Thursday, September 28, 2017

Oregon 2017: E minus 5

A very nice thing to do here is to walk along the beach to breakfast.  I would do this every day if I lived here.  During our return from breakfast today we start to divine another message carved into the sand.  We couldn’t get the right perspective when we ascended the bluff, but we think it said:

Georgia Zimmerman will you maRry me

In addition to podcasts I also have about two weeks (non-stop) of music on my phone, so we will never be bored.  But the nautical playlist gets a workout on our coastal drives.  Sometimes we sing along and sometimes we just hum, as in the case of Spanish Ladies to which we don't know the words but which makes us think of Quint and the Vineyard.

Today we turn inland, but not before stopping at yet another freaking lighthouse.  This one is admittedly pretty picturesque and you can even stay in a bed and breakfast at the former keeper’s house, which looks like it would be fun. 

As you drive south upon the coastal road you come to a point where very suddenly, ahead of you, the craggy, rocky, pine-y, sharply-dropping coastline ends and rolling, low-treed sandy dunes begin.  It is just like someone drew a line inward from the sea, and so goes the road.  Today is another of those driving-back-and-forth-along-the-same-stretch-to-find-some-damn-site days, as we hunt for a dunes trail that the Green Guide awarded two stars.   The Green Guide published 17 years ago, that is.  So we drive back and forth around Reedsport for about two hours total trying to find access to the damn dunes.  A nice lady in the Umpqua Cultural Center directs us very well, except that it is an ATV ground and that makes some members of our party a little nervous so we head back to the car while the others have their Lawrence of Arabia moment. 

Before we got down here to Reedsport, we stopped to view a weird grove of unearthly pitcher plants, known as the Darlingtonia California, or cobra lily.  We feel that the excessively detailed signage, detailing the approximately 1/16 mile trail is making up for the failure to sign properly at Cape Perpetua.

I should note that one of the great restaurant finds of our trip was here in Reedsport, at the otherwise bland-looking Harbor Lights restaurant where we discover marionberry bbq chicken and possibly the best marionberry crisp for dessert.  Thank you, Yelp![1]  We also use lunch to start our Eclipse 2017 playlist on Spotify.  Moondance, Moonshadow, Moon River, but also Black Hole Sun, Here Comes The Sun, Dark Star, Ring of Fire, and what I think is the most creative addition:  Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (get it?  A little night?). 

There is a lot of driving today and it is making me slightly bats.  It is too pretty out the window to snooze but too quiet inside not to because our children don’t talk to us they just listen to whatever is on their headphones. 





[1] Who knew that Yelp would be a great restaurant resource?  It seems to work better in smaller places, but gave us great reccos for Tillamook, Reedsport, Bend, Redmond, and Hood River.  The one spectacular fail was in Roseburg, where it sent to us a place that was long closed!

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