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.

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.

Oregon Road Trip – Day 12

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Moolack Shores Inn in Newport, Oregon

Finding somewhere to start when the obvious is to state that we are leaving the Moolack Shores Inn to continue on our journey north. That sounds mundane, expected even. So I’ll mix things up: We’ll go south instead, even though our next reservation is up north. But there must be a good story to explain the dramatic change in plans, huh? Not really, the nearest Dutch Bros. is down on the south side of Newport, and we have hours to go before we’ll check into our lodging late this afternoon.

Agate Beach in Newport, Oregon

We got off Highway 101 and onto Oceanview Drive so we could walk to Agate Beach just south of Yaquina Head Lighthouse. Prepared for a cold, chilly wind, as that’s what we had last time on this wide stretch of beach, we were surprised by how quickly we had to doff the jackets and enjoy the surprise sunshine. You see, the weather forecast had promised us bad weather, but we had this. Expecting them to be somewhat correct, we figured it would be just a matter of time before the dark gray clouds of some moody weather moved in to dose us with the flavors of Oregon in fall.

Agate Beach in Newport, Oregon

While it’s our inclination to hug the surf, a small stream we had to cross on our way to the beach captured my imagination as to just where it went after we passed it. Approaching the end of the beach, we turned inland and found the stream running up against a forested cliffside, offering its own brand of beautiful scenery,

Agate Beach in Newport, Oregon

The water was running clear with many shallow spots where surges in the current created these ripples in the sand. In other places, the water had carved deep pools around stranded logs, delivered by high tides that pushed the dead trees a couple of hundred feet further inland than where the surf is pounding the shore today.

Armed with coffee and a full tank of gas, we headed north and made our first stop at the Devil’s Punchbowl in Otter Rock. Caroline had the idea that there was a footpath down to the basin, but we couldn’t find any sign of it, and the tide was too high in any case.

Nothing is especially important in this scene besides the blue sky, the great rocks, and the admonition not to go beyond the fence, which would be incredibly foolish, as the cliffside drops precipitously straight down into some jagged rocks and hammering surf. Sometimes, these photos of things overlooked fill in the gaps to make a fuller picture of the details that create a day on vacation.

We didn’t know we wanted ice cream until we saw the other couple enjoying their cones on this sunny day. Funny that famous Mo’s Seafood & Chowder, in their tiniest location here in Otter Rock, would be closed for the season, as who wouldn’t want a nice hot bowl of slumgullion on a cold day? But instead, we have the option for this summery treat.

I don’t think we’ve seen Siletz Bay south of Lincoln City the same way twice. Neither Caroline nor I even know if we’ve stopped at this particular turnout. Depending on the weather and lighting, this place can be a favorite for photographing the tree on the rock, which is often surrounded by water, but not today.

Up the road a bit, we finally stopped at Gallucci’s Pizza after driving by it countless times and stupidly intoning the name Gallucci with an affected, fakey New York Italian accent over and over until we are both laughing. If we had had witnesses in the car, they might have thought we’d lost our minds as we veered into such a goofy parody of Italian Americans. As for the pizza, I wish we had something nice to say about it or that I could say we’re looking forward to a future visit, but it was seriously mediocre. Maybe it’s a great pizza for the area and the people who live here, so I wish them the best of luck, but then again, they’ve been here for years, surviving without us anyway.

Hart's Camp in Pacific City, Oregon

Not much longer after that, we’re pulling into Pacific City looking for Hart’s Camp, where we’re staying for the next couple of nights. Added bonus, the place has dozens of free-range rabbits just wandering around.

Hart's Camp in Pacific City, Oregon

The first thing we check out in our “yard” is our outdoor shower. I’ve got to be honest, as I write this outside by the fire, we can see the exhale of our breath; it’s that cold. Maybe we can shower in the middle of the day, and it won’t be all that chilly?

Hart's Camp in Pacific City, Oregon

Into the Airstream where we will be sleeping. With two televisions, a gas barbecue, an outdoor shower, wifi, and rabbits, we feel like the perfect hipsters on vacation. We even have a Chemex coffee pot that pushes us into an entirely new league of aficionados. The only thing missing is some trendy alcohol.

Hart's Camp in Pacific City, Oregon

If the blanket looks familiar from our stay at Ocean Haven in Yachats, it is. We brought our cozy bedding because who doesn’t sleep better with their own blanket and pillows?

