Roskilde to Dragør

Copenhagen, Denmark

Taking the subway at Orientkaj nearly feels routine by now, except this morning, we experienced a slight snafu that left a look of shock on Caroline’s face. In Germany, when somebody wants to hold the door for someone else to jump on the train or bus, the door won’t shut if it senses pressure against it closing. Denmark doesn’t play that, and Caroline, who was already on the train, had to pull her hand out of harm’s way before I was able to catch up to her. In a second, she was starting to accelerate to the next station, but not before shooting me a look of astonishment on the verge of horror. I wasn’t worried because I knew that in five minutes, I’d be catching up to her at the next stop, where I was certain she’d be waiting. Sure enough, we reconnected and were soon at Osterport to catch our 45-minute ride out to Roskilde, Denmark.

Roskilde, Denmark

We stormed the coast, plundered, and were generally rude in the mayhem we spread upon our arrival because what else should one do when landing in a historic city that played an important role for the Vikings? The lives lost today due to our raid of the village were simply the cost of us adopting our new roles. Had Copenhagen not been suffering from overpopulation and a dearth of farmland, Caroline and I might have been able to make it there, but instead, we felt we had no other choice than to flee to the countryside and burn the abbey to demonstrate to the locals we meant business.

Roskilde Cathedral in Roskilde, Denmark

We should have, at this point, stopped in the cathedral to beg forgiveness (for such fabulous lies), but the doors were locked, so we decided to just hang around nearby, get some boating in, find a decent place for smørrebrød, and then return here to commune with the ancestors, even if they are not our own.

Roskilde Cathedral in Roskilde, Denmark

Early tech pioneer and trendsetter King Harald Bluetooth, son of Gorm the Old, founded Roskilde back in the 980s, and I don’t mean as found on some AM radio frequencies either. Seriously, the founding of Roskilde is attributed to Harald Bluetooth, the namesake of the wireless protocol. Construction of the Roskilde Cathedral was initiated by Absalon in the 12th century on top of the church that previously stood there. This is the same Absalon who moved on to build a castle where Christiansborg Palace stands today and who is considered by some the founder of Copenhagen. Unironically, I must admit feeling a sense of tragedy that we failed to utilize a Bluetooth device while in town.

Roskilde, Denmark

The human-based navigation system I’m traveling with is the Caroline Model 55, and it’s telling us that this is the right way to our destination at the harbor, but first, we must navigate this sea of flowers.

Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark

While planning our Scandinavian adventure, one wish of my wife’s was that we would stop in Oslo, Norway, to visit the Viking Ship Museum, where the best preserved Viking boat is kept. The Oseberg Ship was found in a burial mound, and based on the photos, it’s an amazing find. But we’ll not be visiting it on this trip because the museum is under renovation and will remain closed until 2026. Nothing would make up for that, so instead, I looked for something fun that still had to do with Vikings, and that’s when I found the Viking Ship Museum of Roskilde.

Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark

The museum wasn’t open yet when we arrived, but adjacent to its small restaurant, we ran into half a dozen workers, marine conservators to be precise, who were working on cleaning and protecting pieces of ancient ships that had been brought up from the sea and were being prepared to be shipped off to other museums. On the open grounds are a number of workshop areas, such as this one focused on rope making, while others deal with woodworking and other aspects of shipbuilding.

Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark

This is why we are here; we are going out on the high seas for some sailing aboard a replica Viking ship. Now, you might better understand my earlier description of plundering and mayhem upon reaching this coastal town.

Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark

With time to spare and our tour including entry into the museum, we headed over to get an early look at what’s featured inside. On the left side of this photo, you can see the type of boat we’d be boarding in due time.

Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark

Wow, even if they are fragments, I’m thoroughly impressed with what we are seeing of original Viking ships. Back in 1962, five ships were salvaged from the mud about 12 miles north of Roskilde; they are now known as the Skuldelev ships based on the area where they were discovered. The ships were scuttled in order to create a hazard for others who might have been considering attacking Roskilde. This particular ship, known as Skuldelev 2, was a 30-meter-long warship built in the Dublin, Ireland, area around the year 1042. Over the course of four years, shipbuilders here in Roskilde built a replica of this ship, naming it the Sea Stallion from Glendalough (in Danish: Havhingsten). They painted it black, red, and orange, and you can see it in the photo following the rope shop above.

Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark

Approximately 39 generations ago, some of our ancestors helped in varying capacities to build these ships. Lucky us for being able to see these five old Viking ships today as this museum, too, will close at some point in the future because the ships need to move to a new facility (yet to be built) that doesn’t expose the old timbers to the sunlight which damages them.

Caroline Wise and John Wise at the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark

These may be the faces of pillocks, but they are certainly not angry Vikings. It was just a dozen years ago that nobody would have confused us for anything other than serious marauders as we were getting our Viking on like it was nobody’s business; just check this post here to verify the ferocity.

Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark

That is not us out on the fjord but some other Vikings (tourists) because getting photos while on the boat rowing or dealing with the raising and lowering of the sail in tight confines doesn’t make for very good images. The one-hour adventure included safety instructions, getting onboard, learning how to row as a group, and finally getting out on the water and back to port. Before you know it, the $89-a-person journey is already over, leaving us wishing for a longer three-hour trip onto the fjord.

Caroline Wise at the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark

It’s only our 3rd day in Denmark, and there are so many reasons to come back.

Smørrebrød at Pipers Hus in Roskilde, Denmark

Reason Number 1: more smørrebrød. These fine specimens of open-faced yummy treats were taken at Pipers Hus up the hill between the port and the cathedral. You couldn’t ask for a better setting on a beautiful day which was exactly the day we were having in Roskilde.

Note: upon getting home and being determined to add smørrebrød to our diet, we are finding it nearly impossible to find bay shrimp in the stores. Not even Whole Foods is offering them, though we are having no problem finding raw horseradish root.

Wasp on Caroline's finger in Roskilde, Denmark

While I and others frantically gesticulate, even jumping from our seats to avoid the wasps, Caroline tries calming me by demonstrating that these flying insects are not bloodthirsty ferocious incarnations of Vikings. I think she’s only mastered this level of calm due to her practice of dealing with my antics for over 30 years. She should be thanking me for this ability to manifest zen in the face of such a deadly threat.

Roskilde Cathedral in Roskilde, Denmark

This is the King’s entry to Roskilde Cathedral that we’ll not be entering through. Not that we ever skip out on visiting cathedrals, churches, chapels, temples, mosques, or synagogues if they are available, but this particular cathedral has been getting the endorsement of everyone who has heard about our plans to come to Roskilde. We’ve been to a good number of incredible places that are dedicated to worship, so we are curious why this one has elicited such enthusiasm.

Roskilde Cathedral in Roskilde, Denmark

Upon walking in, nothing really stands out that screams, you’ve arrived at the place.

Roskilde Cathedral in Roskilde, Denmark

Near the entry, a custodian has opened an otherwise locked gate and is inside the crypt cleaning coffins. I interrupted him, thinking this might be my best chance to catch an unobstructed view of some ornate coffins; after a second of thought, he welcomed me in. Little did I understand what was still to be found here.

Roskilde Cathedral in Roskilde, Denmark

A few chapels down, King Christian IX and Queen Louise are buried in this tomb, and what we’re about to discover is that nearly every other king and queen from about the last 1000 years are buried here at the cathedral, too. Something else that is interesting about this particular burial site is that the grieving maiden looks very much like the mermaid statue in Copenhagen, and that is no coincidence. They were both created by Edvard Eriksen using his wife and an actress as models for the body and head of each statue.

Roskilde Cathedral in Roskilde, Denmark

From the 11th century until 1443, Roskilde was the capital of Denmark. Maybe it was this distinction that elevated the city to be the place where royalty would be laid to rest. To date, there are between 37 and 40 tombs of Danish monarchs taking up permanent residence inside this old building, with parts that date back nearly 900 years, while the main cathedral was finished only about 460 years ago.

Roskilde Cathedral in Roskilde, Denmark

This is Denmark’s largest organ, with more than 6000 pipes and 100 stops. Forgive me, but I didn’t know what was meant by stops, and I likely am not alone, so here’s a simple explanation: stops are sets of organ pipes that the organist activates to control timbre and pitch range, enabling the performance of intricate polyphonic music unique to the organ. Known as the Raphaëlis Organ, the original organ from the Middle Ages was rebuilt in 1554 by Herman Raphaëlis, hence the name, and then in 1654, it was renovated, taking into Baroque elements that were popular at the time. The last restoration occurred between 1988 and 1991.

Roskilde Cathedral in Roskilde, Denmark

There are so many details that become increasingly difficult to see here in the cathedral as we look over into the side chapels where the many monarchs of Denmark are entombed. The Renaissance era altarpiece standing tall before the congregation was made in Antwerp around the year 1560 while the altar turns out to be relatively new from the 1850s, with two previous versions being lost to time, possibly. The choir stalls on the left and right of the chancel were carved of oak and still feature intricate details, even though they are now over 500 years old, having been crafted between 1490 and 1500.

Roskilde Cathedral in Roskilde, Denmark

Queen Margrethe I is probably best known for bringing together the kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway in the Kalmar Union. As her husband, King Haakon VI, died early in his reign at only 40 years old (she was 33), the queen took on the role of regent as her son Olaf was too young to rule. He, too, died young, leaving Margrethe to continue ruling until 1412, when she died at the age of 59. She was also known as the queen who pushed back on the powerful Hanseatic League.

Roskilde Cathedral in Roskilde, Denmark

We are in Christian IV’s Chapel, which houses the sarcophagi and coffins of no less than five dignitaries, including King Christian IV himself, who rests in the casket on the right in the background. Christian IV was the king behind the building of Rosenborg Castle that we visited yesterday.

Roskilde Cathedral in Roskilde, Denmark

The sarcophagus of Queen Sophia Amalia, wife of King Frederick III, who’s entombed on her left, is also in the Christian IV Chapel.

Roskilde Cathedral in Roskilde, Denmark

King Frederick IV and his wife, Queen Louise, are interred in these extravagant marble sarcophagi; there’s one directly behind the one in the foreground that appears as a mirror image.

Roskilde Cathedral in Roskilde, Denmark

Queen Charlotte Amalie, wife of Christian V. Charlotte, came to Denmark from Kassel, Germany, north of Frankfurt, adding the Danish language to her repertoire of French, German, Italian, and likely a smattering of Latin. It was while reading about her life that I learned about “court dwarfs.” These people of short stature were traded and owned by members of the court and used as gifts to kings and queens. As a kind of sidekick, the dwarf next to a king gave the impression of the king being a giant while the dwarf also offered the appearance of being a “Kobold,” a magic and mythological goblin or hobgoblin. Charlotte’s dwarf went by the name Frøken Elsebe (Miss Elsebe), a quite magical name if you ask me.

Roskilde Cathedral in Roskilde, Denmark

Christian V – the first absolute monarch of Denmark. There are so many interesting details on the sarcophagi and coffins that one could gather 100s of images of details while also photographing the entire tomb before also capturing it in its setting; each angle is as interesting as the first. It was Christian V who ordered the clearing of Catholic artifacts from the chancel, creating space for his and his wife’s internment.

Roskilde Cathedral in Roskilde, Denmark

The Absalon Arch is the bridge between the cathedral and the Roskilde Palace. A very small corner of the arch can be seen in the third photo down on this post. The original crumbling Gothic arch that was here since the time of Absalon was torn down and rebuilt as an exact replica of the 12th-century arch.

Roskilde Cathedral in Roskilde, Denmark

In the foreground is King Frederick IV on the left and to the right Queen Louise. The farthest sarcophagus, centered just behind the altarpiece, is the resting place of Queen Margrethe I, while her brother Christopher, Duke of Lolland, is in the small tomb at the center. It turns out that his sarcophagus is empty, and the young man is likely buried under the church as his original tomb was destroyed during the Reformation.

Roskilde Cathedral in Roskilde, Denmark

Private box of Christian IV that is no longer in use as current monarchs sit in the chancel.

Roskilde Cathedral in Roskilde, Denmark

More than 1,000 nobles and citizens are buried under the floor of the church.

Roskilde Cathedral in Roskilde, Denmark

Frederick V, the drunken king, somehow still earned an impressive sarcophagus. His father, Christian VI, had considered declaring the man incapable of becoming a king, but in the end, his broken son was allowed to assume the role, though his advisors likely played a greater role.

Roskilde Cathedral in Roskilde, Denmark

King Christian III (August 12, 1503 – January 1, 1559) was the first Protestant king. As a prince, he met with monk Martin Luther, and in 1536, he implemented the Reformation, turning his country Lutheran.

Roskilde Cathedral in Roskilde, Denmark

The Chapel of the Magi, also known as the Three Kings Chapel, where Christian III and Frederick II are interred, was likely built between the 1360s and 1370s and was commissioned by Christian I.

Roskilde Cathedral in Roskilde, Denmark

In the background to the right is King Frederick II (1 July 1534 – 4 April 1588), who was the son of Christian III. The center column is referred to as the King’s Column where more than a few Danish royals have had their heights etched into the column, including Peter the Great. While in the chapel, we failed to see any of the markings, probably because we were overwhelmed with the room and the ornate tombs.

Roskilde Cathedral in Roskilde, Denmark

With that, we concluded our three-day immersion in the history of Denmark and turned our attention to some simple sightseeing that required the exercise of no brain cells, only the exercise of leg muscles, but more on that after our return to Copenhagen.

Caroline Wise in Roskilde, Denmark

In our ongoing series of photos in poor taste where Caroline has ridden the Wild Wiener and Kissed the Cock, I present you Caroline at the Skänk bar.

Roskilde, Denmark

For a city that was once the capital of Denmark, Roskilde is understated and seems to have a rather small population. It turns out that they’ve suffered a number of fires that caused serious damage including one in 1968 that burned over 100 buildings, many of them historical. On our way back to the train station, we stopped along the shopping street for coffee, an ice cream neither of us enjoyed, and a bottle of rhubarb soda.

