Coastal Dreams

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Three seals and a seagull in Monterey Bay, California

Yesterday’s 12-hour drive from Phoenix, Arizona, to Monterey Bay, California, was meant to bring us to this: the ocean. Before we stepped out for a long walk along the shore, we’d stopped at our favorite cafe in these parts, known as Old Monterey Cafe. We’ll likely eat breakfast there every day we’re here. Once back near the Lovers Point Inn, where we’re staying in Pacific Grove, it was time to take off for a leisurely four-hour, four-mile walk along the ocean.

Some coastal winter color in the form of Torch Aloe

We have no set schedule, nor are we moving our lodging. This is uncommon for us and may just be a sign of getting older; that, or it’s a testament to how much we love this part of the California coast. Our love of the coast starts in San Luis Obispo and stretches to Pt. Reyes and Mendocino before we pick up again near the Redwoods before hitting Oregon. Today, though, we’ll stay within a few miles of just where we are now; there was enough driving yesterday, so I’d like a break and have a slow day.

Coastal rocks in Pacific Grove, California

I cannot recall how many times we may have walked past this exact spot. Was it stormy or calm on previous visits? Overcast or sunny? High or low tide? It doesn’t matter because, in some respects, it’s the first time we’ve ever walked past this, as it is as beautiful a detail as one has ever seen and adds to the overall experience that brings delight to our coastal sojourn.

Ice plant in Pacific Grove, California

Winter on the California coast might be more akin to the same season down in Florida, but the spectacle of the rocky coast, whales, and pelicans are unique to this side of the country. While others may revel in the snow of a white Christmas, we’ll take sun and ocean any day; see our Christmas trip to Hawaii for confirmation of this claim.

The seagull

This fine specimen of seagull is the most ubiquitous of wildlife one will see here on the coast; the most endearing trait of these feathered friends is their raucous squawk that lets you know that you are near the sea. While some think of them as flying rats, they hold a special place in Caroline’s and my heart for their enthusiastic and flamboyant lifestyles.

Fluke of a humpback whale in Monterey Bay, California

More mysterious and typically unseen is the whale. We’d traveled to the Pacific Ocean dozens of times before we ever saw a hint of whale, and now it seems like we spot a few on every trip. Once you first see a spout, you are forever familiar with and know what to look for, and that’s how we eyed today’s pod. This fluke belongs to the humpback variety. Our day was made upon seeing this sight.

Mission San Carlos Borroméo del río Carmelo also known as Carmel Mission

This is the basilica of the Carmel Mission and the resting place of Saint Junipero Serra. It’s the second time we’ve had the opportunity to visit, and the first time over Christmas. If it weren’t for the large crowds expected for Mass and our exceptionally tired feet, we may have returned, but that will have to be left for a subsequent visit. From here, we required a coffee followed by some dinner that turned out a little harder to obtain, seeing most places were booked solid due to it being Christmas Eve. The evening ended with yet another walk before we passed out by an early-for-us 9:30.

Alaska – Day 4

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

We are driving north on Lutak Road, looking for the Chilkoot Lake State Recreation Site, which is about 10 miles away. With nothing else to do today before orientation for the Alsek River journey that starts tomorrow, we are free to take as long as possible on our 20-mile roundtrip adventure.

Big things are all around you, as that’s the nature of being in Alaska. That stuff is easy to see. To stop and check out the small stuff instead of remaining in constant jaw-dropping awe is the hard part.

And so we walk. We pull over and go check out some hundreds of feet of terrain on the off-chance we might find a bone of some sort or be witness to an eagle swooping down to grab a fish before flying off.

We might see the mountains again, and we might gaze upon the sea from the same spot at some time in the future; while those places may look nearly identical, these pieces of driftwood strewn about and the wildflowers will never be seen in just the same configuration ever again. I consider it likely that Caroline and I will have been the only humans ever to see just this spot.

This can’t be the first time I’ve wondered out loud about why it is particularly these scenes that are so captivating; I think it’s because we can share this as a group experience if more than one of us is here looking out at it. We can share our enthusiasm for how spectacular we agree it is as compared to looking at something where we have to direct other people’s interest to some tiny element that may only be obvious to us. The expediency of finding commonalities when we are uncertain about other people’s attention spans might be a factor, too.