With time to spare, we headed down to the ocean to catch a couple of miles under the setting sun. Needed to burn off some of that pizza and ice cream, too.

Caroline Wise and John Wise in Pacific City, Oregon

Look behind us, and you’ll see a solar halo. No, I’m not making it up. This halo was in the sky for about 15 minutes, opposite the sun. We’ve seen sundogs before, but this might be our first solar halo.

Caroline Wise at sunset in Pacific City, Oregon

This isn’t even the end of our perfect day yet; there’s still more to come.

Caroline Wise in Pacific City, Oregon

From the beach, we were walking back to Hart’s Camp but had to pass the Pelican Brewing Company first. Caroline thought she might like a beer, and we saw that they’d set up a to-go window, so why not go support them? A particular bottle looked interesting in the window, so we pointed to one, and the girl rang it up. With my card out, she tells me $25. Huh? Twenty-five dollars for a bottle of beer? So I asked how much the can was next to it, and she said, “$3.50.”

Lucky us, a guy had walked up who worked there and was doing something to our left. He explained that this was indeed $25 but worth every penny. By now, this beer is famous, and the reason is that it’s a barleywine-style ale malt aged in bourbon barrels. The name of it is the Mother of all Storms, and it was brewed back in 2014.

Hart's Camp in Pacific City, Oregon

With trendy alcohol now on hand, filet mignons on the grill paired with some corona beans, a fire, and our Airstream lodging getting toasty on this cold fall night, we are enjoying life here on day 12 of our annual Oregon road trip.

Another Transition in Remote Self-Isolation

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Dawn at Ocean Haven in Yachats, Oregon

We woke before 6:00 a.m. to a dark sky full of stars. Cassiopeia, the Big and Small Dippers, Orion, and others were still on hand for admiration from our cozy lair. Under the blanket, we were fantastically warm, while the room we were taking refuge in was pretty darned cold; we’d left the windows open overnight.

Caroline Wise at Shags Inn at Ocean Haven in Yachats, Oregon

Today, we check out of Ocean Haven by the sea. Typically, we are quick to exit a place and get on with the adventure, but here on our precarious cliffside, this is the adventure. We’ll pack, clean up, and otherwise get ready to leave, but we’re taking this right to 11:00 to enjoy every minute and absorb every detail.

Shags Inn at Ocean Haven in Yachats, Oregon

It’s 7 minutes before we’re supposed to be gone, but I needed to jot down a note and snap a few photos to reinforce the memories of one of the more perfect places we’ve ever had the luxury to enjoy. We leave on a sunny day with a calm blue ocean that stretches as far as the eye can see. We’ll miss this little cabin by the sea and long for the day we might return. Remote Self-Isolation has never been so good.

Shags Inn at Ocean Haven in Yachats, Oregon

There are times on vacation when what was intended on paper is altered by the circumstances of where the reality of the moment takes us. There are other times when I don’t make hard plans at all, as familiarity with a location or the desire for serendipitous experiences rule the day. Then there’s the conflict between the two where something was reserved and is now fixed unless we walk away from the money spent or we’d like to carve time out to do something we just learned of, but we are here on one of the two days that thing is closed. This is one of those times where I wish for flexibility, but the adjustment of things is now impossible. What I’m referring to is our time here at Ocean Haven; if we could cancel the rest of our lodgings and the Shags Nest weren’t booked solid, we’d be quite happy to stay right here.

Rarely have we planted ourselves in a location for an extended period of time and when we have, we had busy schedules that took us into a myriad of activities and sights and kept us running from dawn to sundown. The three days in Gold Beach, followed by the five days here in Yachats, removed us from the stressors arising from surviving in 2020. I’ve had to let go of what I might have done and seized on the opportunity to follow a plan of no plan. For eight days, it didn’t matter what we got done or where we went. Meeting family could have happened on any 1 of 3 days from morning till night; it could have been 30 minutes or 3 hours.

This flexibility has been great as we have not been rushed to accomplish anything at all. Sure, there’s a mild disappointment that the writing exercise I had in mind has not materialized yet, but then again, I feel disconnected from the ongoing insanity of our political and pandemic situation that was pursuing me while in Phoenix. With another full week up here on the coast, I might still get around to that writing, but I’m also prepared for a reality where that doesn’t happen, and I’ll just try to keep dumping whatever comes to mind here on the blog.

