place becoming a regular stop on our journeys is found here at the famous Langlois Market, best known for the more than 1,000,000 hotdogs they’ve sold from their little roadside market in a town of only 370 people.
Not being able to remember offhand the last time we visited the Cape Blanco Lighthouse in Port Orford, we decided to drive down the road through the state park to have a gander.
Oooh, it’s windy and cold out here, but the sky demands that we take the short walk in the elements to nab a photo of the lighthouse should it happen that I’ve never taken one in such nice weather.
Apparently, Neptune has raised his Sword of Damocles against those who live above the surface of his vast ocean, threatening all of us should we not heed our own knowledge that we are ravaging his seas.
And to our right, as we walk out on the spit of land that is home to the lighthouse, is this view of the deep blue sea that just yesterday was dark green.
At this time of year, nothing is open; the season is over. No matter, as the tower itself is not currently visitable even during the summer.
As I said, it’s windy out here, which Caroline thought was as good a time as any to break out the new kite and test how it compares to the one it’s replacing. We’ll just call it love.
Our car is out there in front of the tree line, and looking at the photo above this one, you might have noticed that Caroline was standing in the old parking lot. Even if the road to the lighthouse was still open, you should be reluctant to drive it as the adjacent cliffside is eroding.
This is still part of the Cape Blanco State Park, and to the left is the Historic Hughes House built in 1898 that is visitable.
There are a lot of places I can say with certainty we’ve visited before, even multiple times, but this pullout looking north towards Port Orford seems to me to be one of the surprisingly many new sites we’ve stopped at during these days.
Looking southwest from the same vantage point offers up a crisp sky and a horizon nearly devoid of any fog. Of all the times we’ve been asked if we’ve been here or there, this country or that, nobody has ever asked if we’d ever had the opportunity to be out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
While our yurt at Bullards Beach State Park in Bandon is now 30 miles behind us, we have a date with a rock 35 miles ahead.
Persistence paid off in my attempts to figure out where the heck we were on the road, but it is mislabeled on Google Maps and is not identified at all on Bing; the address is roughly 35690 Oregon Coast Highway, identified with Port Orford, and it is NOT Foramen Arch.
Turn and look south, and this is your view from the photo above. To the left of the image, you can see Euchre Creek spilling into the ocean.
Moving down a hill and between the bushes, we were offered this view of Wedderburn Bridge in Gold Beach. I wanted to snap a photo from the road, which gave a much better view; stopping for a photo would have been too dangerous though, so this one will have to do. It’s yet another bridge designed by the famous civil Oregonian engineer with a Hitler mustache named Conde McCullough.
Meet our southern date here at Meyers Creek Beach, the Shark Fin. This visit, though, now comes with 100% more kite.
No more disappointment trying to fly the previous pathetic little kite that was reluctant to take to the sky, as this one is a natural.
Caroline is so happy with this new kite that she’s named it Happy McKiteface. Cute name and all, but I think it actually describes her.
Until next time, Shark Fin, it’s been great.
There we were, driving north as though we were doing so with purpose when, not even two miles away from our last stop, a steep road up a hillside on my left seemingly demanded that I pull a quick U-turn to investigate. Why hadn’t the Cape Sebastian sign caught our attention before?
Seeing how we are now up here, we should check out what is down the hill, not this way but the one in front of us.
Nope, this is the view to the north, but in a second, you’ll know what I’m speaking of.
This is the trail I wanted to bring your attention to.
It apparently brings us out to the edge of Cape Sebastian, here between Pistol River and Gold Beach.
Where exactly it’s going is uncertain as there was no trail map at the parking lot, and at this moment, we’ve not passed anyone else who can tell us anything more about where we are. Checking our phones is not an option as we have no signal.
If this were as far as we’d been able to go, it would have been worth every moment and more. Around this time, we’d met a couple coming at us on the trail, and we asked how far they went; they’d gone all the way to the beach but warned us it was too late to try that as it would certainly be dark by the time we got back to where we were talking with them. Something to come back to.
With that, we turned around for our walk back through the forest until we found a slightly different view north.
In the distance to the south, way out there, that’s Arch Rock.
Back at the Cape Sebastian parking lot and ready to tackle the last 65 miles to the evening’s yurt accommodations.
We’ll still have 60 miles left after this “last” stop, but who could blame us? We’ve stopped at the Gold Beach Visitors Center, which appears to be the name of the beach, but that can’t be.
While I busied myself photographing the last moments of the setting sun, Caroline quietly pulled out Happy McKiteface and threw it aloft before I could protest. With that smiling face beaming at her new kite high above the beach in the fading light of day, there was no way I was going to rain on her moment of finding yet more joy.