Main Station in Copenhagen, Denmark

And lickety-split, we were back in Copenhagen for the next leg of our vacation of intense exploration.

Caroline Wise in Copenhagen, Denmark

First up, we’ll need a couple of bikes courtesy of Donkey Republic. We are heading south out of town on those incredible bike paths we first enjoyed just a couple of days before.

Tårnby Church in Tårnby, Denmark

Through Tårnby, past their 12th-century church, we were pedaling to Dragør, Denmark, on a 30km (18.5 miles) roundtrip in order to gain another perspective of the country, and what a beautiful day to be able to do this.

Caroline Wise on the way to Dragør, Denmark

We just passed the Copenhagen airport, and we have yet to see a hint of hill or mountain anywhere on the horizon.

Caroline Wise on the way to Dragør, Denmark

We did find some friendly horses and some apples that weren’t fully ripe yet, although that didn’t stop us from taking a couple of bites as one never knows how often one will get to snack on Danish apples on a late afternoon bike ride under blue skies. Further down the trail, we passed the Store Magleby Church from the 12th century, not knowing that there were traces of an Iron Age settlement from 200 AD nearby. Not that we might have been able to see anything, but this is part of the trouble of going off the beaten path and not having knowledge of everything beforehand.

Dragør, Denmark

Obviously, we’ve reached the harbor in Dragør.

Dragør, Denmark

Back in the middle of the 15th century, there was an annual herring market here in town, which brought in up to 30,000 traders and fishermen, but by about 1500, it disappeared. One can only wonder if overfishing contributed to the decline or if there were political reasons that intruded into the trade.

Dragør, Denmark

Even as the sun starts to dip low in the sky, we are not finished with our exploration of the harbor area, which will be about four hours too little for our liking. Add yet another reason to return to Denmark.

Dragør, Denmark

The opposite side of the harbor is as enchanting as the other.

Caroline Wise in Dragør, Denmark

Caroline’s enthusiasm for things, places, stuff, and even me is such an endearing large part of who she is, but here at the water’s edge, it is the Øresund Bridge in the background that holds her imagination right now, that and the shells she was looking at.

Copenhagen, Denmark

It’s getting late as we approach town to the spectacular glow of sunset.

Copenhagen, Denmark

Riding over the Dyssebroen wooden pedestrian and cycling bridge, we had to stop for this look at the Amager Bakke (hill), also known as Amager Slope or Copenhill. According to Wikipedia, the artificial hill stands 85 m (279 ft) tall with a sloped roof that doubles as a year-round artificial ski slope, hiking slope, and climbing wall. The climbing wall is the world’s tallest climbing wall at 80 meters.

At this point on our ride, we are passing through the notorious Freetown Christiania, which at one time was not recommended to visit without a local as your escort.

Copenhagen, Denmark

We are riding over the Inderhavnsbroen pedestrian and bicycle bridge near Nyhavn and are growing sad that our time in Copenhagen is quickly approaching its end. True, another adventure in a country neither of us has ever visited begins tomorrow, but our time in Denmark has been nothing less than perfect, as easily evidenced by these photos.

Copenhagen, Denmark

Seeing we were already in Nyhavn and a bit reluctant, having dinner in the single most touristy spot in the city felt like a mistake, and we expected that we’d likely overpay for a meal that would leave us flat. Restaurant Galionen at Nyhavn 23 was the place we chose because they had tartars on the menu. The complimentary fries with chile mayo helped improve our reluctance, and the rhubarb trifle went far in making our last dinner in Copenhagen a worthy one.

Caroline Wise in Copenhagen, Denmark

The look of satisfied tired as we board the M4 to Orientkaj one more time. Tomorrow, we land in Sweden.

Flossers and Geronimo

Dutch Bros in Mesa, Arizona

Days go by, and before we know it, we’re stopping for coffee to help propel our drive into another weekend away from Phoenix. Where, pray tell, are we going? Dutch Bros, obviously, unless you mean our ultimate destination, which on this day is about 200 miles out of town.

Flossers

As I walked up to the window at Dutch, there were these “His and Hers Deluxe Flossers with Built-in Dental Picks” sitting on the ground, waiting for a lucky couple to find them, and now they are all ours. The rarity of the occasion is an incredible surprise because we typically only see flossers flying solo, and I can’t recollect coming across a flosser with an included dental pick. True astonishment doesn’t arrive easily, but today, we are swooning at the serendipitous nature of this magic moment and are happy to share it here for posterity on the blog of John and Caroline Wise.

Geronimo, Arizona

Goodbye, Geronimo. We watch this town, which likely never had a chance, decay and disappear from the map. Some day, it will disappear from memory. Once upon a time, this place was the home of Camp Thomas, but it was moved east and became Fort Thomas. At some point, there was a small town here with lodging, a market, a gas station, supposedly a post office, and even a rail stop, but the information was thin.

Geronimo, Arizona

Just trying to find any photos from a time these businesses were operational has proven impossible. Has this place always looked like a murder scene?

Kawasaki Equalizer in Geronimo, Arizona

This must be some extremely rare piece of audio equipment, as learning a thing about this Kawasaki amplifier/equalizer is more difficult than finding any info about this ghost town called Geronimo.

Sunset over Highway 70 in Eastern Arizona

The adage, “Go West,” is not being heeded this day as our destination is to the east.

Caroline Wise and John Wise during sunset on Highway 70 in Eastern Arizona

We were still more than an hour away from Duncan, Arizona, and the Simpson Hotel, where we’ll be spending the weekend. If that name sounds familiar, it would be because we’ve stayed there on a few other occasions, and I’m guessing we might return for yet one more visit later this year.

Santa Fe and the Turquoise Trail

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Our time at the International Folk Art Market has come to an end, as will our time in Santa Fe today. We considered adding an extra night here, but the mystery of how to spend our day was less intriguing than the idea that if are moving somewhere, we’ll have to spontaneously decide to do things that are relatively unknown. Our agenda contained only one fixed item to explore when we departed Santa Fe; some months ago, we picked up a brochure for the Turquoise Trail, which had captured our curiosity, so there’s that. We are also switching our breakfast plans and venturing into the old town to Tia Sofia’s, because this early in the morning on a Sunday, the streets are not yet busy.

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Sure enough, things are quiet on the streets of Santa Fe.

Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe, New Mexico

Uncertain about whether we’d be able to grab steps during a day that might feature a lot of driving, it was essential that we attempt to get in at least a couple of thousand while still in the cool of the day. It turns out that we’d never visited the Loretto Chapel, but that’s about to be rectified.

Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe, New Mexico

The church was consecrated 145 years ago in 1878, and while the surrounding girls’ school known as the Loretto Academy fell to the wrecking ball back in 1968, the deconsecrated church was saved, becoming a museum and wedding chapel so it didn’t have to become a victim to progress too. Consequently, it costs $5 to enter the space still maintained by the entity that took over the property so many years ago.

Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe, New Mexico

This spiral staircase is a major draw as it features two complete 360-degree turns without a center pole for support. This means that the entire weight of the staircase rests on the bottom step, which some would say defies what should be possible. I have to say that the photo in the chapel showing about a dozen young ladies standing on this spring-like staircase is intriguing; maybe of yet even greater interest is that for the first ten years the staircase existed, there was no handrail. Needless to say, visitors are not allowed to ascend the steps.

Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe, New Mexico

Jesus wept. John 11:35. Actually, I wrote this at 4:39 p.m., but referencing 11:35 sounded more poetic.

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Like a bazaar from another age, a rug and basket trader is set up across the street from the church.

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Next to the trader is this confused sculptor who presents us with “Adoration of the alien preparing to eat souls.” Get yours at the Wildhorse Gallery of Santa Fe across the street from the Loretto Chapel. In case aliens are not your thing, they also have live-sized Iron Man sculptures.

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Most of Santa Fe does not look like the old town center, sadly.

Mass at the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi in Santa Fe, New Mexico

Be careful, parishioners attending mass here at the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi: there are four angels nearby playing a summoning song while a bronze version of an alien satan is waiting to eat your souls. You’ve been warned.

Santa Fe, New Mexico

While the streets of Santa Fe are still quiet, that’s about to change.

Santa Fe, New Mexico

On the main square, the Native American vendors selling handcrafted objects have been setting up, which means that the onslaught is about to begin, signaling Caroline and me to get out of town, or at least the city center.

Museum of Indian Arts & Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico

Upon arriving in Santa Fe the other day, we learned that our reservation wasn’t for as long as we thought it was. At the time, Caroline suggested we extend it for the extra night so we could spend Sunday visiting museums, but I liked the idea that we move southeast at some point on Sunday so we’d be better positioned for a shorter drive home: a compromise to have the best of both worlds. As a surprise to Caroline, on the way out of the downtown area, I turned left, knowing beforehand that this would take us to Museum Hill instead of staying on the road we were on, which would lead us south and consequently into the general direction of home. This detour is going to take us to the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture.

The first photo I’m sharing from the museum is a pitcher which is approximately 1,000 years old and originated in the Tularosa Basin that was once occupied by members of the Anasazi and Mogollon cultures in southeastern New Mexico. The design references the region, and accordingly, its style is named Tularosa. Maybe I’ve not paid attention prior to today, but the designs are called isomeric patterns, and those on the neck specifically are tesselated isomer patterns. Search engines didn’t want to give up the secret of isomer patterns, insisting that I was looking for information about polyatomic ions, which are known as isomers. Artificial Intelligence to the rescue! Bard explained the following:

These patterns are based on the use of paired forms that can be perceived as reversible. This means that the same design can be seen as either a foreground object or a background pattern, depending on how the viewer’s eye interprets it.

Museum of Indian Arts & Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico

The more you learn about Native American culture on this continent, the better you can appreciate how difficult it is to visit a museum that adequately approaches a comprehensive overview of the people of this land prior to conquest. While the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C. is the largest, it is one of more than 100 museums with a heavy or exclusive focus on Native American culture. As I sit here asking ChatGPT to continue adding more museums to the list, I realize that we could spend months on the road traveling the country to take in as many Native American museums as we could, and still, we’d only see a fraction of them.

Museum of Indian Arts & Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico

How this net bag survived hidden in the earth for 2,000 years or more boggles the mind. Equally intriguing is the knowledge that the people who made this were out harvesting plant fibers, treating them, and spinning them before configuring the resulting cordage into a bag in which they placed goods or pottery they’d carry with them for some undeterminable number of years before the bag was lost, forgotten, or thrown away.

Museum of Indian Arts & Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico

Another example of Tularosa pottery, though it might also be a Reserve type. As an effigy jar from between 1100 and 1150 CE, the shape depicts a bird, which is not unusual for this type of pottery in the Southwest, though this piece is one of the most detailed and realistic recovered so far.

Museum of Indian Arts & Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico

There’s a terrific video here in the museum about the making of this turkey feather blanket by Mary Weahkee of the Santa Clara Pueblo/Comanche people. The cloak is made from about 17,000 feathers from turkeys that only produce about 600 feathers per bird. She also points out that turkeys were not indigenous to this part of North America and arrived in the southwest from trade with the Aztecs.

Museum of Indian Arts & Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico

Returning to my thought about the number of museums and the time required to see many of them, it pains me to some small degree that Caroline and I were not more prepared or aware of opportunities while we wandered the United States. Our first interest was often national parks and the landscape of the country before turning our attention to what else might be in the vicinity of our travels. I suppose the good thing is that should we somehow embark on taking in America’s Native American museums, the rest of the population will likely still be preoccupied with capturing selfie-trophies inspired by the influencers they are chained to instead of investigating the history of a people that lived on the lands prior to the arrival of all of us outsiders. This painting is titled “Father Sky, Mother Earth” and was created by Navajo artist Tony Abeyta in 1995.

Museum of Indian Arts & Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico

Realistic people and animals depicted on pottery were hallmarks of the Mimbres style of Puebloan people a thousand years ago.

Museum of Indian Arts & Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico

So few pay homage to the Native American peoples and subsequently display a high level of disrespect or simply ignore their heritage and presence. Due to this disrespect, there is much of their culture they’d rather not share with us. This was made clear to Caroline and me upon visiting our first Kachina dance on the Hopi Mesas. As I look at this depiction of a corn dance, I can only dream of ever witnessing it with my own eyes as, too often, the Puebloan people have a mistrust of what we’ll do with the information and images we take away. At least there’s some solace in knowing that colonialization didn’t absolutely destroy a rich culture worth preserving. This 1933 painting titled “Corn Dance” was created by self-taught artist Awa Tsireh (also known as Alfonso Roybal and Cattail Bird) of the San Ildefonso Pueblo.

Museum of Indian Arts & Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico

This is quite possibly my favorite sculpture ever with the motion, layers, mystery, sense of musicality, the essence of a warrior, and the feeling of the shaman being present. I feel that the sculptor hit the mark in creating something that makes one wonder, “Who was this?”

Santa Fe Botanical Garden, New Mexico

Across the way from Museum Hill lies the Santa Fe Botanical Garden and our last stop in town before we hit the road.

Santa Fe Botanical Garden, New Mexico

Still-green juniper berries are interesting enough, but the beautiful aroma from the plants brought magic to the rather small garden.

Along the Turquoise Trail in New Mexico

On our way out of Santa Fe, we stopped at the Iconik Coffee Roastery in a hipster corner of the city. As though things could get any trendier in this place, the coffee was of particular interest to us because they supply the Pantry where we often eat breakfast and seriously enjoy their java. The roastery has a great look and feel, and it turned out that we could get lunch there, so that’s just what we did. A short time later, we were satisfied and sipping our cold brews while heading south on the Turquoise Trail. Life was good but was about to get better: an old guy in a van sitting roadside next to the Lone Butte General Store was selling something that looked promising and required further investigation. Pecans and roasted pinons were coming home with us.

Along the Turquoise Trail in New Mexico

What we wouldn’t give to see a cow abducted by aliens, but like those antelope crossing signs, we know full well by now that we’ll never see for ourselves the promised sight.

Cerrillos, New Mexico on the Turquoise Trail

Hey Pope, what gives? We pulled into the tiny town of Los Cerrillos with the St. Joseph Catholic Church ON A SUNDAY, and the doors were locked. See if we ever go to Los Cerrillos, New Mexico, again.