Caroline Wise at Bread & Roses Bakery in Yachats, Oregon

Everyone is wearing masks in Oregon. Everywhere we go, nobody is without one. Our first days on the coast we were extremely isolated and didn’t see many people. By now, we’ve seen a good number of Oregonians, and at every corner, masks are ubiquitous. We now keep them around our neck to pull them up quickly when we are in town. People outdoors on trails are masked up; if they are going to pass you walking down the street, they scramble to pull their masks on. Half the shops we’ve been in have a small table with hand sanitizer, while a couple even offer complementary masks. Here at the Bread & Roses Bakery in Yachats, the person at the counter following our transaction offered the two of us a couple of squirts of hand sanitizer, which simply felt polite. Regarding Caroline’s victory pose with a loaf of bread, she’s German, which should tell you everything.

Just before this stop for a pastry and the loaf of “Bremen Bread,” we were getting some fish and scallops to go from the Luna Sea Fish House. This was our second visit, and I’d bet a dollar that next week when we are heading back down the coast, we’ll be eating here once again. I’d like to point out that although it’s relatively cold, we’ve seen more than a few restaurants that come outside to take your order, run back inside to process your payment, and then bring your food out to you. Finally, our old favorites, Dutch Bros., have signs at the drive-thru’s that they’d appreciate customers wearing a mask when they pull up to the window; we’ve not seen the best compliance with that request.

Governor Patterson Memorial State Recreation Site in Waldport, Oregon

While we waited until 11:01 to leave Ocean Haven we still have about 5 hours left before we can check-in at the Moolack Shores Inn that is only 24 miles up the coast north of Newport. So, of course, one of the things we’re going to do is take advantage of one of the supposed last sunny days of this trip and take some long walks on the beach.

Caroline Wise at Governor Patterson Memorial State Recreation Site in Waldport, Oregon

This particular stretch is called the Governor Patterson Memorial State Recreation Site and is in Waldport. It’s November, it’s still in the 40s out here, though it’s warming up fast and Caroline has her shoes off so she can walk in the surf, the very cold surf. We’re at a point where there’s a lot of uncertainty if we’ve been to a particular place on a prior trip; some stand out clear as day, while others have some ambiguity if we’ve visited before. Caroline had a great idea for a project where we collate the other 19 travels here in Oregon into a meta-map that pinpoints everywhere we can verify a stop.

Driftwood Beach State Recreation Site in Seal Rock, Oregon

While the sign isn’t as sexy as a view of the beach or as dramatic as a towering cliffside, these visual guides to trailheads full of warnings and even dog poop bags are seen nearly everywhere. I probably take them for granted these days, though I always try to photograph them as we start a walk so I can better identify our photos once the day comes to an end and I forget where we were.

John Wise and Caroline Wise at Driftwood Beach State Recreation Site in Seal Rock, Oregon

This smartphone photo was taken for Facebook but as I was scouring the other 153 DSLR photos I took today to find the 14 that best represented the day, I realized that I’ve not posted very many selfies on this trip. Photos of the two of us started being shot “selfie-style” about 20 years ago when people didn’t know how to operate our new digital cameras. While I’ve been getting some nice comments on my COVID hair, I’ve been reluctant to take photos of myself as my head looks kind of wild, but we still need photos of the two of us, so here’s this one.

Driftwood Beach State Recreation Site in Seal Rock, Oregon

It’s bright out here and feels hot. While only about 55 degrees (13 Celsius), it’s pretty toasty here in the sun. There are no profound insights to report, no photos of jellyfish as we don’t see any, and the shorebirds are not very abundant.

Caroline Wise at Driftwood Beach State Recreation Site in Seal Rock, Oregon

What I’d give to see the world through her eyes. I don’t even know if colors are perceived the same way I see them. I busy myself looking at the environment for photographic opportunities while Caroline will just stand there and look into the sea. As we walk along the shore, certain colors and shapes of things stand out to her and will inspire her to pick the object up to examine it; what qualities is she looking for? I don’t walk in the surf in November because the water is bone-chilling cold, well, to everyone except her and some kids who seem impervious to such trivialities. The one thing I can easily pick up on from my wife is when she looks at me after an extended session of communing with whatever it was she was staring at and she’s got the look of, “I need a hug!”

