Dreams, Moments, Travels
We are on our way to San Francisco, California, for a long weekend. The first part of our drive takes us over a road that becomes all too familiar: Interstate 60. Over Wickenburg past Nothing and on to Kingman, then we cross the Colorado River before driving through Needles, California. Lucky for us, we will drive through Bakersfield in the dark. We make camp in the luxury of a cheap motel in Lost Hills, California. Next morning, we will finish our drive north to Frisco.
This could well be our 100th drive west to California. We have made the 350 miles (560km) drive so often we are no longer certain just how many trips have been made. This particular journey will take us to Santa Barbara, California, to spend Christmas with family. We left Phoenix in the rain and heard later that fog closed Sky Harbor Airport. California, on the other hand, was all blue skies and warm days. This photo was taken about 80 miles from the California border, traveling west on Interstate 10 from Phoenix, Arizona.
When time allows, I’ll never skip the opportunity to stop in at The Northwoods Inn, and so it was as we lost an hour on our up to Santa Barbara.
We emerged this morning from very special lodgings. When I was making reservations, it turned out that the Umpqua Lighthouse State Park only had a deluxe yurt available for us, so we stayed in this posh supersized yurt that went beyond the simple space heater and a light. It was fully ADA-accessible, featuring a refrigerator, microwave, TV, and VCR (VHS tape only), shower, toilet, even a kitchen sink.
Update in February 2023: I’ve been adding images to some old posts where a visual deficit once existed. Regarding this wonky panorama, this was a work in progress for Caroline that was never finished. Back when I originally posted it, I liked the idea that others might be able to see that there are approximately a dozen images used for building this photo. While I could have rebuilt it using Lightroom, which would have likely done a great job, there’s something warm and fuzzy about the memory of how much work it once took to build up panoramas.
Let the Umpqua Lighthouse guide the way for our absurd 150-mile drive north that will see us needing to turn around and drive south to Newport today for the yurt we already have booked. Why would we do such a thing? Meeting a friend and learning about the effectiveness of oven bags in containing smells, pungent smells.
Good thing we enjoy these crazy long drives; at least they leave us with indelible impressions and a passion for return visits.
That’s Heceta Head Lighthouse in the distance and the keeper’s house on the right.
I can only wonder about how many times over the years I’ll write about this spot on the side of the road once known as Sealines Nautical Shop. When it was open, and we could have stopped by, we figured we didn’t have enough time or enough money and that we’d catch it on another trip; well, it closed down.
Even though it was closed, the figures that first drew our attention stood outside for a number of years…and then it was all gone besides the shop that has never been reoccupied. The shop was just south of Yachats.
This is The Lookout at Cape Foulweather in Otter Rock, south of Depoe Bay. It is here and available to us visitors due to the generosity of Wilbur S. and Florence Badley, who back in 1928 gave the land to the state of Oregon with the stipulation the land not be developed and remain for public enjoyment; what great people they were.
This is the view south of Cape Foulweather.
I have no real idea where it was when we spotted these sea lions on a narrow shelf trying to catch some zzz’s as the waves washed over them.
Over the years, I’ll photograph these three rocks in Siletz Bay from all angles, and rarely do they look the same.
We went as far as Tillamook to pick up some cheese and marionberry pie ice cream cones. Unfortunately, our favorite Tillamook cheese manufacturer and shop, Blue Heron, was closed due to recent flooding, so there were no sandwiches with smoked brie for us today.
One detail neglected in the original post was that we traveled this far north only to turn around as we were meeting with an old friend who was paying back a debt with a certain kind of green currency, so to speak. This is where the oven bags came into play.
The image above was taken on Cape Meares Beach just off the Three Capes Scenic Drive, where half a dozen sea birds dart back and forth with the waves as they forage for a morsel late in the day.
The Cape Meares Lighthouse.
While listed as being in Tillamook, this wayside is south of Oceanside and is another example of the generosity of someone who saw the value in keeping views like this unobstructed by the greed for individuals to own something so rare that should remain for all of us. Thank you, Percy Symons, for your donation.