Along the Turquoise Trail in New Mexico

While it’s not easy to see in this photo, that’s Santa Fe way out there at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains just left of center. We are about 40 miles or more from the peaks touching the clouds.

San Francisco de Asis Catholic Church in Golden, New Mexico

Okay, the first note to the Pope was meant tongue-in-cheek, but here we are in faraway Golden, New Mexico, ready to visit the San Francisco de Asis Catholic Church, and while the gates were open, the doors of the church were not. We were not only out here for sightseeing; we were also on a pilgrimage that required we stop and pray at every Catholic church we encountered, and we were being denied. I swear, one more time of finding ourselves locked out, I’ll turn to the dark side and join the Church of Satan.

Sandia Crest National Scenic Byway near Albuquerque, New Mexico

Good thing we got out of Santa Fe when we did and that those churches were closed otherwise, we may not have had time to turn onto the Sandia Crest National Scenic Byway to see where the road goes.

Sandia Crest near Albuquerque, New Mexico

As we reached the crest, the couple on the right just got engaged and asked if we could take their photo. Just then, the couple on the left who were sitting nearby spoke up and told all of us that they, too came up here to get engaged, having done so in the minutes before the other couple arrived. So, I asked them all to come together so I could grab a photo of the happy couples on their way to marriage.

Sandia Crest near Albuquerque, New Mexico

This might be the best view of Albuquerque anyone might ever see. I don’t mean to imply my photo is particularly beautiful, but that from 10,678 feet (3,254 meters), the city doesn’t look as horrid, dirty, and crime-ridden as it really is. Seriously, that city down there wins in many categories of crime, including violence and property violations. Reading up on the contributing factors, I see that limited economic opportunities, poor urban planning, homelessness, financial hardship, substance abuse, and the city’s location as a thoroughfare and hub for a variety of interstate criminal activities all play a role. Looking at it this way has me thinking about the very city we live in, Phoenix, Arizona, but still, Albuquerque is special in the depravity of it all. In some inexplicable way, one simply senses it when down there.

Late afternoon somewhere near Albuquerque, New Mexico

Like a fear of werewolves and vampires, Albuquerqueans must eat dinner before the sun goes down: at 8:00 p.m., finding an open restaurant becomes a near impossibility. We race towards the city I’d rather avoid because, like the Catholic churches in this state are closed on Sunday, most of the damned restaurants are closed too, but we found one place that promises to be open until 9:00. Was it any good? Hell no, as it reflects the environment of this tortured city, but the setting sun with the vast horizon is rather beautiful.

Sunset off Interstate 40 in Western New Mexico

We are on our way to Gallup, New Mexico, for the night, and the spectacular skies force us off Interstate 40 to capture the moment. If this isn’t the kind of iconic southwest sunset one dreams of, then nothing is.

Stamina in the Face of Death Valley

Death Valley National Park, California

Recently, I turned 60, not with dread but also not without the nattering echoes of those who came before me and groaned of declining energy and poor stamina when they entered this age. When we left home yesterday, it had not been my intention for this trip to be a test of any sort, but maybe it will end up being some of that. With the arrival of my 60s, what impact might I find? Leaving Phoenix, we had a 450-mile drive ahead of us that should have taken about 7.5 hours, but with countless stops for photos of this and that, we optimized our indulgence by stretching out our time crossing the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts before arriving at the doorstep of Death Valley at 7:00 p.m. Checked-in to our room in Shoshone, we walked across the street to the old familiar Crowbar Saloon we first ate at back in 2007 and then took the dark road up to the hot spring pool, this also brought us to having walked 5.5 miles for the day. By 10:30, we were snoring, but if you read yesterday’s post, you’d already know some of those things.

It’s 5:30 in the early morning as we peel ourselves out of bed after sleeping better than is typical for our first night out on the road. We are embarking on our day in the wee hours even after our lengthy 17-hour day of traveling yesterday. The point here is, and this is only now dawning on me, we are still plowing into experiences and doing our best to take advantage of our time in the world. As we turned on the road that would bring us to Death Valley, the sun hadn’t yet peeked over the horizon, but by the time we were about to descend to the saltpan, the world of this harsh landscape was becoming well illuminated. Who knows what the rest of my next decade will bring, but here on the other side of 60, I’m thrilled to know that my stamina hasn’t fallen by the wayside.

Death Valley National Park, California

Having passed in and out of Death Valley from the west, the north, the northeast, and the south, the southerly approach is by far my favorite. The gradual approach from this side of the park also benefits from the quiet due to so few people out this way. Most visitors will congregate in the relative proximity of the visitor center. While many will go as far south as the iconic Badwater location (282 feet below sea level), that leaves the bottom 50 or so miles of the park relatively unvisited, and it is down here where our day begins in earnest.

Room Canyon at Death Valley National Park, California

There is no trailhead and no parking lot. We just pull up in front of mile marker 39 and start walking east. Our first hike of the day is Room Canyon, rated as a moderate 3-mile trail. The path to the canyon is not identified with cairns, but if you look at the ground ahead of you, you’ll see the footprints of others, and you can hope they went in the right direction. This is as good a place as any for me to include my endorsement of the AllTrails app and how important it has become to us. Before arriving somewhere, like here in Death Valley, which doesn’t have phone service, one should identify the trails they are interested in and then download the trail maps while they have plenty of signal. Our go-to trails are typically rated as moderate because easy is just too easy, though, for an interpretive experience, those are often not bad. The strenuous trails often feature rock climbing, exposure, or some serious elevation gain. Everyone who ventures into America’s national parks and hikes should have AllTrails with them and do some research before embarking on their adventure.

Room Canyon at Death Valley National Park, California

After our short hike into an alluvial fan, we are now in the mouth of a canyon carved out of the alluvium that’s been deposited from the eroding mountains behind us.

Room Canyon at Death Valley National Park, California

The post title mentions stamina and is in reference to what we’ll have to muster if we are to capture the three hikes we have penciled in as the activities for our day, but by now, it also speaks to what I’ll require to complete writing this post that still has nearly 50 photos below this one. Should you be able to slog your way through this marathon post, which will likely veer into a fair amount of prolix (defined as speech or writing using or containing too many words/tediously lengthy), you too will have had to find your stamina for such a long post to find what gems might exist here, if any.

Room Canyon at Death Valley National Park, California

For Caroline and myself, the gems are many, at least in viewing the photos that we find to be magnificent. The writing that accompanies these images is often a mixed bag where at least I wonder if I’ve not said this all before. Even if I add a new twist or some bit of delightful poesy where a verse finds a potentially enchanting resonance, one must toil over hundreds if not thousands of words until they, too, find a diamond in the rough.

Caroline Wise at Room Canyon at Death Valley National Park, California

Speaking of finding a diamond in the rough, it’s now been 10,000 years and 12 trillion experiences shared with this woman, who (according to her) has enjoyed being between the proverbial rock and a hard place that is our relationship. There’s something about her smile here that may not be apparent to others: it is the look of “Wow, I can’t believe we are here.” Today, along with our planned hikes that are not considered to be some kind of “I’ve worked for this, and I’m owed it,” is a day of astonishment that we have the ambition and compatibility to venture into places with someone who equally enjoys the time. How far we go is irrelevant; how far we’ve come carries a satisfaction that accumulates, as does our love.

Room Canyon at Death Valley National Park, California

Had this been the extent of our adventure, we’d leave and realize our good fortune to have been able to find so much indulgence between yesterday’s drive up, time in the hot spring last night, sunrise this morning, and this first bit of exploration in Room Canyon here at Death Valley. But this is only the beginning, and nobody should ever, for even a second, consider that there are greater rewards ahead. Every moment is the most valuable token of a splendid life any two people have been granted.

Caroline Wise at Room Canyon at Death Valley National Park, California

I don’t believe that those who named this place Death Valley were being ironic, but then again, we do not call Earth the Death Planet, though death happens every day. I vote for renaming this national park Massively Wow Life Valley because being here amplifies the sense of how incredible it’s been that life took hold on this outpost in the Milky Way.

Room Canyon at Death Valley National Park, California

As a telescope acts as a portal through space into unknowns, so too does nature act as a portal into its history and maybe its future. As I peer into this crevice with light falling in from above, I can surmise what is out there, but I do not have first-hand knowledge. This mystery is the intrigue that helps propel our dreams.

Room Canyon at Death Valley National Park, California

From one space, we enter another by the simple act of going forward. Obviously, we had to have the means to be here, but I’d argue that everyone has that opportunity if they were to desire such things. The argument that most people can afford this if they own a relatively decent car could easily be taken issue with, but I’d say that while those more than 500 miles away would have to focus on something closer to where they live, such a weekend could cost as little as about $200. Without going into too many details, that’s about $120 for gas, $40 for two nights of camping, and park admission. As for food, that was going to be consumed at home regardless. Instead, people will convince themselves that a real immersive vacation must take place at Disneyland, Hawaii, Las Vegas, or on a cruise to the Bahamas. This all-or-nothing mentality is great for Caroline and me because we find ourselves all alone today at Room Canyon.

Room Canyon at Death Valley National Park, California

If you look closely at this image and the one above it, you’ll see that we’ve progressed about 100 feet up the trail. Sometimes, it’s not the broad vista, i.e., the big picture, that’s all important but the readjustment of your focus to see what you might miss if you are only honing your hyperopic vision.

Room Canyon at Death Valley National Park, California

Earlier this year, we spent a couple of hours in Kartchner Caverns, and in my subsequent writing about them, I deeply considered their formation and the molecular processes harnessed across time. Peering into those details in ways I hadn’t previously, I was enchanted watching in my mind’s eye the accretions forming to produce the cavern features we were there to experience. Today, we are here in an open-air canyon, and under an overhang are signs of accretions dripping down a wall. Where’s a geologist when you need one? How old might these be, what is their mineral composition, and how many other places in Death Valley can we find others?

Room Canyon at Death Valley National Park, California

Again, my kingdom for a geologist! While I understand that softer rock erodes faster than the overlying harder rock, I dream of knowing what was at work during those years these layers were forming. The greenish layers are making a sandwich of what appears to be sandstone, and within the green lower area, there is red rock, but it’s not evenly distributed, so what’s the story?

Room Canyon at Death Valley National Park, California

And then this small area of turquoise-hued rocks catches my eye and while I can appreciate the aesthetic qualities, I’m being denied any knowledge of precisely what’s at work here to have created this pocket of blue-green treasure. Learning that Death Valley has not really been a place to find much copper, I’ll eliminate the chance that the minerals at work here are malachite or azurite, which both oxidize towards green and instead, I’ll lean towards this display being caused by the presence of chlorite.

Flowering plant at Room Canyon at Death Valley National Park, California

Hey Caroline, have we ever seen flowering desert rock nettle before? Looking for them, I learned that the International Carnivorous Plant Society considers the Eucnide urens a “murderous plant” because flies that come in for aphids are killed by the plant, but while this nettle strengthens its stinging spines with calcium phosphate, the same stuff our bones and teeth are made of, it can’t “eat” the flies so it does not qualify as carnivorous and is simply a murderer.

Wildflowers at Room Canyon at Death Valley National Park, California

On the other hand, there’s this notch leaf scorpionweed that, while intensely and beautifully saturated in a wonderful shade of purple, can cause a rash similar to the effect of poison ivy. Please consider that I may be wrong about identifying this wildflower, just as I can be wrong about almost everything I write here.

Wildflowers at Room Canyon at Death Valley National Park, California

After an exhaustive search, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is the gravel ghost flower.

Conglomerate at Death Valley National Park, California

The scale of my lack of knowledge is often frightening because it took until the day in Phoenix writing this post that I was able to answer the question of why I wasn’t able to find a single hint of fossils in all of the alluvia I was scouring for hints of life. While I wanted to believe that this was made of eroded materials that settled on the shore of the long-gone Lake Manley, I should have noticed that the rocks that have been cemented together do not show signs of water erosion. This debris arrived from high above where it broke off the surrounding mountains and collected at the foot of them. It should have been obvious that there would be no fossils in this type of alluvium. This feels like a gaping chasm in the basics of understanding how our planet was made, how it evolves, and how what we perceive shouldn’t be taken for granted.

Caroline Wise on the salt pan in Death Valley National Park, California

The world of John would certainly be rendered simpler if I were to drop the curiosity and join the modern clan/cult of “Veni, vidi, vici,” best exemplified in the digital age by posting an iconic photo to Instagram while sitting back to enjoy the influencer cred. Maybe you ask, what is this Latin phrase harkening back to Julius Caeser? “Veni, vidi, vici” is translated to, “I came, I saw, I conquered,” which has been reduced to, “I came because someone really cool also went; I saw what I had to see in order to take the same photo, I’m a winner because everyone else tells me I am.” Am I alone in thinking that my totem should read, “Odi profanum vulgus et arceo?”

Carolne Wise at Sidewinder Canyon in Death Valley National Park, California

This is the moment we realize just how important AllTrails is to our peace of mind, as there are five potential trails that lead into Sidewinder Canyon, and only one can be right. A family of four coming off of one of these warns us from heading that way, so we consult our AllTrails map that we downloaded in Shoshone the night before to adjust our bearings. With nearly a dozen cars at the trailhead, we can only wonder how others made their decision.

Sidewinder Canyon in Death Valley National Park, California

From our initial impression, it would appear that the others are heading into places that are not Sidewinder Canyon. Should this prove true, we are promised a quiet 5-mile hike this afternoon.

Carolne Wise at Sidewinder Canyon in Death Valley National Park, California

It was a slog under direct sunlight in loose gravel before Caroline took up this perch in the shade of what appeared to be a fallen slab of the cliffside. After what felt like about 45 minutes, maybe even an hour, where we had 1,145 feet of elevation gain to contend with, there was serious consideration of turning around while we wondered what could possibly be so interesting further up the wide mouth of this gravelly canyon.