I like green moss, and I cannot lie, but it’s the contrast between gray, blue, and the many shades of green that really draws me in.

We have reached the Chilkoot Lake State Recreation Site and will need a boat to go further, except we don’t happen to have a boat with us.

So we will look out from the shore and dream of the day we could set out in a raft and just float around aimlessly, watching the weather change.

Hello belted kingfisher, we worship before you the place you call home. We wish you a long life, finding an abundance of fish and tadpoles within these waters you watch over. I hope that we humans do not foul our environment because without you, the other creatures, the trees, moss, various plants, and elements, we might as well be on Mars.

Imagine immersing yourself in buffets with all of the generic foodstuffs you’ve grown up with, maybe there are slot machines, movies, TV, heated pools, and live entertainment. You are part of a cruise ship ecosystem, and then, in a minute, you and your drinking friends disembark at a random port, and like a herd of 1000 cattle, you wander into town ruminating on your lunch of burgers, fries, and margarita, looking for the perfect token that will prove to everyone back home that you went to Alaska on some wild adventure. From your heated cabin, you’ll have looked out at snow-capped mountains, seen whales swimming by, and maybe caught a glimpse of a bear. I suppose this is good enough as at least you left the comfort of home, or did you?

Tonight, we’ll pack our bags and leave a few things behind that are not needed on a river trip where we have to travel light. We’ll be meeting everyone else who’s on the journey with us and sharing our first meal together. I, for one, will have jittery nerves as getting on fast-moving ice-cold water through a wilderness is still a bit intimidating to me. But that’s exactly what we came for.

Alaska – Day 3

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Flight to Haines, Alaska

The first part of today’s travel was on a commercial jet that took us an hour and a half down the coast of Alaska from Anchorage to Juneau. When I booked our connecting flight with Alaska Seaplanes, I was excited that we’d be taking off on the water and making a water landing. Imagine my disappointment when we recognized that they also operate planes that take off and land on good old ground. Oh well, maybe another trip we’ll make certain beforehand that we’ll be doing the plane-on-water-thing, but for now, we crawl into our tiny 8-passenger plane for the short 30-minute flight from Juneau to Haines, Alaska.

Flight to Haines, Alaska

Nothing like a hanging glacier peeking out of the clouds to quickly turn our frowns upside down. Seriously though, you saw the coastline in the photo above; there’s nothing to be disappointed with.

Flight to Haines, Alaska

The milky water is a glacial runoff, joining this arm of the Inside Passage.

Flight to Haines, Alaska

We didn’t spot any whales on our journey north, not that we were expecting to see them in the mountains, but right below us was ocean water, and when we weren’t looking at glaciers and forests, we were frantically scanning the water for cetaceans.

Flight to Haines, Alaska

The nice thing about a single-engine propeller-driven plane is that it flies kind of slowly. When I was looking through our photos at home, I thought for a second that this glacier and the image four photos down were not the same places, but on closer examination, it turns out they are the same.

Flight to Haines, Alaska

Then I had to do a double-take to realize that this and the photo two images up are not in the same place. The waterfalls and glaciers are just that abundant.

Flight to Haines, Alaska

Thin braids of water running over the landscape remind me of what we’ll be running over on the Alsek River soon.

Flight to Haines, Alaska

It’s been a delight lingering over the landscape and flying slow and low, allowing us to appreciate the sights. I am curious what this all looks like on a sunny day, but I’m impressed nonetheless.

Flight to Haines, Alaska

Look closely and you’ll notice the similarities with the image four photos above.

Flight to Haines, Alaska

A view from a plane we don’t often get to see, the runway straight ahead.

Caroline Wise in Haines, Alaska

We are in Haines a couple of days early to allow ourselves time to explore the area. After checking in to our small hotel and picking up the rental car that we’ll have for about 24 hours we headed over to the staging area and warehouse where our boatmen were preparing things for our river trip. The building is falling apart;  we looked into a couple of the abandoned rooms out of curiosity.