We stopped by the Lincoln City Glass Center in Lincoln City. The seed has been planted, and now we must return one day for Caroline to make something of glass for the two of us.
It was rather late when we arrived at tonight’s yurt, but not so late that the raccoons here at Beverly Beach State Park in Newport weren’t happy to see us. Have I shared yet that we love yurts?
We awoke in the little town of Willits, California, to a cold fog. Almost 140 miles north of San Francisco, Willits is known as the Gateway to the Redwoods, and that was our destination for spending the majority of the day. The fog quickly gave way to intermittent blue skies, though we continued to cut in and out of clouds while, at times, the drive was almost dark due to the heavy tree cover. We stop for anything that catches our eye, such as the psychedelic roadside Country Store & Deli in Laytonville, California, known as Area 101.
One might think with only 245 miles to Brookings, Oregon, we’d not need the entire day to get there but we could easily prove you wrong. It’s not difficult to find ourselves distracted by things, places, and the sights we might have passed on previous travels; with an abundance of available time, we can do stuff like visit the World Famous Confusion Hill and The Legend of Bigfoot shop just up the road. It turns out that we don’t go into any of them as we question what the value will be, how much time we’ll have to give to explore them, and then the inevitable question of whether we are really all that interested anyway.
What we are really interested in is unadorned, raw nature, and that’s what is to be found right here in the Humboldt Redwoods State Park in Weott, California.
A small parking area in the Redwoods caught my eye, prompting a quick U-turn, and we took off on a short loop trail, passing fallen Redwoods, mushrooms, dripping water, ferns, moss, and the sound of a handful of songbirds.
The aforementioned mushrooms, although there were many others.
We are on Avenue of the Giants, which parallels Highway 101 but is far more conducive to pulling over for the occasional photo, like here looking at the South Fork Eel River south of Burlington, California.
Back on the main highway, traveling north with a destination of Oregon but first a stop in Eureka, California, and the first Dutch Bros. on the coast.
Not quite sunset yet, nor are we in Oregon, but we’re inching closer.
This and the previous photo were taken from our slow drive up Patricks Point through Trinidad.
The famous red deer in Orick appear to have adapted well to living next to the highway, as while they are free to roam, we’ve not driven through here and not seen them.
Passing over the Klamath River while the nearby Trees of Mystery were once again passed by, this time because it was closed for Thanksgiving (the other times, we were simply short on time).
We finally pulled into Harris Beach State Park, got checked into our yurt, and then raced over to the beach for a glorious sunset.
Thanksgiving dinner was barbecued under the umbrella, including mushrooms and corn on the cob with truffle butter for Caroline and a steak and the same corn for me. The weather that accompanied our dinner stayed with us over the majority of the night, with the gentle patter of raindrops dancing on our canvas roof throughout the night.
This is the weekend North Korea’s ronery reader raunches his first nucular weapon. The bomb could prove so powerful that this might be the last sunset the world will see. This may not even be the sun but may actually be the moment of detonation and the beginning of the end for humanity. I think we should show Dear Leader a thing or two by having the U.S. arm all Asian countries so our Mutually Assured Destruction philosophy of the Cold War guarantees that Asia plays nice just like we did with good old Russia. Yep, that’s what I think, we need more nukes – contrary to my tree-huggin’ wife who would probably go on about more cukes, fewer nukes.
Next year I should consider turning my website from a photo of the day blog into a sunset of the day blog. I will actually have to learn a new vocabulary to do so. A vocabulary that allows me to complain in vivid terms about the lack of dynamism when skies are free of clouds and the heavens are depressingly blue on a day-in-day-out basis. I will rant about how a vast right-wing conspiracy is at work behind the scenes to weaken the heroic intensity of liberal do-what-they-want clouds. I can also take up the rallying cry to build a sky wall stopping Mexican clouds from freeloading over American lands. Don’t even get me started on the gay clouds; fortunately, most of those are hiding behind other clouds and we don’t have to witness their uh hum, behaviors.
#SARCASM