Sidewinder Canyon in Death Valley National Park, California

There were these occasional spectacular views of looking back at the snowcapped Telescope Peak in the Panamint Range, and as you can see, we are now able to enjoy a bit of shade as the canyon narrows.

Carolne Wise at Sidewinder Canyon in Death Valley National Park, California

When do the exciting views that make this such a highly recommended trail begin? Just kidding, if a massive rock overhang that could fall at any time to snuff us out of existence isn’t thrilling, what is?

Carolne Wise and John Wise at Sidewinder Canyon in Death Valley National Park, California

We’ve reached the end of the trail as it relates to our skills of clambering up the rock faces behind us. While we could see the way up, the way back down might present other challenges for the overweight guy afraid of heights, so we’d just have to turn around, check out the side canyons, and call it quits here at Sidewinder Canyon.

Sidewinder Canyon in Death Valley National Park, California

On the way in, we skipped all four side canyons that branched off the main trail with the idea that we might do them on the way back down. This was the last one and is now the first one on our return. The only one marked with a cairn, there must be something special here, so, at a minimum, we’ll explore this short quarter-mile hike.

Sidewinder Canyon in Death Valley National Park, California

Right away, Sidewinder Canyon transformed into a gem, but at this time, we’d not yet seen a thing.

Sidewinder Canyon in Death Valley National Park, California

It is impossible to convey just how astonishing the sight of what you are looking at is. Not only did things cool off substantially in this narrow slot, but the light was at a premium, though there was just enough to understand that the hole we were about to walk through was a bizarre feature tucked away back here. We stood here a good 5 minutes examining things from all angles trying to figure out if it was manmade or carved by nature. There’s a steep path up and around it that Caroline braved, trying to gain a vantage point that might explain how this doorway got here. The surrounding rock and towering slice of earth overhead balanced over the opening suggest that it would have been stupidly foolish for any human to dare stand under so many tons of rock precariously resting in this space and dig it out, so it must be a natural path to the other side.

Sidewinder Canyon in Death Valley National Park, California

Step through the open door and look up; this is that view, which helps explain why it’s so dark down here.

Sidewinder Canyon in Death Valley National Park, California

The word that comes to mind regarding the state entered in this passage is stupefied. How does the hand of nature massage its contours to offer us a perfect world that not only supplies the essential ingredients to care for ourselves but then throws in a load of sensual aesthetic qualities that present our senses with an exquisite orchestration of visual, audible, and other sensory delights that dumbfound us as we stand there in awe? Incredulous that we’ve been gifted this ability to perceive such intense beauty, we are often brought to the edge of emotion that wants to find a way out in some way that far exceeds the exclamation of “wow!” Much of what I write here is a feeble attempt to capture the tiniest fragment of that enthusiasm that feels all too impossible to convey, and so I just keep on searching for the proper sequence of words that might talk back to us in the future and remind us that we’ve traversed the furthest reaches of the incredible that few will discover within or outside of themselves.

Sidewinder Canyon in Death Valley National Park, California

Charles Darwin once said, “The love of all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.” I’d change that to include the love of all things, even those things we cannot overcome.

Carolne Wise at Sidewinder Canyon in Death Valley National Park, California

That large boulder was the end of this side canyon for us; we turned around and were able to enjoy it all over again.

Carolne Wise at Sidewinder Canyon in Death Valley National Park, California

Slot number two. See human for scale.

Sidewinder Canyon in Death Valley National Park, California

If you take nothing else from this post, leave knowing that these photos are poor representations of the breathtaking sights found here in Death Valley.

Sidewinder Canyon in Death Valley National Park, California

We have emerged from slot canyon number three in our sequence, and I’m left with the impression that hikers should consider visiting these in reverse order compared to what we chose, meaning visit each side hike as you are entering Sidewinder Canyon in order to save the best for last but then again, who am I to judge what is pleasing to others?

View from Sidewinder Canyon in Death Valley National Park, California

Let’s return to the subject of stamina as I now have 36 photos I’ve written to and have 16 ahead of me, including this one. Caroline often wonders why I don’t just slice the image count in half or even a third when the chore of writing to each and every photo means I’ll be spending an inordinate amount of time teasing thoughts out of my head, often longer than the actual time spent in an environment. You see, this is a clever ploy used by me to spend studied time in front of the photo waiting for some intrinsic value or grand inspiration to seep out of the pixels to talk to me about what I might share. Once I find that muse, er um, delusion, I run with it, and in so doing, I create the situation where my wife will have to then look into each bit of writing to ensure I’m coherent and grammatically correct, but there’s a side effect to writing so much, and that is she is then compelled to dwell within the scene allowing her memories to find a deeper place within our shared experience.

Wildflowers at Sidewinder Canyon in Death Valley National Park, California

This entire process, no matter the motivation, requires the stamina to persist and, if need be, go slow to find my footing before establishing a flow that hopefully brings me to the end of the page without cutting out the remaining images before continuing with the next day. This is the third or fourth day of returning to this evolving post, and other than my wife reading this; I really have no expectation that anyone else will, other than some artificial life algorithm training another Large Language Model (LLM) so it can sample yet another human in order to learn how people express themselves. Like these wildflowers that must bloom in a hostile environment where nobody may ever happen by to appreciate their tenacity to persist, they pop into life for a brief time, grace us with their beauty, and could care less if they’re well received. Right there, that’s my writing philosophy.

View from Sidewinder Canyon in Death Valley National Park, California

Just to the right of the center of the image is our car, which will whisk us away to lunch if we don’t become distracted on the way up the road.

Death Valley National Park, California

This is not Badwater, we didn’t bother to stop at Badwater on this visit to Death Valley because EVERYONE else was there. Never have we seen so many people and such a number of cars at that iconic location ever. It was an absurd level of visitors, as though Badwater had become an extension of a Disney ride. All we could do was crawl by with mouths agape wondering which influencer delivered the horde to this formerly serene place.

Death Valley National Park, California

By the time we reached The Oasis and the Last Kind Words Saloon, our lunch options were pretty limited and, to be honest, as I was having no kind thoughts about the type of visitor the park attracts these days, I just wanted a quick bite so we could get back on a trail away from the grotesque superficiality on display here. Having a captive audience in Death Valley, the concessionaire puts us visitors in the bind of not having many options, and they are able to charge what the market will bear. We shared ten wings ($26), Caroline had a beer ($10), and I had an iced tea ($4). With tip, our bill for a shared appetizer and two drinks was $51. Not only that, our time at the saloon stole an hour from our day. Growing discouraged with our brief time here at the hub of Death Valley, we had one more thing to take care of, which was buying a new annual pass for our National Parks at the visitors center. Asking the ranger about the mayhem, we were advised to reconsider visiting on holiday weekends. This is Easter weekend, and there are still remnants of spring break filtering through. Now we know.

Desolation Canyon in Death Valley National Park, California

Time for a return to peace and quiet, which is exactly what one might expect at Desolation Canyon.

Caroline Wise at Desolation Canyon in Death Valley National Park, California

Who needs to check with AllTrails? The path very obviously goes that way.

Desolation Canyon in Death Valley National Park, California

There were some sketchy areas along the way for me, but as much as possible, I at least went as far as I could before my vertigo was either overcome or defeated, and we had to turn around. Things were going along more or less fine until I reached the point of ultimate pucker, where my butthole gland jolted me with a surge of anxiety that screamed a clear and resounding “nope!” It was at this point that we looked at the AllTrails map and saw that we were off the main route. How could this be, as the trail was so clearly defined?

Desolation Canyon in Death Valley National Park, California

We’d already been hiking back when it occurred to me that I should have taken a photo from our furthest point up the pucker trail. Oh well, it’s early enough; we can try this again once we get back down there.

Desolation Canyon in Death Valley National Park, California

I see; we weren’t supposed to walk on the visible trail next to the wash; we were supposed to be in the middle of the wash.

Desolation Canyon in Death Valley National Park, California

We quickly learned why this canyon earned its name: this is absolute desolation. Not a single plant, lizard, or bit of moisture though we did hear the occasional bird tweeting from above. Then there was also that guy who was on his descent from a nearby peak because he has the kind of hooves that allow his species to ascend escarpments and was now racing to reach Dante’s View at Coffin Peak before sunset after he whipped out his wings.

Desolation Canyon in Death Valley National Park, California

It’s intensely beautiful down here, but the sun is not in our favor, and like just about anywhere on the trails in Death Valley, we wouldn’t want to be out here after the sun sets, so we keep on moving, not taking the time we should in order to take it all in.

Caroline Wise at Desolation Canyon in Death Valley National Park, California

There was another dead end ahead for us before finishing the Desolation Canyon Trail, a rock face with obvious hand and foot holds but purely vertical and something that I wouldn’t have been happy needing to come down. Mind you; this is certainly a disappointment for me as I, like any normal person who’s already invested the effort in getting out here, want to reach the end of the trail for that sense of winning a prize for reaching the end of the trail. Alas, this isn’t meant to be my way of winning; I’ll have to accept that by being forced out of this canyon earlier than expected, we were able to do other amazing things that were meaningful, too. Those details follow.

Sunset over Death Valley National Park, California

It feels like a rare moment when we are afforded the opportunity to experience a glorious sunset here in Death Valley. I don’t know why we can’t find any memories of sunsets in the park; maybe it’s due to being overwhelmed by the sites of the day or that they simply can’t compare to the spectacular sunsets we witness in Arizona, regardless of the reason, today, we were gifted with this late burst of color in the early evening sky that bore remembering.

Sunset over Death Valley National Park, California

From where we left the trail, the nearly 70-mile drive down to Shoshone was going to take us nearly 90 minutes, getting us to dinner shortly before 8:00, but here we were stopping yet again. There’s no question in our minds that whatever might be sacrificed later is just the way it is because capturing yet another reminder of a perfect day takes precedence.

Sunset over Death Valley National Park, California

Nearly 15 miles covered by 32,000 steps on three different hikes is what we got in today. Starting with Room Canyon, moving on to Sidewinder Canyon with a quick jaunt out onto the salt flat in-between before finishing the day on the Desolation Canyon trail. When we pulled into our motel, we figured it was too late to hit the hot spring, so we went for dinner at the Crow Bar across the street and talked of taking a dip in the morning before the day got underway, but as luck would have it, we got our order in before a large (loud) party of Germans and before we knew it, it looked as though we could clear our bill and get to our room to change by 8:40 allowing us almost 15 minutes at the pool. We wasted no time and were in the water by 8:45. The gate is supposed to be locked at 9:00, but as luck was once more favoring us, the guy didn’t show up until some minutes after 9:00 allowing us a full 20 minutes of hot spring winddown for our tired bodies and heavy feet. This was just the elixir nature ordered for this couple of outdoor enthusiasts who were celebrating their stamina to be on the go and enjoying every moment of a day that stretched into a 15-hour adventure of non-stop sublime impressions.

A Coastal Fable, Oregon Style – Day 6

View from the Shags Nest at Ocean Haven in Yachats, Oregon

Welcome to Day 6! The first five days of the vacation are behind us, and in 5 more days, we’ll be arriving home, but I’m getting too far ahead of myself. This was a crazy day for taking photos, but fortunately for you and me, I was able to avoid using the nearly 1,000 I shot and am presenting you only 63 of the best ones. By this time, unless you are going in reverse chronological order through these posts, this image should be starting to look familiar; it is our view south of the Shags Nest at Ocean Haven.

View from the Shags Nest at Ocean Haven in Yachats, Oregon

All my original notes about this day were handwritten in the evening and have found their way to the bottom three images of the post. After nearly 20,000 words penned for the previous days, I might like to tell myself I’ve reached an impasse, but, like the waves of the ocean, things must keep going forward and arriving at the shore.

Ocean Beach in Florence, Oregon

Even rocks do not stand in place forever as the elements of time work to disrupt them, nudge them, and break them down to the point that upon their return one day, they’ll be but a part of the sand others will walk upon.

Ocean Beach in Florence, Oregon

If reincarnation was a thing, one might wish to be brought back as a rock. Imagine you were cast out of the earth from a firey volcano 70 million years ago at the Black Rock Desert volcanic field in Utah. Through heavy rains and flooding, you are carried into the Great Basin and stepped on by dinosaurs until one day, a cataclysm kills them and buries you in ash but not so deep you can’t make friends with microbes and bacteria. You are submerged for millions of years until further flooding deposits you in a river bed where you watch fish swim by, and mammals arrive on your shore for a drink. In the 1920s, you are scooped up and transported to the Oregon coast, where you (and many more rocks) are used to reinforce the area next to a highway. One day, you fall into a ravine and are carried to the shore, where you sit on a beach, waiting for the ocean currents to pull you into the deep sea, where another million years will pass before you are sand. Knowing your existence is fading fast, you hold your ground, denying the ocean your presence, but it’s just a matter of time before you disappear to be reincarnated as a bristlecone pine tree.

Ocean Beach in Florence, Oregon

Right there in the watery mist, moves along John the Neutrino, passing through a droplet on his journey elsewhere. Reincarnated in the sun 8 minutes 3 seconds ago, was just passing Earth when he bounced through the atmosphere on his way to distant galaxies. Having already been a tree, a rock, a mussel, a man, and a molecule, it was time to try out being an exotic particle. If it were possible to choose our next iteration, what might we pick? I think most would lean towards becoming the same thing they were last time as we are creatures of habit, stuck in routines that hopefully don’t present us with too much uncertainty.  However, I believe that our very lack of intentional energy creates uncertainties that lead to emotional turmoil and great unhappiness. But if that’s what we’ve normalized, then that’s our reality. I’m out here normalizing dreams, fantasies, designs on the interpretation of realities, thoughts about the lives of things we don’t consider sentient and love that’s bigger than the moon.

Ocean Beach in Florence, Oregon

Just imagine there are 57 more images I have to write to following this one; I’d wager you are riveted by the anticipation of what comes next.

Highway 101 north towards Yachats, Oregon

In a normal universe, this road would be busier than the line for Pirates of the Caribbean, but we live in a kind of Fantasyland, which is ironic because Caroline and I are currently in a real Adventureland, although my reference points to the book by Kurt Anderson titled, Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History.