Chilkat State Park in Haines, Alaska

We didn’t need to drive far for our next adventure, and the nearby Chilkat State Park sounded appealing enough for us. While the park was only a couple of miles from our lodging, saving the hour and a half, it would have taken us to walk out and back offered us more time out on the trail.

Chilkat State Park in Haines, Alaska

We are on the Battery Point trail and moving along pretty slowly.

Chilkat State Park in Haines, Alaska

While we were in Alaska five years ago, running the Alsek River for the first time, we didn’t have much time to explore the surrounding areas. Being immersed in a glaciated river corridor has a special appeal, but so does the area outside of that.

Chilkat State Park in Haines, Alaska

No matter that we are in a state park, civilization as it is in Alaska hasn’t been successful in pushing wildlife to an extinction point near its towns like it has down the lower 48 and so I’m always on the alert for bears.

Chilkat State Park in Haines, Alaska

It’s great to wind down from the stress of normal life out in the middle of nowhere. By the way, it was just two weeks ago that I had to fire everyone in my company. Twenty-some people coming off the 4th of July long weekend were fired en masse because we ran out of money for the last time. This vacation was about the last thing I wanted to do, but we would have lost a ton of money canceling at the last minute as these kinds of adventures require that you cancel at least 90 days in advance. So here we are with my wounds still fresh. Being out here, though, I don’t want to dwell on that carnage and am trying to set my mind on spending time with my wife, friends, and myself. Enough said.

Chilkat State Park in Haines, Alaska

While we stop to smell the flowers, the butterflies stop to taste the flowers.

Chilkat State Park in Haines, Alaska

Even with overcast skies, it’s pretty out here and a beautiful contrast to the 110-degree temperatures we left behind in Phoenix, Arizona.

Caroline Wise in Haines, Alaska

We know from previous experience that cascades are typically safe to drink from. This one even had a pipe at its base, which suggested the other end was higher up, capturing the water before it got close to the road, so we had to stop and fill our bottle. I’m still astonished by the opportunity to drink “wild” water.

Side of the road in Haines, Alaska

We did not transition from drinking to eating, at least not these.

Side of the road in Haines, Alaska

Our lodging for the night is at the Halsingland Hotel, which had a special rate for everyone in our group; it’s also where we’ll all have dinner and an orientation meeting tomorrow. For now, we have nothing much to do but take in the sights and stand in awe that we are here.

Oregon 2017 – Day 4

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John Wise and Caroline Wise at Cannon Beach, Oregon

Let’s just call it a down day on which we sip coffee at the Sleepy Monk, eat, sit by the fireplace in our cabin, and walk along the beach when there are breaks in the rain. Later in the day, we drove down to Manzanita for dinner with Aubrey and Laura at the Blackbird Restaurant. I met Aubrey the year before at the Sleepy Monk, where he introduced himself after seeing my notebook with a ton of synth stickers plastered on it and told me of his recently acquired Black & Gold Shared System from MakeNoise.

Oregon 2017 – Day 3

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Nehalem Bay State Park in Oregon

Down south in California, it is often cliffs, icicle plants, or wide-open beaches that greet you when you approach the ocean. Up north in Washington, it’s cliffs or forest between you and the ocean. Here in Oregon, it’s frequently sand dunes, cliffs, and lush swaying grasses that greet you. Tragically, back on the East Coast, it’s not uncommon for the Atlantic to be blocked with gaudy high rises, condos, and mansions that separate the visitor from gazing out upon the sea. In built-up areas where industry, be it a commercial enterprise, industrial tourism, or cities, has taken center stage next to the ocean, there is something abrasive when we are in its proximity, as when one approaches the ocean from a wild area, the entire sense of place of where we are going and what we are approaching takes a dramatic shift into the untamed and unknown.

Nehalem Bay State Park in Oregon

Likewise, when we look inland and fail to see the trapping of civilization, there is a moment where our imagination suggests that the land ahead could go on forever into places that require discovery. Compare this to Daytona Beach, Florida, wherefrom the ocean you look and know an overcrowded ice cream shop with cranky tourists jostling for position in an attempt to justify the vacation through sweet indulgences because being somewhere is never good enough when it drags creatures of habit out of their routines. For those of us who enjoy travel as opposed to tourism, a scene such as this one above leaves nothing to be desired, except maybe more of the same quiet and unobstructed views that draw in our imaginations.