Sunset at Boiler Bay State Scenic Viewpoint in Depoe Bay, Oregon

Before we knew it, or about 4 hours after we left Yachats, we were passing through Newport. We kept on going beyond the obligatory Dutch Bros. stop in town; there was nothing else to do here. Briefly, we pulled over to examine some real estate listings in Depoe Bay, but come on, who’s paying $700,000 to $1.3 million for homes up here? With payments starting at $3,000 a month and up, there’s no way many locals earn enough to buy a home, so are all of these bought as rentals by investors? Enough of this futile search for future possibilities.

We are now at Boiler Bay north of Depoe Bay. The ocean is too calm for the fireworks that are often witnessed here as the ocean crashes into the cliffs and throws frothing water high into the sky but that doesn’t diminish the beauty either.

Caroline Wise at Boiler Bay State Scenic Viewpoint in Depoe Bay, Oregon

Speaking of beauty at Boiler Bay. *SIGH*

Moolak Shores north of Newport, Oregon

We are checked in here at the Moolack Shores Inn, our second time staying at this oceanfront little place. It’s very modern, and after the seclusion of the previous week, it feels a bit loud and crowded, but it’s where we are staying for a couple of days before moving further up the coast. This post could have been called “Dawdling 2,” but I don’t want to establish a routine that could influence how we see our next days.

Evening view from Moolack Shores Inn in Newport, Oregon

Note: I’ve not made an effort to share our meals as that is relatively mundane; everyone eats. I might have noted this in a previous post, but our rentals all have kitchens as we’d decided to avoid restaurants and a lot of carryout meals to minimize contact with others. There are exceptions, such as the excellent Luna Sea Fish House, a possible stop at Newport Cafe for a little burger, and we’ve discussed stopping at Gallucci’s Pizzeria in Lincoln City; while we’re not really interested in their pizza, we are fixated on a crazy mock-New York-Italian intonation of the name “Gallucci,” which is enough for us to finally succumb to trying it.

Anyway, back to our meals in this footnote. I made a batch of my homemade granola specifically for this trip. In between, we eat scrambled egg dishes with various Chinese veggies and sometimes leftover whatever is thrown in. Lunch has mostly been sandwiches of ham, peanut butter, egg salad, and even fresh chicken salad. Dinners have included seared scallops, grilled walleye, cajun stuffed pork chops, Kadai paneer (a favorite Indian cheese dish of ours), beans, a chicken stirfry, and a Mexican stirfry. Coming up we have corona beans, broiled filet, grilled bratwurst, pasta, Turducken, and finally, spaghetti squash.

I’d like to say that cooking on vacation has added to the sense of isolation, and I don’t mean that in the pandemic sense we’ve been living with, but the being outside of our typical vacation routine. On holidays, we normally eat nearly every meal at restaurants, which at times is nothing more than an extension of being at home, where we’d eat out more often than not. So, while cooking is a new part of our routine at home, it’s now a new part of our travels, and I feel it really adds to the feeling of being away.

Not The Same As Yesterday

JWise Photo of the Day, Thoughts, Travels

The view from Ocean Haven south of Yachats, Oregon

While the day was starting as a repeat of yesterday with gray stormy weather, by 11:00, things were clearing out, which was good as we had plans for the afternoon that involved us leaving our cozy enclave. We were both surprised by how quickly we had become attached to this place by the ocean. From yesterday’s photos, you might wonder what the attraction was as it’s not always what is obvious to the eye at first glance, but we knew that past the gloom was this view. Now with the sun fully arrived and Friday promising to be a sun-drenched glorious day too, would you think it crazy if I told you that a big part of me wished for a week of crippling weather bringing the threat of melancholy with it?

As far as writing goes, that will not happen until well after dinner tonight, though that 3,000-word behemoth blog entry from yesterday needed serious editing this morning, so I was able to tend to that. I was approaching the end of that task as the weather cleared, but by then, we needed to get on the road. We were traveling north to Yachats proper for a meeting that had been planned nearly a month ago.

Brandon and Amanda Horton with Caroline and John Wise in Yachats, Oregon

Yesterday, my little sister Amanda Horton and my brother-in-law Brandon drove 350 miles south from Seattle, Washington, down here to the Adobe Resort in Yachats. They are down for a few days of vacation, their first in two years, using the opportunity to visit us in addition to getting away.