Neptune Beach South in Yachats, Oregon

Into the enchanted forest, they ventured, not knowing what they would find.

Neptune Beach South in Yachats, Oregon

Oh, is this an emerald-covered fountain of wealth or just a long-neglected drinking fountain covered in moss?

Neptune Beach South in Yachats, Oregon

His and hers?

Neptune Beach North in Yachats, Oregon

After our brief forest interlude, we took a look at Neptune Beach South, which had been our destination in the first place.

Devils Churn in Yachats, Oregon

Slowly meandering north, we’ve made it to the Devils Churn yet again. While walking down the path, we came across three golden hairs we’re taking with us in case they come in handy.

Devils Churn in Yachats, Oregon

It is a finicky thing, the Churn, because it has a bit of Goldilocks nature and needs all conditions to be just right. If the water is too low, the surf just washes in and out, too high, and while it’s splashy the crazy foam being randomly shaped into psychedelic form misses the mark.

Devils Churn in Yachats, Oregon

From the nearly 100 photos I took hoping to capture something I could call art, this was the best I got, and while it shows some minor potential, it’s nothing compared to when this work of the devil is producing perfection.

Devils Churn in Yachats, Oregon

The reward for biding our time down below, waiting for the perfect wave, was this display of crepuscular rays.

Devils Churn in Yachats, Oregon

Hey, is that a leprechaun over there? No, you are confusing your folktales, but I did catch sight of a dwarf; remember to be nice to him.

Yachats, Oregon

Right here, through this window across the way and above the mirror image, are the loaves of bread that will fend off the grumbly lions of hunger, allowing you to return to the Water of Life in order to save yourselves. While the flock of birds to the right in the shallows might be easy to spot, can you see the sea hare? Probably not.

Yachats, Oregon

There’s a narrow road that runs along the seashore on the south side of Yachats. We were desperate to find it because, according to a sign a couple of hundred feet south, it would lead us to a state park. Unsure if we found the right place while turning on the unmarked road, it was just a bit further down that a sign showed us we’d reached Oregon Coastal Site 77, a.k.a. Yachats Ocean Road. I’m guessing it’s now unmarked due to the high-priced homes with their snooty residents that sit behind the road who’d like it to be a private drive for their own enjoyment and not us tourists. We stopped for a minute at the water spout, happy that we had managed to see it at the right time.

Yachats, Oregon

Not only are we on the other side of the inlet, but we are also on the other side of breakfast. Across the way in the left half of the photo is the Yachats Ocean Drive I was just writing about; as a matter of fact, you should be able to make out the spray from the spout I captured in the other image.

Yachats, Oregon

If you know us, you know that we love Yachats, so how is it that not only had we never driven the Yachats Ocean Road, but we also failed to visit the Yachats State Recreation Area north? Today, that has been rectified.

Dolphins in Yachats, Oregon

For our efforts to see it all, we are rewarded with the view of a pod of dolphins surfing waves. Not having time to change lenses as they traveled south, I snapped off a few images, but even with the best one I got, I had to zoom in so far that the inclusion of this photo was in doubt. Caroline insisted that I include it as a reminder that not only were we experiencing more blue sky days than we’d counted on, but we were gifted the opportunity of seeing dolphins, too.

Yachats, Oregon

Should we one day become witness to a sea maiden, we’ll be sure to strike no deals as we have no sons to promise her, and we are now too old to bear children, even for a plentiful harvest of fish or certain knowledge. This is in reference to The Sea-Maiden, which in its original Scottish Gaelic language is A Mhaighdean Mhara. This fairytale has two versions, one by John Francis Campbell and the other told by Joseph Jacobs; both effectively tell the same story with minor differences. In Ireland, the tale is known as Tom Fisher and John Fisher; in Canada, look for Mac an Iasgair Mhóir  (The Big Fisherman’s Son), while in the United States, a version is titled The Witch From the Ocean Waters. All of the stories are about someone seeking something, a sea-maiden offering assistance, followed by trials to retrieve or gather what was desired.

Yachats, Oregon

Returning to the ocean with my sea-maiden Caroline, the quests of what we seek are relatively identical from year to year, but the narrative of the fairytale changes ever so slightly in each subsequent visit. The seeds that are planted within us bring us back to the shore in an attempt to discover what deal our imaginations have made with this force of nature. Certainty of what tasks must be completed to reveal truths is never fully revealed, maybe to keep our own fairytale alive.

Yachats, Oregon

Excuse me while I go collect my Pot o’ Gold.

Cove Beach at Cape Perpetua in Yachats, Oregon

If Cetus were not already stone, I could imagine that sea monster walking right out of this corner of the ocean in an attempt to destroy my very own Nereid, Caroline the Hag Fish Queen. And before you history buffs get started, I don’t care that we are at the Pacific Ocean and the myth I’m referencing is from the Aegean Sea; this is my story.

Cove Beach at Cape Perpetua in Yachats, Oregon

Meanwhile back in reality, we are at Cove Beach at Cape Perpetua and were about to visit an old shell midden that’s protected by a wood housing while surrounding vegetation is allowed to grow over and around it, probably to better hide it. It appears that a proper trail once brought people out to the midden; a fading sign tells of what’s being protected (hence, we know it’s a midden), but learning anything else about its history cannot be had as it is mostly illegible.

Cove Beach at Cape Perpetua in Yachats, Oregon

The trail continued, and we had little better to do than continue our exploration on a path we’d never traveled before.

Spouting Horn south of Thor's Well at Cape Perpetua Scenic Area in Yachats, Oregon

When the trail forked over on the left, we were offered this view of the Spouting Horn, only to be seen at high tide. Thor’s Well is nearby; if you look closely at the shadows on the right, you can see someone standing near the famous “Drainpipe of the Pacific.” What we didn’t know at this time was that we were starting to move past high tide and that by the time we got over to that side of Cape Perpetua, the Spouting Horn would be done performing for the day.

Cove Beach at Cape Perpetua in Yachats, Oregon

Lucky for us a couple of people came walking around the rocky coast, which gave us the idea that we could go a little further and maybe have a gander to the north.

Devils Churn in Yachats, Oregon

Whoa, we are at the mouth of the Devils Churn on the oceanside, and while we’ve seen crazy people venture out this way from the Churn side of things, we’d never seen people walk in from this side, but that’s exactly what we are getting to do this afternoon.

Devils Churn in Yachats, Oregon

Seeing I already shared a couple of photos from the Churn earlier in the day, I opt to share what the turmoil at the mouth looks like.

Devils Churn in Yachats, Oregon

Instead of returning the way we came, we chose to close the loop on the paved trail that would take us back to Cove Beach.

Cove Beach at Cape Perpetua in Yachats, Oregon

We now return you to the regularly scheduled programming.

Cove Beach at Cape Perpetua in Yachats, Oregon

Right over there, can you spot her? She’s a little whispy shadow of a fairy, ephemeral and rare, but if you look real hard, you just might catch a glimpse of her, and with that breath, she was gone.

Thor's Well at Cape Perpetua Scenic Area in Yachats, Oregon

And with a slightly bigger wave, I think those two guys standing at the precipice of Thor’s Well might have been quickly gone, too.

Thor's Well at Cape Perpetua Scenic Area in Yachats, Oregon

This is the vantage I prefer, far away and with nobody out there triggering my anxiety that casualties might be part of the sights we took in today.

Caroline Wise at Thor's Well at Cape Perpetua Scenic Area in Yachats, Oregon

And, of course, Caroline needs a closer look, and in keeping with my feeling that she’s responsible for her actions and that she’s not careless, I gird myself, cross my fingers, and hope she doesn’t get too close.

Caroline Wise at Thor's Well at Cape Perpetua Scenic Area in Yachats, Oregon

I present you with Wanderer above the Sea of Ocean, which is not a painting by German Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich.

Near Thor's Well at Cape Perpetua Scenic Area in Yachats, Oregon

Mirror Mirror on the Ground, Who’s the Fairest of Them from All Around?

Cummins Creek at Neptune Beach South in Yachats, Oregon

We searched high and low to no avail; the promised troll or ogre we anticipated finding was nowhere to be found, not that we thought it would come with a Pot O’ Gold, rainbows, unicorns, or magic, but still, it’s about time to see a troll or ogre out of folklore after having had to encounter so many human versions.

Rock Creek Beach in Florence, Oregon

If darkness was descending right now, I’d be nearing the end of this post, but we’d returned to Rock Beach for a reason, and it had a little something to do with all of these rocks you are seeing.

Anemone at Rock Creek Beach in Florence, Oregon

Yep, it’s low tide, seriously low tide and we are not ones to miss the opportunity to further push our adventure into the realm of mythological experiences.

Barnacles at Rock Creek Beach in Florence, Oregon

Did you know that a round cluster of dragon toes is called a bordello? Yeah, I just made that up, and not just the bordello part; these are not dragon toes.

Barnacles at Rock Creek Beach in Florence, Oregon

I wonder if tiny barnacles tell each other folk stories on ancient barnacles that used to rule the oceans back when they were bigger than whales and could eat an entire school of fish with a single flick of their feeding apparatus instead of being relegated to eating plankton down here in their tiny barnacle gardens.

Rock Creek Beach in Florence, Oregon

While searching if there’s a condition afflicting certain people with a need to always be on the search for beauty, I came across some writings about Stendhal syndrome, where people become ill when taken in by too much beauty. Named after a French writer who is quoted as, “My soul, affected by the very notion of being in Florence, and by the proximity of those great men whose tombs I had just beheld, was already in a state of trance. Absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty, […] I had attained to that supreme degree of sensibility where the divine intimations of art merge with the impassioned sensuality of emotion.” Followed by, “As I emerged from the porch of Santa Croce, I was seized with a fierce palpitation of the heart (the same symptom which, in Berlin, is referred to as an attack of nerves); the well-spring of life was dried up within me, and I walked in constant fear of falling to the ground.”

So if he can have a syndrome named after him, I’m offering the world a new condition to be known as the Wise Malady, where one is refreshed anew in the ecstasy of aesthetic awareness, budding knowledge of the world, and a searing desire to learn more.

Rock Creek Beach in Florence, Oregon

Regarding the persons afflicted by this incurable Wise Malady, you will notice their need to overshare about their adventures; they may show you minor iterations of images that, to the normal person, appear quite similar, but the sufferer can distinguish vast differences that create significance. Take this image, two photos below you’ll notice that the sky is almost identical, but because this one shows sunlight reflecting on the beach and the other shows the reflection of the man’s wife in a pool with larger rocks before her, he felt that this distinction warranted the inclusion of both images. Obviously, this man is in the throes of being ruined by the Wise Malady.

Barnacles at Rock Creek Beach in Florence, Oregon

Take this scene here: just stupid barnacles that have no economic value, an arm of a sea star pokes out of salty water that is undrinkable, and a background that the photographer cut off, thus depriving viewers of the opportunity to appreciate the greater landscape. I’d go so far as to call this photo a perfect example of la merde, thus proving the contempt of the person capturing this and their blindness to the fact that not everything can be beautiful.

Rock Creek Beach in Florence, Oregon

Obviously Photoshopped in order to serve the delusions of a Wise Malady sufferer. Tragic.

Rock Creek Beach in Florence, Oregon

As the guest narrator of this part of the blog and an expert on the described condition we are discussing, I am free to inform you that should I share with you the reasoning behind the author/photographer believing this was worthy of posting; you’d request the Société pour l’Application de la Laideur to make an immediate arrest.

Barnacles at Rock Creek Beach in Florence, Oregon

They really do kind of look like dragon’s toes, don’t they?

Rock Creek Beach in Florence, Oregon

Photo number 4 in the long sequence of “Sunsets That Last an Infinity.”

Rock Creek Beach in Florence, Oregon

Yesterday, I was wondering out loud about what appeared to be a place where barnacles once lived and that it looked as though they were scraped off. Here I am today, looking at something that appears similar, and I’m left thinking that this is fungi.

Caroline Wise at Rock Creek Beach in Florence, Oregon

Sigh, my fairy queen of the hagfish, magical empress of snails, bewitched goddess of the banana slug, and precocious princess of the wandering anemone taking a moment from her mission of non-stop coastal discovery to smile at me; such a treat.

Rock Creek Beach in Florence, Oregon

Now, excuse me, my terrific wife; there are moments of the sunset that demand my attention.

Rock Creek Beach in Florence, Oregon

There are 916 mussels, 1742 barnacles, 121 anemones, and five sea stars living on this rock. I know because we counted them.

Rock Creek Beach in Florence, Oregon

Give me a second while I calculate the decreasing number of moles of photonic energy that are reaching us and thus cooling the air. I’ll return as soon as the math is finished, which will give us a good idea of when we need to seek shelter from the encroaching night.

Rock Creek Beach in Florence, Oregon

Bidding adieu to this type of day is a long process as the eyes have grown greedy by now. We are not willing to turn away and risk missing a moment, knowing that not everyone is afforded the luxury of witnessing such things, so we must see it for them.

Rock Creek Beach in Florence, Oregon

And then, just as you think it’s about to end, something shifts, and it all starts again.

Rock Creek Beach in Florence, Oregon

You look to the north and sure enough, incredible beauty that way.

Rock Creek Beach in Florence, Oregon

Look to the south, and astonishment drills the senses with magnificence that can only exist in fairytales.

Sunset reflected in the windows of the Shags Nest at Ocean Haven in Yachats, Oregon

Once upon a time, there was this perfect day when, under a glorious sky, a couple allowed themselves to get lost, first along an azure shore followed by a meandering path through a verdant forest. They were not on their way to grandma’s house; they were not looking for gingerbread; they thought they were on their way to breakfast.

For nearly four hours, they walked along without a care, with the magical sea and enchanted forest delighted to lead them astray in mesmerization. Each successive turn demanded another step forward as forces beyond their imagination pulled them into this day.

Big waves at high tide and big trees with the radiant sun dispersing its light into the mist were working insidiously to distract the pair from their goal of reaching food. The glistening waters offshore threw millions of sparkling points into their eyes, as though nature knew that the two wouldn’t be able to turn away and consequently could not leave. While the trees painted the way forward in shades of green from which humans find it nearly impossible to turn away.

