Disclaimer: This post is one of those that ended up being written years after the experience was had. Sadly, there were no notes taken so whatever is shared here must be extracted from the images and what memories they may have lent us. Fortunately, there was an itinerary still in my directory of travel plans, so that will help with some details. As to why this wasn’t noted or blogged about, I was in the throes of writing/editing my book Stay In The Magic and felt that any other deep writing would derail that fragile effort.
Yesterday, we were hoping for favorable weather this morning, and here we are at the beginning of our trail with the sun streaming in. Not that it will get far, as we are in a rainforest at Carl G. Washburne State Park south of Yachats, Oregon.
Funny how I can gaze upon a mushroom, just one more mushroom among the thousands I’ve seen in my lifetime, and still I find it enchanting. I’m sitting in a coffee shop as I write this, listening to the same old bologna I’ve heard countless times, and it’s rubbing me in such a way that I’m considering running away. The mushroom is never able to share its stupidity, but a human is all too willing to demonstrate that it’s dumber than a fungus planted on a forest floor. How should I write about the serenity and beauty of a place when surrounded by the chaos and ugliness of those others within my species?
Looking back at these trips I have to lament that I wasn’t willing to write of my impressions and take inspiration from the environment at the time. Mostly, I was content to have the photographic memories as I saw myself as having just enough skills to take those, but my writing was still in its nascent stages; well, it still is, isn’t it? All the same, even rudimentary notes help bring back things that are long forgotten. The lesson is, always take too many photos and at least write some things down on every vacation day you ever take.
Taken before the days, we understood that newts excrete a toxin when stressed. I tend to want to believe that Caroline’s tender touch doesn’t stress the newt, but then again, if something 6,480 times bigger than me picked me up, even if it was gingerly, I’d be excreting all over myself and the creature holding me.
My half-educated guess is that these are Stropharia caerulea, also known as Blue Roundheads, and are not edible.
I believe I’ve posted this exact view more than a few times, and why wouldn’t I? It’s just perfect in every way.
I’ve tried time and again to photograph this bridge, and after years of not looking at this particular image, I realize that using my 10-22mm lens I was able to capture the angle I was looking for. If I was a more dedicated photographer, I’d travel with the full complement of lenses I own, but the truth is that I’ve never grown beyond believing I’m taking run-of-the-mill snapshots of average quality, so my effort is what it is.
As I stare at this image, contemplating what to write, I think about the smallest mushroom I see there on the left, just under the cut of this tree. It’s obviously not as small as it could be because, at some point, just after it left the spore stage, it probably did not have a mushroom cap and I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that. Then there are the spores the tree caught of the moss, growing like a vertical carpet under the mushrooms; I failed to note what direction all of this growth was facing to learn more about the lighting conditions where these plants thrive. Studying those aspects and admiring the reflections on the wet mushrooms I start to take notice of the blurred background and how appealing it is to my eye.
Sure, everybody should see this sight with their own eyes, but today, I’m happy there was nobody else on the trail who would have been a part of this scene. The sunbeams, shadows, greenery, and nearly imperceptible amount of fog are just right.
I could have just posted a single photo of our day on the central coast of Oregon and shared that we’d hiked in this particular state park, visited a lighthouse, and experienced a magnificent sunset, but instead, I’m inclined to overshare, causing these brief notes where I really don’t share anything of value at all.
Where’s Waldo? She’s there in the shadows, but who really cares about her standing back there, hardly seen as what I really wanted to share was the lush green carpet and those sunbeams that beg me to forever remember how mysterious they are and how they change the character of a forest.
Sometimes, the carpet of moss appears as a fur coat on the limbs of trees. I wonder if I really need to point out that this is far more elegant on older trees where the growth has been accumulating for years. Sadly, when we move through a forest, clear-cutting the life that we need to harvest for our own financial gain proceeds indiscriminately, giving no care at all about the wisdom in the forest that comes in the form of trees such as this.
For fungus, there is no importance of time on display as they quickly come and go with their impact experienced in mere moments but they do represent the symbiotic nature of a healthy environment where things are allowed to remain undisturbed by our sense of propriety.
Another fungus cutting its own path into my reality. I suppose I can be happy that this thing isn’t gifted with a kind of mobility that would make it the stuff of nightmares.
Today, we took the longer option regarding our hike. Typically, we’ve taken the Hobbit Trail down to the beach, but with the weather seeming favorable, we are taking a left towards the lighthouse.
Heceta Head Lighthouse at the end of the trail.
Is it enough to say wow here?
We managed to be here right in time for a tour of this 117-year-old fixture on the Oregon coast.
Who pays for the repairs and upkeep of these iconic treasures? We, the general public, do with our paid admission as we carve out time from our vacation to crawl up these towers. When we visit and buy something from the gift shop, we fund repairs and pay for the people who protect the buildings from vandalism. Nature is already a tough visitor, wearing down the structure that lives year after year under the battering ram of weather. I’d imagine that the water seeping through or down these walls would ultimately make Heceta Head unvisitable. Thanks to everyone who toils to preserve lighthouses.
I can’t remember the specifics about the couple acting as caretakers here and how and why they let us in for a quick tour, but I’m forever grateful. It turned out that the lighthouse was closed back in August 2011, just a few months before our arrival but major renovation work that would shut the facility for the next two years hadn’t begun yet, and so we were “snuck in.” Persistent enthusiasm must be good for something.
A quick look at the ocean and it was time to head up the road back to our yurt that we’d booked for two nights. As we walked along the street, oh, how we wished that someone driving past and seeing how worn down we were would have had room to pick up three strangers and take us back to Washburne. No luck; we hoofed it.
Instead of walking along the highway the entire distance we turned back in towards the China Creek Trail, where it emerges at the highway to head over to the Hobbit Beach Trail. We should have gone to the beach and walked back the rest of the way, but we were tired and hungry.
But not so tired and hungry that I couldn’t stop and take even more photos of the lovely mushrooms.
After a short rest and some food, we crossed the highway to the Washburne stretch of beach to bask under the sunset.
Sure, it’s more of the same, but I couldn’t choose between the two.
As a matter of fact, you’ll notice that this photo is similar to the one below Caroline, but notice the position of the sun in the sky here, while in the last photo, it’s about to dip below the horizon.
The only reason this cute photo of Caroline is here is to have some visual discontinuity in my two sunset photos.
Looking through these photos nearly ten years after I took them, I can’t help but dream of our next visit to the Oregon Coast, even though we just spent three weeks up there this past November. Being as enamored by this stretch of America as I am, I’ll likely never understand the fascination with California’s less-than-stellar coast south of here.