Caroline Wise at Pronto Pup in Rockaway Beach, Oregon

And just then reality crashes into the sublime with your wife going wild riding the wiener on a stick at The Original Pronto Pup in Rockaway Beach.

Ultimate Monster Burger at Newport Cafe in Newport, Oregon

While we could ride the wiener we couldn’t eat the wiener because they weren’t open yet, so we continued up the road because nothing satisfies quite like a FOUR POUND ULTIMATE MONSTER BURGER! I swore in my last blog post about this place that we’d try the 8-pound version next time it’s happening, even if I have to go and eat it all by myself.

Misty coastal Oregon

The Three Capes road through misty coastal forests on our way back up north to Cannon Beach. On sunny days, there are some great views up and down the coast from high above the ocean as you pass through.

Ardbeg Uiegadail Scotch at The Irish Table in Cannon Beach, Oregon

Caroline is about to indulge in a wee dram of Ardbeg Uiegadail Scotch at The Irish Table in Cannon Beach. Our friend, Willie from Scotland, later commented that this was in no way a “wee” dram but a rather large dram. Good food, drink, and scenery are all we need for a perfect getaway.

Oregon 2017 – Day 2

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Ecola State Park north of Cannon Beach, Oregon

With the weather in our favor for this visit to Ecola State Park north of Cannon Beach, we were prepared to give this place the time it deserved. We were not in a rush to get anywhere else today, so we just might be here all day.

Ecola State Park north of Cannon Beach, Oregon

Making our way deeper into the park.

Caroline Wise at Ecola State Park north of Cannon Beach, Oregon

At some point, the trail split, and we headed down to the beach where Caroline found this trophy chunk of Styrofoam that we can now be confident won’t be a whale snack later this year. I don’t believe we have ever left a beach where Caroline doesn’t have a pocket full of trash. Sometimes, I think she’s busy with a myopic view of what’s in front of her feet as she looks for plastic and forgets to see the bigger picture. This probably has something to do with why she likes my photos so much, they allow her to see where she was.

Caroline Wise at Ecola State Park north of Cannon Beach, Oregon

We have moved along to the upper trail with a great view of the Tillamook Rock Lighthouse, though you may not know just how cool it was, seeing how I used my phone to take this photo. Someone sent a drone out there and shot this GREAT video! In the comments on the video is some history of being a lightkeeper on this desolate rock; read it here.

Caroline Wise at Ecola State Park north of Cannon Beach, Oregon

The landscape is varied here at Ecola and is well worth the visit if the weather is on your side. On our first visit, the winds were howling, and the rain was shredding sideways.

Caroline Wise at Ecola State Park north of Cannon Beach, Oregon

We’ll need to make a third visit here so I can bring a proper camera, do justice to the finer details, and get the shots that might have worked with a better lens. It’s all still pretty beautiful and a great reminder of our time here.

Manhattan State Beach in Rockaway, Oregon

After lunch at a small cafe in Manzanita, we headed over to Manhattan Beach State Park in Rockaway Beach and took a long walk on a wide-open beach where we couldn’t see anyone else for miles.

Manhattan State Beach in Rockaway, Oregon

You walk along and think that you’ve pretty much seen it all, just beach and more beach, and then you run into something strange like these patterns and little sand islets. Just in front of me, you might be able to see that the water is greener; that’s because it is deeper right there, as though a pocket has been carved out of the beach.

Heading north back to Cannon Beach, Oregon

Getting later and hungry, it was time to return north for our reservation at the Wayfarer Restaurant.

A Manhattan at the Wayfarer Restaurant in Cannon Beach, Oregon

Facing the ocean is the Wayfarer Restaurant in Cannon Beach. Being on vacation and seeing they make them, Caroline opted to start with an Old Fashioned.

Cannon Beach, Oregon

After dinner, it was time for more walking; who could blame us when this was the scenery we were walking through?

Cannon Beach, Oregon

With the sunset, the temperature chills quickly, but the light lingers for a good long time. A full day and a perfect return to the Oregon coast for our first April visit.