John Wise and Caroline Wise at the Shags Nest Ocean Haven in Yachats, Oregon

When they finally break away, another sign from the heavens (or was it the Oregon State Parks?) throws up a figurative stop sign with subliminal directions to again turn towards the sea. It starts dawning on this naive nature-loving duo that they’ve entered a puzzle, maybe of Twilight Zone gravity, that inexplicably is only allowing them to cross the 8 miles from their cliffside nest to breakfast in the nearby village at barely a walking pace.

Out on beaches, trails, through the forest, over bluffs, and careful steps across treacherously slippery rocks, the more they hold hands, tell one another of their love for the other, and exclaim their appreciation of the beautiful morning, Old Mother Nature starts to lay down the breadcrumbs that led the twosome to the Drift Inn Cafe where breakfast was had. Utilizing the lowly razor clam, Dungeness crab, and shrimp they were provided with such glorious treats that fairy tales cannot compete with such opulence. Even had it not been perfect, and according to legend, they both agreed that it was far better than being eaten by wolves or baked in an oven by an old blind witch.

No, this is not the story of Hansel & Gretel but the love story of John and Caroline, who, now well-fed, were ready to discover the second half of the day under the sun, in the woods, and along the shore.

Rock Creek Beach in Florence, Oregon

In the 10-mile stretch between Yachats and Rock Creek, we visited nine sites requiring 10 hours and nearly 964 photos before we were able to find our way back to the Shags Nest for our last night living in this part of a fable.

Never too Gray in Oregon- Day 5

Stonefield Beach State Recreation Site in Yachats, Oregon

The ocean is dark this morning under stormy skies. At the moment, the winds haven’t arrived, and so without further ado, we breached the comfort of shelter to venture into the potentially wet day. As always, when out on the Oregon coast, we are excited to see what comes next; at this point, we are just hoping for breakfast and a walk. I did get the order of things backward here because we stopped at Stonefield Beach to see the differences between yesterday’s low tide and the approaching high tide this morning.

Stonefield Beach State Recreation Site in Yachats, Oregon

The view was disorienting as things shifted so dramatically that the only certainty was our uncertainty regarding just where we’d been. There wasn’t a reflective beach or a thing signifying what we’d seen.

Stonefield Beach State Recreation Site in Yachats, Oregon

To our left on the south end of the beach, I find familiarity with that little cabin atop the cliff where, late yesterday, I snapped a photo of Caroline to the west of it out in what is now the ocean.

Stonefield Beach State Recreation Site in Yachats, Oregon

Standing between the cliffs and the sea, I try to decipher what is visible and wonder if there’s any opportunity to determine just where we are, but it all looks so foreign. It’s as though amnesia struck overnight, leaving us with only the name of the place we’d been while erasing most everything else. It also seems that even now, back in Arizona, while I’m trying to write about that morning, the ocean is still playing a game of amnesia with me, denying my imagination the words that might convey other aspects aside from the obvious.

Stonefield Beach State Recreation Site in Yachats, Oregon

Just like staying out here on the shore under uncertain circumstances regarding what the weather would bring, I’ll remain vigilant, sitting before these images and looking for that change in the situation that will inspire an interpretation of things no matter how difficult it may be.

Caroline Wise at Stonefield Beach State Recreation Site in Yachats, Oregon

With a tiny, nearly imperceptible amount of wind starting to pulse, it was time for the kid in this relationship to break out her kite that had been stowed away for such an opportunity. Running upon the rocks didn’t work out, so we headed back to the sandy part of the beach where Caroline could really give it a go.

Caroline Wise at Stonefield Beach State Recreation Site in Yachats, Oregon

For a full minute or two, the elation of flight took hold, as seen in her smile, but as the wind died, so did her hope until, once again, her invisible friend grabbed hold of the kite and tried pulling it high into the sky. Again, smiles climb upon her face as she starts to sense mastery over the one sport she might be good at.

Stonefield Beach State Recreation Site in Yachats, Oregon

Spotting this perfect cairn, we realized it was pointing us to breakfast, and so we accepted its guidance and headed into town. Yachats is a tiny outpost with barely 1,000 people living here, and yes, I wish we were two of them. Services are thin, although there are around a dozen restaurants that, at this time of year are not open at the same time. We had two options and went with the somewhat sad place we’ve eaten at before that will remain unnamed to help a business that’s likely not making anyone rich. It served its purpose. Sitting at the window, we watch as the wind kicks up and, with it, the rain racing northward. Our hopes of taking up a table at the Green Salmon Coffee House are dashed as they are closed today through Friday; the same goes for the Bread & Roses Bakery. The only thing left to do is go plant ourselves in the Nest if we don’t get distracted on the way back.

Caroline Wise at the Shags Nest Ocean Haven in Yachats, Oregon

If you don’t think I got worried when Caroline voiced her desire to go fly her kite on our tiny deck sitting atop a steep cliff, you’d be wrong, as in my imagination, it wasn’t beyond impossible that a sharp wind would take her and that pocket kite aloft and drop her a couple of miles out to sea. I could only bite my nails and hope she’d know the right moment to let it go. Luckily, the wind was so strong that all the kite wanted to do was dive into the bushes to hide from the insane forces beating it into submission. Caroline, now equally beaten, conceded defeat and brought herself back into the warmth of our cabin overlooking the raging tempest.

Shags Nest at Ocean Haven in Yachats, Oregon

Between staring mindlessly out the window and trying to write a thing or two, I tended to a pot of black-eyed peas that would certainly be the comfort food befitting a wet gray day.

Caroline Wise at the Shags Nest Ocean Haven in Yachats, Oregon

On the far north side of our deluxe chateau, Caroline took to the Barcalounger (which happened to be invented in Buffalo, New York, where I was born) and with yarn from Cambria, California, (picked up recently on a trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium), she sat oceanside in front of a massive picture window with her cup of Heiße Liebe tea (Hot Love) to work on my newest pair of socks. Not that Hot Love tea is necessary for such moments but this looks like love to me.

View from the Shags Nest at Ocean Haven in Yachats, Oregon

Sitting before our window at the Shags Nest or sitting in a coffee shop, there are times when the mind would rather meditate. There’s a need in all of us at times to allow the lines to blur and let the uncertainty of what comes next take hold, to just kick back and listen to the full length of a favorite album or watch the surf roll in.

View from the Shags Nest at Ocean Haven in Yachats, Oregon

A lot of nothing has passed by though somehow we remained busy in that nothing. The black-eyed peas allowed us to stay in, enjoying one of our favorite comfort foods while not budging from our perch. As the day went on, it appeared that we might be able to start growing moss due to our near-total lack of activity.

Bob Creek Beach in Yachats, Oregon

But then the clouds started breaking up. Always in need of accumulating more steps on our path to walking into better health, we decided to go check out Bob Creek though I figured we’d quickly pack it in and return to Stonefield for more hopeful encounters with wild sea creatures temporarily living outside of the ocean.

Bob Creek Beach in Yachats, Oregon

Just then, the Eye of God looked down from the sky and commanded us to give good ‘ole Bob Creek a proper chance, and, well when God speaks, atheists listen.

Barnacles at Bob Creek Beach in Yachats, Oregon

Oh wow, tidepools featuring exotic lifeforms we’d never witnessed before! I thought this would sound better than saying we’re just seeing plain old mundane sea stuff we’ve seen a hundred other times, which wouldn’t be true either because neither Caroline nor I have ever seen a barnacle that wasn’t far more interesting than any Kardashian or wet noodle clinging to our colander.

Barnacles at Bob Creek Beach in Yachats, Oregon

Mussels with barnacles provide space for other barnacles. It turns out that mussels attach to other mussels using excreted stringy fibers called byssal threads. While working with adhesive threads is interesting enough, it is the barnacle that is truly amazing when it comes to attaching itself to things. You see, before it settles down, the baby barnacle is adrift looking for a suitable home; when it finds one, it uses body fat to clean and sterilize the surface. Once that is done, they deploy a mixture of six different proteins to glue themselves to their perch, be it on a whale, ship, rock, turtle, mussel, or another barnacle. This glue is said to be multiple times more adhesive than anything made by humans.

Barnacles at Bob Creek Beach in Yachats, Oregon

This obviously brings me to the size of the barnacle penis, which, Caroline informed me, is the largest in proportion to the body size of all species on Earth. A little bit of internet searching confirms this, but my imagination takes it to frightening lengths. First, I’m seriously intrigued that the lowly barnacle is able to change the size and shape of its penis to meet local conditions for mating, but it is the length that baffles the mind. I need to put this in perspective: the average American male is approximately 5 foot 9 inches tall or 175 centimeters. If we could whip out what barnacles can, there would be situations where our penis would be a respectable 552 inches long or about 46 feet in length (14 meters). At this point, I think our wieners would be weapons, and I, for one, wouldn’t appreciate the guy behind me in traffic on a summer day with my windows down casting his tool into my car, maybe even into my back seat, looking to mate. If penis length is the root of all intelligence and power, as many men believe them to be, then the barnacle should be the hero of any young man’s youth.

Barnacles at Bob Creek Beach in Yachats, Oregon

Comparatively, there are thousands of miles, possibly a million or more miles of penis before me.

Barnacles at Bob Creek Beach in Yachats, Oregon

As far as I know, and not that I’m willing to research information on this particular type of seaweed, there is nothing very peculiar that should be found or shared concerning this plant. Heck, I don’t even know the name of this seaweed, so I’ll call it Suzie.

Anemones at Bob Creek Beach in Yachats, Oregon

There’s nothing left to tell you about anemones nor of my most obvious impressions of delight that are taken when seeing these meat eaters. Oh wait, there is that small detail about its mouth being its anus.

Anemones at Bob Creek Beach in Yachats, Oregon

I think these anemones might have swallowed some raver’s glow sticks during a beach party.

Bob Creek Beach in Yachats, Oregon

Hi blue sky, nice of you to come out to see us! Might you be letting some sun through your veil in order to astonish us with another majestic sunset?

Bob Creek Beach in Yachats, Oregon

There’s something about these rocks that feel as if they’d been sculpted by fast-moving water like that running through a river. Was Bob Creek at one time a river bed?

Bob Creek Beach in Yachats, Oregon

Like sunburned skin, these rocks appear to be peeling. Upon closer inspection, it looks as though sheets of barnacles were removed, but after just learning about their superglue qualities, the question arises: how’d this happen so uniformly across areas?

Caroline Wise at Bob Creek Beach in Yachats, Oregon

While I can speculate about the various species temporarily exposed to our senses out here, and I can use the internet to learn more about them after I go home, I cannot really know where Caroline is when she stands before the ocean and examines the scene. If I ask her, the answer is likely to come back that she’s just looking at stuff, but what does she feel? What is offering her wow moments? Are we seeing the same things, or are our eyes focusing on absolutely different things?

Sea Stars at Bob Creek Beach in Yachats, Oregon

While the sea stars capture my eyes first, it is the more than 50 anemones that got me thinking about how they decorate their body as they do. While they are curled up with their tentacles withdrawn, maybe the camouflage helps them avoid predatory crabs because at night, while the anemone sleeps, the nocturnal crab is out looking for food.

Sea Stars at Bob Creek Beach in Yachats, Oregon

In an effort to demonstrate fair representation and give an example that I don’t have a bias for orange sea stars, I present you with no less than half a dozen purple sea stars, or are they burgundy in color?

Sea Stars at Bob Creek Beach in Yachats, Oregon

In a pinch, sea stars will eat anemones, but what they are really interested in is the abundance of mussels that live here on the rocky shore.

Caroline Wise at Bob Creek Beach in Yachats, Oregon

I can’t say I’ve explicitly thought or expressed this before, but these excursions and the subsequent photo prep and writing requirements hold Caroline and me in these environments well after we’ve left a place we were visiting. The lingering begins as I bring photos in for cropping and color adjustments, and then I identify where each was taken. As one day is finished, Caroline joins me to whittle the selection down to the best representations and I guarantee you that there’d be a lot fewer images posted here if it were up to my ruthless wife. And then, if I have taken notes, those are transcribed from the notebook as I work to decipher my handwritten words. As those are matched to photos, there are huge gaps between images because there is no way to write in the field about specifics, and who knows which photos and impressions will find their way here? During what amounts to rewriting what’s in the notebooks, I also find inspiration to write about particular images due to something or other that’s striking me at that moment. Finally, I set down to fill the empty spaces. In the case of this post, it’s now 31 days after we stood at these tide pools, and we are still, in a sense, visiting the Oregon coast. One last thing: before this ever gets pushed to the public, Caroline applies her deft editing hand to bring (or at least attempt to bring) to clarity those things I found relevant, capturing memories we’ll hopefully return to in many years to come.

To belabor a point, I’m not playing video games, watching TV, or otherwise wasting my time with frivolous things as this adventure continues to travel within me during the weeks since we left the seashore. I find this luxury to be incredibly valuable: instead of impressions of vacation being made and quickly fading, I indulge in examining details over and again to possibly know more intimately what would otherwise be difficult to carry with me.

Bob Creek Beach in Yachats, Oregon

A moment arrives when I see glimmers of insight that I’m the foible; my desire for knowledge driven by curiosity is a weakness as it informs my disappointment that so many in our species do not truly share that quality. It is here at what amounts to a mussel farm that I see that many of these mussels will be sacrificed as food for birds, sea stars, fish, and even us humans. So, it behooves the local mussel population to just keep cranking out mussels as its evolutionary knowledge understands that the greater the number, the greater the chances of surviving all disasters or sacrifices. Why have I failed to see this behavior in people? I’m often crushed by human stupidity and don’t want to accept that it is our norm, but why should the average person be any smarter than a mussel? Their presence is to ensure there are seeds and eggs available tomorrow should something catastrophic befall us. In this sense, what I consider stupid is nothing more than the norm, and I the anomaly, an intolerant foible of our species’ presence who simply isn’t happy sitting on the rock attached to a million clones who don’t mind being part of the collective.