While the photo is showing us standing in front of the ice cream shop, socially distanced mind you, we were meeting at the Luna Sea restaurant for lunch. It took us an hour and a half of gabbing before we could get our order in, and due to COVID restrictions, we couldn’t even eat on the property, but that wasn’t a problem as a nearby table in front of another restaurant that was closed served us just fine. Until that time, we just talked and talked. Even when we thought we were leaving, we continued the conversation for nearly another hour. We are uncertain if we’ll get together tomorrow as, although Amanda asked about the possibility, we gave them a pass should they need more recuperation time on their mini-vacation.

There’s a 20ish-year difference in our ages and a solid generation gap between us, but there’s a deep curiosity that binds us as siblings. Amanda needed to make her life somewhere other than Arizona, which is likely similar to the circumstances that drove me from Los Angeles, California. Sometimes, having the opportunity to define yourself away from the influences and environment that starts feeling like a trap is a great reason to grab what is often a once-in-a-lifetime second to seize the moment and change our destiny. She was one of the lucky people to do just that. Sadly, our origins are from dysfunctional parents where we never had the chance to be proper brother and sister besides her very first few years when I spent many an evening watching over her or taking her out to parks to visit the ducks or go pick oranges. After I joined the military, it would be nearly ten years before I’d see her again, and by then, she was a teenager like all other teenagers. But now, our family is tiny and will soon enough disappear. That we have this briefest of moments to meet up on vacation is a real treat, not lost on me.

Devils Churn at Cape Perpetua on the Oregon Coast

With the weather turning gray again with intermittent rain and getting a bit cold after standing outside for a few hours, it was time to part company. Caroline and I thought we were heading back to Ocean Haven until we figured we’d run down the trail at Devils Churn. It doesn’t matter that I already have maybe 10,000 photos of foam from this exact location; it’s always exciting to stand next to this gash in the earth and watch the furious waters race back and forth, trying to compete for space where there’s little to be had. In the process, the ocean beats itself into a frothy overflowing chaos that earned it its name: the Devils Churn.

Devils Churn at Cape Perpetua on the Oregon Coast

I’m leery to write anything here describing anymore than I just did as I’d imagine I’m only saying something already said before on a previous visit. As a matter of fact, I won’t dare compare these photos to some of the others I posted in years past, as maybe they look identical. But I don’t care, as every time we stand before this dynamic monument to what looks like the most violent butter-churning device ever invented, I stand in awe.

Devils Churn at Cape Perpetua on the Oregon Coast

Should you have thought that one foamy photo would be enough, you are wrong. I just realized one thing I may not have shared over the years: if you fell into this deep, narrowing chasm, you’d die. I refuse to believe anyone could be rescued from this cauldron of fury. The water is so aerated I can’t imagine keeping your head above the surface; if it were above the surface, you’d be gulping volumes of seafoam. Then, if you were to get your bearing, the next wave would come in and slam you with brutal force into the rock ledge, game over. I’m not so certain that retrieving a body from this liquid hell would be possible, so I stand far back, giving the Devils Churn the respect that it demands, and hope some rogue sneaker wave doesn’t come in and clean us out of its way.

Devils Churn at Cape Perpetua on the Oregon Coast

You know how when you do psychedelics and mathematic shapes unfold, producing blissful moments as you stand in astonishment at the incredibly beautiful complexity? Well, that’s what I get here without the shrooms or acid as the universe exposes itself to my naked eyes and naïve mind. With that in mind, if you can’t see what I’m referring to, then you should seriously consider finding yourself a dozen hours, some things that bring on hallucinations, and pull up a floor so you might look inside the vastness of the universe and be dazzled by its magic.

Devils Churn at Cape Perpetua on the Oregon Coast

Maybe I’ve been pulling your leg the whole time, and this is nothing more than a river of meringue that some pranksters dumped upon the surf? That idea, too, would come to you while tripping; seriously, you should consider going where your mind is afraid to travel.

Sunset at Neptune State Park on the Oregon Coast

This is the Oregon trip of eating my own braggart words as I start to feel we’ve hardly stopped at a fraction of all the places I claimed to have covered on our previous extensive journeys up and down the coast. Here we are for our first sunset photo at Neptune State Scenic Viewpoint. While it’s a good photo, I think nature can do better, so we move down the road believing with almost 30 minutes until the sun sinks out of view there are more opportunities to capture a masterpiece.

