Disclaimer: This post is one of those that ended up being (mostly) written years after the experience was had. While there was a paragraph or two posted way back then with a single photo, there were no other notes taken, so most of what is shared here must be extracted from the images and what memories they may have lent us.
Beautiful Yachats, Oregon, which we should call home in retirement. (Well, that was our thinking in 2008 when things were still affordable up along the Oregon Coast. Nowadays, in 2022, as I’m expanding this post, that dream is no longer possible due to private equity and AirBnB destroying the ability to find affordability in places where big profit can be exploited.)
The ferocity of the Devil’s Churn persuaded us that we didn’t need to spend another minute here and that we should just get down the road, or else be trapped for hours while I aim to take the most perfect photo of the chaos.
Having visited so many of these locations on prior outings, we now have a repertoire of places requiring revisits. Carl G. Washburne Memorial State Park is one of those destinations in our ever-growing list of must-return-to sites.
From sand dunes to rocky coastal mountains, the Oregon Coast is a treasure trove for exploration, but here at the Carl Washburne State Park, a lush rainforest is roadside and yet rarely visited. While the opposite side of the road, with its Hobbit trail to the mile-long sandy beach, is popular, the China Creek trail sees few visitors. This works out fine for Caroline and me, for we appreciate the quiet, the solitude, and the solemnity of this overgrown, mushroom and moss-infested forest.
Elk are said to inhabit the area along the trail, but they have remained elusive to us so far; mushrooms, though, are here in abundance.
Mushrooms come in all shapes and sizes. Imagine that these were elephants or unicorns, and there’d be millions lining up to witness the spectacle. Well, lucky us that people don’t find the same enjoyment in the rain forest so it’s all ours.
Or maybe Oregon should import gorillas into these environments, and then the crowds would come, though that would just ruin our pilgrimages to this beautiful little corner of the coast.
Ha, I should point out that this part of the trail isn’t even in the deepest part of the forest yet; that’s still coming up.
Just past these mushrooms.
And then, blam, you are in the moss-covered three-handled family gradunza. That’s right, if you ever wondered what Dr. Seuss took influence from, this was it.
Our happy place.
If we were small enough, our happy place might be under this mushroom, but we are giants.
Though not so giant as to compete with the trees.
Nor as big as the sun that shines down these rays into the trees, casting shadows within the fog.
So, the best we can be are puny people in awe of how incredible not only the place is, but how fortunate we are to realize we can be here to be energized in the magic of light and shadow.
In Arizona, the spider webs are invisible in our zero-humidity, dry climate, but up here, they are gathers of both insects and dew.
Maybe I’m getting too carried away with the god-ray photos?
Well then, here’s a salamander taking a break with the green world around it reflected in its eyes.
Wait a minute, have I shared a photo previously of this exact location? Probably, but I’ve also taken a thousand photos of my wife and shared them too.
Not a mushroom but an alien intelligence sent here to observe us.
I sure have created myself a task I often feel ill-prepared for by adding all of these photos. I’ve endeavored to include a corresponding amount of something to say about each, but that’s difficult, especially considering that I’ve likely written about the general area and impressions a dozen or more times.
Looking back at these memories, I see the forest as it was and still is; Caroline looks almost the same, while I’ve grown thinner and grayer. We still have that green camera bag, Caroline only recently retired that flannel shirt we bought at Euro-Disney in 1992, and she wore at our Las Vegas wedding, and we are still not quite satisfied that we’ve experienced enough of Oregon, and so this November 2022, like so many other Novembers, we’ll be back, likely on this exact trail.
We’ve often wondered how many of our photos are from essentially the exact same spot. For that matter, how many of these words have been written verbatim time and again?
After starting the China Creek Trail at the trailhead near the park office and covering the Valley trail, you may cross over Highway 101, where you can choose to hike to Heceta Head Lighthouse or turn right over the Hobbit Trail, returning to the park entrance on the beach (hopefully at low tide).
This is one of the majestic photos that defy my belief that I captured it. Caroline should chime in here about now and inform me that, in fact, she took it.
[Come on, John, everybody knows that only you take nice photos ^_^ Caroline]
Two selfies of us in one post can only mean I’m giving into the nostalgia of things, or maybe I enjoy getting lost in the romantic notion that those two smiling faces have been sharing space in front of the camera for so many years.
This guy or gal is an uncommon sight for us to see on a beach in Oregon, especially at this time of year.
I believe we are at Winchester Bay, which would make sense with our lodging being just around the corner.
If this is the Umpqua River Lighthouse, and it is, then we must be staying in yet another yurt because just behind that lighthouse is the Umpqua Lighthouse State Park. Apparently, this was our first time staying at this park, as far as the old reservation confirmations I still have in email. We were in yurt C53, and some years later, we stayed in B18, followed in 2019 and 2021 when we stayed in C35, which is the same yurt we’ll be occupying in November 2022.