Bob Creek Beach in Yachats, Oregon

I am transfixed by this inky pool that rarely exists. It can only appear during negative tide situations while the rings are created by the water dripping from the mass of mussels hanging overhead. As surrounding rock is eroded by the motion of the sea, making what looks like toadstools above the ocean floor, the harder rocks obviously make for a great home if you are a mussel, barnacle, sea star, or anemone. The patterns that ripple across the surface are trance-inducing. If I had the proper equipment, a video might better allow me to experience them again, but instead, I prefer to rely on images and words to freeze what once captured my attention. I’m guessing the mussels around me give little care to the evolving aesthetics and only look forward to the comfort of the sea and returning to the place they know so well.

Caroline Wise and John Wise at Bob Creek Beach in Yachats, Oregon

At this very moment, I was cultivating my inner barnacle and working on a new shape.

Bob Creek Beach in Yachats, Oregon

We walk below the sun, below the sky, and this late afternoon, we are offered the chance to walk below the surface of the sea that would typically cover this edge of the shore. There’s nothing easy about leaving here as long as there’s light that allows us to find our footing. We attempt to go further, hoping that more of the mysteries all around us are revealed.

Bob Creek Beach in Yachats, Oregon

We use art to bring impressions to people who are not able to witness the breadth of patterns for themselves. Those with the great fortune of seeing rare sights or having been able to cultivate great thoughts bring back approximations of what things look like or how they might be thought of. In this way, the anomalies of our species task themselves with bringing culture back to the tribe, possibly in order to elevate all of us from the ground we are fastened to.

Bob Creek Beach in Yachats, Oregon

A triptych by Mark Rothko could hardly compete but if it were the only possibility for a city dweller to see such a thing, I suppose the surrogate will have to do.

Bob Creek Beach in Yachats, Oregon

There’s no pussyfooting around this one, I saw a stone vagina fringed with bright green mold looking at this, and so it’s included. As a matter of fact, I think it compliments the vulvic impression I spotted while on a Mystery Valley hike near Monument Valley earlier this year. If you are interested, it’s the 36th image down on this post.

Bob Creek Beach in Yachats, Oregon

This might have been a rainy day where the comfort of a warm room and a pot of beans could have held us in cozy contentment, but instead, we were drawn by the potential that something might be happening and that we’d benefit from investigating that change. Our reward was not only trying to fly a kite in the windy rain and witnessing the temporary nature of a fragile and elegant cairn; we were allowed to gaze in on the secret lives of those who live outside of our view.

Bob Creek Beach in Yachats, Oregon

And so the curtain is being drawn shut, signaling us that time has arrived for us to depart.

Ocean Haven in Yachats, Oregon

I am back at the table I’d been writing at earlier in the day and on a previous visit. At night, there is no ocean to see, only my blurry reflection in the window that kind of looks like this guy. I hear the ocean but it’s a steady white noise, no collapsing wave sounds, just the hum of the shore machine down below.

Mostly, I’m here not writing, not reading, not really watching much of anything. Maybe this is more of a meditation, though that would be accidental as I’m simply here. Occasionally, it occurs to me that I could be doing something more specific, but I don’t want to expend the effort as nothing feels comfortable. Then a trigger of micro-panic attacks me that I’m missing the opportunity to explore a thing, a subject, a frame of space such as the gap between a barnacle and a mussel if one even exists. Time goes by.

Hey, let’s step outside. Nothing like a good rain to cleanse the air, opening the sky with a clear view of the Milky Way filled with as many stars as we might humanly be able to take in. With no moon in sight, the night is as dark as it can be

Accretions, Oregon Style – Day 4

View from the Shags Nest at Ocean Haven in Yachats, Oregon

It’s still a murky gray out over the Pacific at 6:30 as I strain to see if our cliffside is still standing high over the ocean. The fishing boat I’d seen on the far horizon to the north a half-hour before deciding to leave bed is now gone, replaced for attention by an invisible barking seal somewhere below us.

Five to eight waves are lining up as they take aim for the land, while in the distance, a silvery blue belt looks calm. Between it and us, there’s a dark patch that offers an ambiguity I can’t read. A shadowy ocean at least appears mysterious, while a perfectly black sea at night is downright terrifying, though it is fascinating to see the reflection of stars on its surface.

Ocean Beach in Florence, Oregon

Sunrise is still 15 minutes away, just enough time for us to have made it to Tokatee Klootchman a quarter mile south of us, hoping for an easier trail down than the steep descent in front of our cabin, but in the shadowy light before dawn, it looks too precarious, and so we head further south to the uninspiredly (but maybe appropriately) named Ocean Beach.

Ocean Beach in Florence, Oregon

I won’t consider this egret to be looking for breakfast because I want to see it searching for the same thing we are, a glimpse of the approaching morning and arrival of sunrise. Like us, it just stands there listening and watching, its head doesn’t dip towards the foamy water swirling around its legs as if it were looking for morsels; it observes. Maybe it enjoys the music of the sea as we do and wants nothing more than a quiet meditation in the surf before the formalities of the day summon it back to its routine.

Ocean Beach in Florence, Oregon

Time passes slowly, and morning comes in as we let it. The choice is there; we could have just as easily opted to remain in our perch on the cliffside, but the waking world beckoned us so that we might be witnesses for others who’ve forgotten that these things happen with or without them present. Are we then emissaries for cold dark mornings found on distant shores where few care to venture other than us and birds?

Ocean Beach in Florence, Oregon

There are things that can stand out like a sore thumb once you’ve seen them, but until that time, they remain hidden in plain view. On how many other visits to the Oregon coast have we passed such sights and not recognized what we were looking at? At first glance, I understood I was looking at either a tree trunk or a large branch, but what I failed to comprehend was that this chunk of wood was emerging from between solid rock and a rough conglomerate above it. This can really only mean one thing: the tree was knocked down and carried along in what was likely a landslide. For centuries, it lay buried in an oxygen-poor sarcophagus and is now returning to light due to the effects of erosion. Was this from another episode of earthquake activity in the Cascadia Subduction Zone?

Ocean Beach in Florence, Oregon

Bird and visitor alike look upon this scene, both interpreting a sight almost incomprehensible, aside from the possibility of both finding it appealing. While I stood before this tranquil image, astonished by the colors transitioning over surfaces, any sense of the magnitude and mechanics of nature were kept at bay by my shallow ability to see, hear, and think outside the grip of senses holding this fluid reality together as something to behold. It is only after bearing witness to such things that we start sorting what it was that challenged us to understand the appeal of what ultimately is infinite to our puny minds.

Ocean Beach in Florence, Oregon

In each cubic foot of sand, there are approximately 1 billion grains of those fine particles. In another post, I mentioned the 86 billion neurons in your head; try this thought experiment at home: measure off a space of 4 feet long by 4 feet wide and 5 feet high. The cubic dimensions of that space carved out of your living room would be 80 cubic feet. Now fill it with sand, and you’d have close to 86 billion grains of sand in that cube or the number of neurons packed into your head. What patterns would you make out in the depths of your collection, not in the sand but in those cells that populate your brain? I’d wager most would find a symphony of junk culture streamed into their experience that reflects nothing about who they really are. At least the sand actually represents the mountains, rivers, rocks, sea shells, and other bits and bobs of where it all came from across time.

Ocean Beach in Florence, Oregon

Accretions, the Oxford dictionary describes them as such; the process of growth or increase, typically by the gradual accumulation of additional layers or matter. Our foundation, if we are lucky, is built upon love and care. For the less fortunate, they might be a hodgepodge of neglect, violence, and hunger. Even for those with good beginnings, it is not uncommon for the wheels to come off the cart of emotional security as anger, bullying, betrayal, and lies start to accumulate upon good intentions. Now layer in the superficial nature of a consumer society that convinces one and all that one becomes complete through consumption. So you pile on the designer clothes and celebrity-sponsored shoes, you buy the car and home just slightly above your pay grade, you diligently watch the series and seasons of dramas and sports so you own the right language to be popular among your peers, or maybe you become sidetracked by conspiracy, religious fanaticism, hate, and intolerance. For a while, the layers accumulate of hard pretense or of spongy swamp-like mud as you are drawn into someone else’s scheme, their alternative reality.

You never realized that the deeper foundation was no longer able to support a healthy outlook from the toxic topsoil poisoning the surface of who you thought you were. The flowers and happiness that you thought you were cultivating turned out to be sour bitterness that obscures your vision and leaves you feeling that you must plow under everyone else who fails to see the world as you do. Once I learned some 40 years ago that the computer phrase GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) had real-world consequences for not only data but for humans too, I began trying to shift what the accretions of John might look like.

Cellophane Tube Worm casings at Ocean Beach in Florence, Oregon

It was not easy to determine what these things are or what created them, but I finally learned that they are cellophane tube worm casings. Neither of us remembers ever seeing them before, and maybe for good reason: they typically live in the sand near the low tide line. My understanding was that negative tides weren’t due until Thanksgiving, but (and we’ll see more later in the day) maybe they arrived early. As for the molted shells of crabs, those seem to be unseasonably out of character, with females molting in spring and males during the summer, so why here, near the end of fall, did all these crab casings wash up along millions of worm filaments?

Ocean Beach in Florence, Oregon

Maybe this is a tiny part of the earth’s brain. It holds the knowledge that what might appear permanent is potentially volatile and can reconfigure itself in the blink of an eye. With humans, on the other hand, the process of change can be glacially slow to the point of imperceptible. One big storm could hit this shore, and a wave could consume the evidence of this landslide, dragging all that is seen here into the sea. Those who never saw it with their own eyes will not understand the truth of what things looked like before their own arrival. In this sense, wave after wave of knowledge can crash into us humans, and yet we remain impervious to change and unable to understand the vast landscape before our arrival.

Ocean Beach in Florence, Oregon

Water runs back into the sea, humans too often run into self-constructed walls made of their own short-sightedness.

Big Creek Bridge in Florence, Oregon

Big Creek Bridge is as far south as we get before turning around, now satisfied we’ve felt the warming rays of the sun and functioning imaginations.

Shags Nest at Ocean Haven in Yachats, Oregon

Back to the Nest for breakfast of unintended scrambled eggs, potatoes, and bacon. We ended up needing to render the bacon fat so we’d have some oil to cook the hashbrowns we’d picked up at the market in Yachats last night after dinner, but as soon as those potatoes hit the grease, it disappeared, leaving nothing for the eggs. With some quick thinking, I chopped the bacon and scrambled the eggs so I could toss it all together and hope for the best. The coffee percolated, and before we knew it, we were serving up a perfect breakfast, at least the part that wasn’t holding past to the frying pan that I’d be scrubbing for days. At least we didn’t have to go to town, and we had the best view ever.

Carl G. Washburne Memorial State Park in Florence, Oregon

Incredibly, the weather is looking quite favorable this morning, so we’ve decided to gamble that it will hold long enough to take a walk down at Carl G. Washburne State Park and the old familiar China Creek Loop Trail. The sound of the surf across the way is everpresent while the trickle of China Creek lets us know it’s just below us in the ravine. The faint sounds of birds are near, but almost always they remain unseen. That held true while we were still on the Valley Trail but as we reached the small bridge where the loop trail turns off, there were a bunch of chickadees fluttering about. There will be no crossing the obviously broken crossing as the damage is too severe, plus the park service has blocked the passage with a notice posted that the trail is closed. But this is a loop trail, so we made it a bit further on over the Valley Trail and while the China Creek Loop was taped off, that was easy enough to bypass.

Carl G. Washburne Memorial State Park in Florence, Oregon

There’s a different kind of tranquility out here, knowing we are alone. On other occasions, people walking through can be loud, boisterous, and simply rude in our estimation. In the exceptional quiet we’re experiencing, we can hear more birds, smell more forest, and see more plants.

Carl G. Washburne Memorial State Park in Florence, Oregon

Similar to looking at a familiar place through a rearview mirror and seeing it differently, walking the loop trail in reverse changes our perspective. And then there’s the recognition that we’ll be taking all of this in twice since we must return from whence we came.

Carl G. Washburne Memorial State Park in Florence, Oregon

Trail upkeep has taken a hit because why clean the trail when it’s closed? It’s fascinating how quickly the forest encroaches upon the trail, starting to erase our presence.

Squirrel at Carl G. Washburne Memorial State Park in Florence, Oregon

This was the first squirrel we spotted today, but it wouldn’t be the only one. Before one sees the squirrel in the rainforest, one hears the squirrel. Hearing the squirrel, though, is only one tiny part of the enjoyment as its tail appeared to be part of the apparatus that helped it offer a louder chirp because, with each new chirp, that tail behind it was hard at work pumping back and forth in time with its commanding voice.

Carl G. Washburne Memorial State Park in Florence, Oregon

Have I ever known that this is beard lichen? Maybe I thought it was moss, but whatever it is, I do know that it adds to the lushness of the environment and helps exemplify the still atmosphere that glows in the radiant light of day wherever the sun spills into the forest.

Carl G. Washburne Memorial State Park in Florence, Oregon

We walk with soft steps, not wanting to disturb the majestic awe that inhabits this place. Everything feels delicate requiring that we travel without disturbing the forest that only shows its true tenderness when we arrive with the kind of respect that desires to be here in a symbiotic coexistence.

Mushroom at Carl G. Washburne Memorial State Park in Florence, Oregon

While I was down here on the ground, lying on the damp earth, looking to capture a moment from this mushroom, I could only see the fungi of my photographic desire. I had to breathe lightly lest I move the camera or disturb the fragility of the scene. What I hadn’t seen was the mushroom to the left just breaking out of the earth. What I cannot see no matter how close I dream of looking at this tiny world, is when the spore started becoming mycelium before its branches give rise to mushrooms or the microscopic addition of new cells in the branching mosses that are everywhere.

Carl G. Washburne Memorial State Park in Florence, Oregon

Why can’t we humans find a way to live in such harmony with our environment as the elements of sun, soil, plants, and creatures do? How is this so wild for our senses that we must denude it and then plant grass over the top of it in order to bring uniformity, sterility, and ultimately a sense of death to the places we inhabit?