Sunset at Strawberry Hill on the Oregon Coast

At Strawberry Hill Wayside, I believe we found today’s perfect spot. How is a location like this measured? If every couple of minutes, a new, more spectacular scene is framed that elicits oohs and ahs from Caroline and me, there’s a really good chance this is it. If I get to 40 or 50 photos in less than 2 minutes, that can also be considered a good indicator. If I step left or right a few feet and swear that this perspective is the greatest ever, either I’m drinking my own Kool-Aid, or this really is the place to find the money shot.

Sunset at Strawberry Hill on the Oregon Coast

Twenty seconds after the previous photo with a different aperture, I think the warmer colors make for an even more impressive sunset photo. I’m enchanted by those remnants of golden light surrounded by the heavy storm clouds that weigh low on the ocean while in the distance above them small windows of blue sky can still be seen. It’s as though everything that the sky can offer is available right here.

Sunset at Strawberry Hill on the Oregon Coast

While this wasn’t necessarily a favorite sunset image, it joined the ranks of being featured due to this seagull being captured in just the right place.

Sunset at Strawberry Hill on the Oregon Coast

Then I walked over to where Caroline was standing and found that she had located exactly the best place in our universe, such as it existed in this moment of our lives, and so I moved in on her place with the superior camera and stole her thunder by snapping this masterpiece. So you need not ask; I’ll offer you what makes this one such a work of art: do you see that glimmer of golden light on the ocean at the bottom of the photo? That’s the magic. Like I said in the title at the top of this blog entry, today was not the same as yesterday.

Oregon Coast 2019 – Day 6

JWise Food, Photo of the Day, Travels

We should have known just how cold it was going to be on the coast overnight when we found a second heater in our yurt. Both heaters ran all night, and by morning, when we ventured out of our cozy little den by the sea, the car was frozen over. The grasses on the way to the bathrooms were crunchy, and ice was everywhere. While waiting for the sun to show its face and the temperature to rise above 30 degrees, we took the opportunity to hang out for a while. I wrote, catching up a bit on filling in details about our second day out here, and Caroline continued knitting my next pair of socks using yarn she had bought in Portland on a previous trip.

Well aware that we were choosing comfort over clear skies, we pulled our tails out from between our legs and, like big dogs, left the nest to find adventure in the great unknown. Okay, so it isn’t really all that unknown by now after so many visits, but with my aging memory, almost everything I do these days feels like the first time ever. I’ll give you a tip about this strategy because it is, in fact, a strategy and not just the way things are for the old guy. You see, years ago, back when I was but a young man, I’d read from Herr Friedrich Nietzsche that the hardest thing for a person to learn is how to forget. So I’ve practiced this fine art of doing just that, forgetting. What advantage does this have, you probably are not asking. Bad restaurants continuously have the opportunity to be good, people I don’t really like are considered multiple times for friendship, and the really stupid shit I’ve said and done is relinquished to the good philosopher’s abyss where the monsters live.

Once we were out on the road it was over to our old standby Newport Cafe, opened 24/7, 365 days a year. This place has one of the best-mixed seafood scrambles. With far too much food in us, we needed an equal amount of walking to burn off some of the gratuitous calories. Out to the ocean at the Yaquina Bay State Recreation Site for a stroll on the ocean.

Silver sparkly reflections of our star bounce off of small pools of water while ripples in the sand cast shadows into the water, creating this kind of scene. The sun does many other amazing tricks with its commanding expertise of bedazzling us bipeds who have eyes and brains tuned just for this kind of pattern hunting where things out of the ordinary beg for us to examine them in great detail. What better way to carry something forward for further research than to snap a photo, take it home, and try to figure out just what it was that I saw in this scene that obviously enchanted me? Otherwise, why did I take 41 photos of essentially the same thing?

OMG, all this beachcombing has finally paid off with us finding this pristine and intact ancient crystal sea tentacle. We’d read about them in an old Assyrian papyrus scroll that, while of Middle East origin, was actually found intact in Pompeii, Italy, during World War II by Caroline’s marauding Nazi great uncle Siegfried Handarbeit and brought back to the Fatherland (now known as modern Germany). I know it’s hard to believe, but he brought back a couple dozen of these scrolls, one of which talks of a recipe for a kind of lamb taco that was a Turkish invention; who knew? Yet another speaks of predictions that were to happen in the coming 4,000 years, but that stuff is kind of sensitive, and we’re not ready to share that yet. Anyway, back to the crystal sea tentacle, it is said that the person(s) who come into possession of this Akkadian mystical relic will forever experience pure love. I can attest to the power of the myth as that is surely just the way it’s happening as I write these very words.

By now, I might have thought Caroline and I had already walked every major stretch of beach here in Oregon, but it turns out that there are large parts of it that are unexplored. Last year we had this recognition at Moolack Beach just north of here in Newport. The mouth of Yaquina Bay has a jetty we are walking towards as I look for an angle of the Yaquina Bay Bridge to photograph. Caroline is not bothered by this errand as she’s in love with bridges as much as she is with walking next to the surf, picking up small pieces of trash on the shore, staring at the birds eating crabs or those that run next to the edge of the pulsing shoreline or admiring the clear blue skies without a cloud in sight that seems to be a good indicator of what kind of weather we’ll have today.

This is the moment when I realized that these grasses that are always brown, in my experience, may not always be so. I wonder how different things would look if, instead of the warm browns, tans, and orangish colors of fall, things were in the vibrant hues of spring or early summer.

As we make our way down the jetty, we follow the rocky shore that continues along the bay ultimately passing under the bridge before a path on the other side brought us into the Newport Historic Bayfront. Many of these iconic bridges, such as this one right here, were designed by Conde Balcom McCullough back in the 1920s and ’30s. Sadly, in looking this information up, I learned that one of his designs, the Alsea Bay Bridge between Waldport and Bayshore, was stricken with fatigue as it aged and was replaced, which has me wondering how many of these iconic parts of the landscape will still be standing 20 years from now? There are remains of the old Alsea Bay Bridge at a wayside on the north end of the current bridge that I didn’t learn about until after our trip, and neither of us has seen it on the many crossings of the new bridge. Yet another reason to return to Oregon.

It’s Thanksgiving Day morning, so the streets of Newport here in the old town are empty. This works out perfectly for me as we can window shop, but there is no dipping into shops, or is there? These crab pots are ready to go to sea; just stuff in some bait before throwing them overboard, and the crab climbs in. Time for cranky old John to make an appearance in drawing a metaphor for the similarities between crabs and people as when you look at the box of plastic we call TV and fill it with the bait of some stupid show, watching the viewer crawl right in, trapped and ready to be used.

This is not a sea lion, not even a little bit. While to my right and just below us are at least a couple of dozen of the grunting, bellowing giants, most of them dozing on some floating docks. They are catching glimmers of the sun but are mostly in the shade. This makes photographing them particularly difficult, so instead of sharing a bad photo (yes, I am aware that any photo I post here could be seen as bad), I’m offering up this image of the ubiquitous seagull. I was surprised by its patience after I asked it to hang out, and it let me come closer to snap its photo. While it kept a close eye on me before heading aloft, I was able to get the sense that it might have been posing.

Say hello to Mr. Victor Firebear, originally of Montana but now a man with a wandering nature where anywhere might become home for a spell. Singing and playing violin streetside here on Thanksgiving, I gave a nod while raising my camera, silently asking if it was okay to snap a photo; he obliged me. Caroline and I hung out for a few songs of his spontaneous concert. This nomadic busker was incredibly gracious and enthusiastic about knocking out the songs for an appreciative audience that included us and a couple of women who were here representing Jehovah’s Witnesses. Mr. Firebear is half Northern Cheyenne and half Crow, with both parents having been full-blood Native Americans from their respective tribes. You should be so lucky to have the opportunity to hear this guy sing on a street corner some cold fall day; you can rest assured we extended our thanks to him for giving us this serenading.

By now, we were 4 miles into our walk, and it was well past noon. Back up the hill, over and around the old lighthouse, we returned to where we parked the car so we could go find lunch.

Caroline Wise burger in Newport, Oregon

It seems fitting to me in our non-traditional pursuit of Thanksgiving experiences that we should forego the staid old turkey and stuffing dinner and instead go back to the Newport Cafe for a Monster Burger. Weighing in at a puny 3 pounds, I let Caroline talk (coerce) me out of ordering the 8-pound Super Ultimate Monster that I’ve been wanting for YEARS!