Carl G. Washburne Memorial State Park in Florence, Oregon

This visit to the China Creek Loop Trail has probably seen us more unprepared than any previous visit, for had we known just how deserted the forest would be, we would have been well advised to bring a blanket in order to lie here and take it all in for hours undisturbed by anything besides our own biological needs.

Carl G. Washburne Memorial State Park in Florence, Oregon

White Worm Coral Mushroom is not to be confused with Ken Russell’s film Lair of the White Worm.

Caroline Wise and John Wise at Carl G. Washburne Memorial State Park in Florence, Oregon

Two old friends find solemnity in a wonderful forest of grace and enchantment.

Carl G. Washburne Memorial State Park in Florence, Oregon

I know this curve and believe we are approaching the broken bridge. We’ll soon have to turn around for the indulgence of experiencing the trail a second time in just one day.

Mushroom at Carl G. Washburne Memorial State Park in Florence, Oregon

The pallor of corpse skin draped over this mushroom screams poisonous, but the eye of curiosity says stop and take a memory home with you.

Mushroom at Carl G. Washburne Memorial State Park in Florence, Oregon

What you don’t know about these posts, especially one where there are more than 60 photos, is that I often struggle to write something fresh in the narrative, as it is my task to write at least a little something about each image I post. At this point, I’ve already written 15,000 words that are published in the previous days’ posts and in today’s post so far, while in my handwritten notes, I’d guess there are nearly 7,000 more words waiting to be transcribed. If I follow my pattern, this 11-day post will end up being approximately 35,000 words long. It’s easy to have doubts if I’m using my efforts to the best of the time I have available and if I share anything new at all, but then Caroline reminds me how I never tire of these photos featuring many of the themes we’ve seen countless times before. So, like photography, where I shoot 5,000 images to hopefully have 400 at the end of a trip that I’m in love with, I’ll just keep writing these verbal snapshots, and if from 35,000 words, I might pen I have 2,500 that are tremendous to me, then I’ve won, and this ends up being deeply meaningful.

Mushroom at Carl G. Washburne Memorial State Park in Florence, Oregon

At times, it seems that the mushroom cap is effectively the face of these fungi, at least as far as wild mushrooms are concerned.

Carl G. Washburne Memorial State Park in Florence, Oregon

I’m well aware of what it means to be sentient, and I hope I remain rational enough not to want to imbue the inanimate with such qualities, but when it comes to trees, plants, and the earth’s creatures, there’s always this creeping sense that I cannot be fully certain that there isn’t something there at a level of os sentience I cannot fathom. Sure, it might just be the idea that I’m projecting myself into the position of thinking, “If I were this tree sitting in the forest, I’d….”

Carl G. Washburne Memorial State Park in Florence, Oregon

As our species has understood so little during our time on this planet, I can’t help but wonder how much more there is yet to know as we try to portray our knowledge as being full of absolutes.

Carl G. Washburne Memorial State Park in Florence, Oregon

Everything that has preceded our arrival on earth was obviously instrumental in laying the foundation that would usher in humans, and yet each of those key pieces is at risk of extinction, in large part due to the heavy hand we wield without discretion when we feel we need something that improves our brief existence. While I cannot tell you what the exact utility is of a carpet of moss in a coastal rainforest environment, I do know that I find it aesthetically wonderful, and my senses would be crushed if one day I were to arrive for a return visit and this had all been clear cut or burned off the face of our planet. Come to think about it that is exactly what we are doing in countless places.

Carl G. Washburne Memorial State Park in Florence, Oregon

I understand the need to use lands to cultivate the products or mine the elements we need to sustain us, but we are not treating our planet as we would our home. If this were your toddler’s favorite place to play in your backyard, you’d want to forbid an entity from coming in to scrape all of these fragile details out of existence in order to make a company already worth billions an extra milkshake under the guise that even those poor souls in faraway land “XYZ” should have the opportunity to taste a milkshake too. Maybe we shouldn’t all have a milkshake at the exact moment we want it, and instead of giving in to instant gratification, we should help people understand that if we remove all that is beautiful because Joey doesn’t have a McMansion-size playground in his backyard, we’ll soon have none of the original things earth offered us that started the lessons of what was essential and beautiful.

Squirrel at Carl G. Washburne Memorial State Park in Florence, Oregon

Mr. Squirrel would likely agree with me.

Squirrel at Carl G. Washburne Memorial State Park in Florence, Oregon

The bridge we would typically cross at the start of the China Creek Loop Trail turns out to have been impassable going on a year now, and it shows. We’ve never seen squirrels in this forest, nor could we hear as many birds, so the implication is that without us humans, wildlife is returning to the area. Regarding our observation that there were no newts out here at the ranger station, we learned that this was due to the dry weather, which would also explain the relative dearth of mushrooms in comparison to previous visits.

View from the Shags Nest at Ocean Haven in Yachats, Oregon

For the astute with a keen sense of spatial awareness, they will notice that we are obviously no longer in the rainforest. As a matter of fact, we have returned to the Shags Nest for some reason or other. As we left Washburne, the idea was that we’d visit the Devil’s Churn and then continue up the road to Luna Sea restaurant for lunch.

Flower at Ocean Haven in Yachats, Oregon

Those plans were fungible with other plans as no matter the direction, we’d still be at the ocean doing things we love, and so instead of a left turn heading north, we went to the right to pay a quick return visit to Tokatee Klootchman should the light of day make the short descent any easier.

Tokatee Klootchman State Natural Site in Florence, Oregon

Our idea here at Tokatee Klootchman, oh how I love that name, was to negotiate the steep trail down and find a way to scramble over the rocks to get over on our side of the beach below Ocean Haven and try our luck at ascending the cliffside access trail back up to the Shags Nest followed by walking down the street back to where we left the car or with my fear then conquered, we could just return the way we came. Nope, couldn’t find a way over the rocky outcropping with the Tokatee Creek running right through it.

Tokatee Klootchman State Natural Site in Florence, Oregon

Might as well see what’s here.

Anemone at Tokatee Klootchman State Natural Site in Florence, Oregon

Oh, it’s a forest of anemones in an aquarium-like setting, except it’s the ocean.

Anemone at Tokatee Klootchman State Natural Site in Florence, Oregon

Sure, there are more anemones here, but the center of my focus is on the chiton, a.k.a. gumboot, a.k.a. Loricate, which, for some reason, has me thinking about the Lorax from Dr. Seuss.

Anemone at Tokatee Klootchman State Natural Site in Florence, Oregon

I could simply write that we’d seen an abundance of anemones on our walk through the rocky shore but when a picture speaks a thousand words, this sentence just got a lot longer with the inclusion of yet another image of an anemone.

Chiton at Tokatee Klootchman State Natural Site in Florence, Oregon

One of 940 different recognized types of chitons, how many will you hold in your lifetime?

Stonefield Beach North in Florence, Oregon

Leaving Tokatee, we were now ready for lunch, right up until we saw the sign for Ten Mile Creek and thought, we should make a quick stop here as we’d never visited this place before. With it right next to the ocean, we’ll only be a minute. Well, we were there less than a minute as we didn’t feel like crossing the creek and getting around to the right looked to be a hassle, so we went back to the car and off to Luna Sea for some fish. That was until we saw that Ten Mile Creek’s sign marker specifies this as location 85 while Tokatee Klootchman was number 87, so where is location 86?

Note to Caroline for future reference: we wouldn’t have needed to scramble down the rocks and cross the creek, there’s a small trail sliced through the trees that take visitors to what is the north side of Stonefield Beach.

Stonefield Beach in Florence, Oregon

About 50 feet south is the small driveway to a parking area for maybe half a dozen cars serving location 86, known as Stonefield Beach.

Stonefield Beach in Florence, Oregon

There were more than a few people down here, with most everyone congregating near Ten Mile Creek. Feeling they knew something, we joined them, and sure enough, the reflections in the shallow water on the beach were beautiful. While it was obvious that we were here at low tide, we didn’t fully understand just how low it was.

Stonefield Beach in Florence, Oregon

So we continued to walk along the shore, admiring the glistening water as we strolled to the south with no urgency to reach anything in particular.

Stonefield Beach in Florence, Oregon

To the best of our recollection, we’ve never visited Stonefield Beach before, so our expectations are zero, and we simply take our time to enjoy our first encounter.

Stonefield Beach in Florence, Oregon

These wide, flat expanses, or somewhat textured as this one is, are certainly on our list of favorites because when they are wet and reflective, we love seeing the sky mirrored in the surface below.

Stonefield Beach in Florence, Oregon

Keep changing your perspective; what you gaze upon becomes another essential part of how you’ll interpret reality, but if you only see things for how you think they are at first glance, you’ll miss the nuances that might alter your certainty that you’ve seen and understood all there is to be known.

Stonefield Beach in Florence, Oregon

If I’m being redundant, it’s only because I want to bring everything home with us.

Stonefield Beach in Florence, Oregon

So here we are, approaching what might be a good turnaround point to head back to the car as it appears that the sun will soon disappear behind a thick cloud bank, dashing hopes for a spectacular sunset, but who cares? We’ve already had a tremendous day with unexpected great weather. But we’re close to the rocks that failed to attract anyone else’s attention, and Caroline wants to investigate.

Sea stars at Stonefield Beach in Florence, Oregon

Whoa, the tide is so low that the entirety of life in the ocean is being exposed, all of it! Why oh why were those people near the creek, and nobody was down here? This is like the beginning of an entirely new day of experience.

Barnacles at Stonefield Beach in Florence, Oregon

A negative tide has exposed a huge swath of ocean floor, and we’re down in the middle of it. Astonishing is a weak description of what we are ogling; nothing in our previous experiences of low tides comes close.

Anemone at Stonefield Beach in Florence, Oregon

I’m going to make my life here easier, and instead of trying to find something profound to share about anemones, these two are husband and wife, and after having moved here back in the early 1950s, they are now in retirement, having spawned thousands of little anemones over the past 77 years. Now, in their sunset years, they just kick back, swaying in the waves, happy to have lived such wonderful lives on the Oregon shore where the waters were always cold, and people stepping on them were kept to a minimum.

Caroline Wise at Stonefield Beach in Florence, Oregon

There’s no way of knowing how many gazillions of bivalves, anemones, barnacles, and sea stars we are seeing. Maybe we could have counted the sea stars, but we’d have ultimately been drowned by the return of the ocean to take back what belongs to it; this does not include my wife.

Sea stars at Stonefield Beach in Florence, Oregon

When we see sea stars, they are typically firmly attached to something, just like this giant orange star holding fast to the rock and mussels that are temporarily hanging out above the world they normally live in, that being the ocean. Returning to subjects captured in my photos time and again, I need to stretch in finding something worthwhile to say about what I feel compelled to share and so it is with this beautiful specimen. A simple search for interesting facts about sea stars taught me that not only can sea stars reproduce sexually, but they can also reproduce asexually. While a sea star can regenerate a lost limb (this I knew), that broken-off wayward limb, if detached close to the body, will have all of the essential organs to regenerate an entirely new sea star thus, the species is able to reproduce itself.

Anemone at Stonefield Beach in Florence, Oregon

Just when I think I’ve taken too many photos of anemones, there’s that one photo that spurs me into asking questions about the anatomy of this sea creature, and it’s there that I learn that the main part of the body is called the column, but that’s not exactly what I was curious about. We’ve seen this before: the column appears to be covered with debris. This would make sense when the anemone is out of the ocean during low tide, and I’m left thinking that the receding waters distributed the shells and small stones on its body and will simply rinse away when the tide returns.

This anemone is in the water, and it was while looking at this that I finally realized that it was not the first time I had seen this kind of patterning. Sure enough, this type of anemone has sticky tubercles (a small rounded projection or protuberance) that it uses for intentionally attaching shells, sand, and other small debris. Reading the article I linked to also informed me that this anemone has fighting tentacles (usually retracted), but the truly mind-blowing lesson for the day is that in the phylum of cnidarian, there are two forms, polyps and medusae, with anemones being of the polyp type, and jellyfish belonging to the medusae type. The fact that jellies and anemones both belong to the same phylum isn’t a big deal as my knowledge of biology is nearly nil, but when the author pointed out that jellyfish are essentially untethered upside-down anemones, well, my eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. Hmm, imagine that eyes popping out of our skulls was the way humans reproduced.

Stonefield Beach in Florence, Oregon

Do you see the sadness out on the horizon? That’s the face of nature wearing a wistful expression that this human who should have been able to do better has reached what is likely the final quarter of its life and only now finds the awareness that it took the creatures living near the seashore for granted. The backward idea that it was all just stuff that, while beautiful, was simply the things that were there.

Anemone at Stonefield Beach in Florence, Oregon

Then it strikes me: these anemones are essentially like the majority of people around me; they arrive in different colors, shapes, and ages, but for the most part, they lack intentionality, and so, while pleasant to look at, they are easy to take for granted. Their flourishes might be attractive and their forms seductive, but at the end of the day, they are attached to routines that allow them to exist, but they rarely affect outcomes. Among us humans, there’s a tiny fraction that attempts to harness deliberate consciousness to action, believing they can loosen the binds that tie them to doing things the way they were always done. Lucky us that anemones, jellyfish, and sea stars haven’t evolved intention. Then again, unlucky us that the same holds true for so many around us.

Devils Churn at Cape Perpetua in Yachats, Oregon

Finally made it to the Devil’s Churn, but as you can see in the waning light, the churn is calm, so we didn’t finish the walk down and instead opted to finally fetch a very late lunch / early dinner back at Ona Restaurant for our second visit. Yes, last night’s meal was extraordinary enough that we are returning for a repeat performance. Tonight’s menu must be mentioned as a reminder to Caroline and me to come back to Yachats and eat at Ona once again if we are so fortunate. Our first course was smoked local maitake mushroom pâté followed by clams in vermouth and then another beet salad, as we enjoyed the one last night so enthusiastically. For the main dish, Caroline opted for miso ramen while I took on the stuffed sole. What perfect punctuation for an exquisite day.