Having had a late giant breakfast, we weren’t all too sure we were even hungry enough to finish the 3-pounder, yet we polished it off, leaving the bun as the only evidence that there had been a burger on this plate. With post-feasting naps typically not appreciated at restaurants and an abundance of great weather, we waste no time getting back on the road.

Ah, Moolack Beach by Moolack Shores Inn has fond memories for us. No time to walk this stretch of coast today, though, as we have some unscheduled unknown date with someplace up north that we’ll figure out when we get there should we find what it is we are looking for today.

This is the Otter Creek Loop that runs parallel to Highway 101 offering better viewing opportunities of the ocean. Did we find what we were looking for here? Not exactly, although places like this on days like this can come close to filling the gaps or refreshing memories of places we’ve been before, so there’s that. By the way, can you tell from the position this image was taken just after the curve on a one-way road that I might be “that guy” who doesn’t use a lot of caution when seeing a photo I must have?

Still on the Otter Crest Loop enjoying quiet roads with the majority of Americans safe at home with their families, watching football, getting stuffed, napping, and ultimately arguing before heading home, swearing off another Thanksgiving with all the accompanying drama.

While at Rocky Creek State Scenic Viewpoint, we failed to find the creek, but this was our first time here, so we’ll simply have to make a return visit to pay closer attention to the finer details that skipped us by.

It is through Rocky Creek that we got to this overview of Whale Cove. Some years ago, near the edge of this cove, construction began on what would become a hotel called the Whale Cove Inn. It’s a great-looking place with a spectacular location, but at $500 a night and above, it remains out of our grasp. Sure, we could splurge and grab a couple of nights, but let’s get serious, as the $1,000 would pay for 21 nights in yurts up and down the coast. I guess this is where I should share our motto, “Live frugally and live large.”

Heading back through the Rocky Creek wooded area, there would be no glimpse of the Buffalo Bills, Detroit Lions, or Dallas Cowboys, who were all playing football today. How do I know what teams were playing? I had to look it up after the fact. There were glimpses of the ocean, a happy face on Caroline, a rich palette of colors basking in the sun, and walking with more walking that kept bringing us to a ton of ooh and aah moments. As I sit in a coffee shop writing this, I wish to feel the forest floor under my feet again.

Following some small roads through a residential neighborhood, we came across a small parking lot for Fishing Rock. There was no doubt that we’d have to take the walk. I can’t emphasize enough that Caroline and I are surprised by the number of places we’ve not visited yet. After so many trips up and down this coast, we feel that by now, we’ve likely seen the majority of locations where one can get out to gain a new perspective of the scenery, and yet that’s just what we’re doing over and over again.

A still wet, muddy, and steep segment of the Oregon Coast Trail heads down to the beach in front of us here at the Fishing Rock State Recreation Site. While we couldn’t walk this particular stretch of beach right in front of us, if you look well into the distance, we’ll be out there on Gleneden Beach, though we didn’t know it yet.

The trail here offers some great views, or maybe they’re only great to us because we’ve never seen them before. There are other parts of the trail that are falling into the ocean, which asks the question, how long until Fishing Rock is in the ocean swimming with the fishies?

Any other twisted gnarl of wood would be just that, but this is Oregon Coast Gnarl being bleached by the sun, salt, and sand, so in my eyes, this rises to the level of art.

Gleneden Beach was another one of those wandering around residential neighborhood finds. If the shadows don’t clue you into the time of day, the next photo will.

For the first time ever, Caroline and I are present at Gleneden Beach to watch the sunset. Of the multitude of places we could have been, this is where we ended up. One has to ask, how lucky was that?

Arriving at Siletz Bay for the remaining glow of sunset is a dream. I often wonder how these serendipitous moments just keep occurring in our lives. Make yourself available for life’s surprises and rewards, and the universe delivers. If you are smart, you’ll try to grab your fair share of the extraordinary as all too soon, it will all be extinguished as our fleeting encounter of knowing time comes to an end.

Dinner at Maxwell’s was meh in comparison to everything else that happened today, but Caroline was satisfied with her turkey dinner and craft beer. The yurt at Devils Lake State Recreation Site was kind of meh, too, as it is the one park on the coast that’s within city limits. The Lincoln City police were far too aggressive with the use of sirens here on Thanksgiving, disturbing the tranquility of the evening; maybe it was their anger at not being allowed to enjoy the day with their loved ones.