A fine rain continues, but our stay at The Fish Inn here in Gold Beach, Oregon, is coming to an end. In a couple of hours or less, we are heading to Ocean Haven south of Yachats, about 160 miles (257km) north of here. Google believes it’ll take us about 3 hours to get there, but we have stops we need to make along the way. We don’t know where those stops are yet, aside from Misty Meadows, a jam place north of Port Orford, and the Wool Company in Bandon. Other than those, we’ll just see what comes along and piques our interests. The other three yarn shops we could have stopped at are all closed on Mondays, while an ice cream shop called Scoops in North Bend, where we shared a banana split last year, could drag us in for a mid-day snack.
Not only are we moving between places, but we are also moving between weather patterns. Just about 15 minutes prior to leaving this beautiful little house on the Pistol River, while talking with Ron, the owner, the sun poked out of its shroud. I felt the photo of The Fish Inn that I posted yesterday looked nice in the foggy, mysterious environment, but it also looks idyllic in the sun, so why not share another? As for the shifting weather, we were pleasantly surprised by the turn of events as we’d been prepared for foul weather for the first week of our trip up here. Then again, nothing is really as others say it will be when we are visiting the Oregon Coast.
To get a good idea of why it will take us the entire day to reach our seaside abode after dark, these two guys are just one small part of the distraction. Were we supposed to just drive by? Of course, we’ll blame the need for the photos on our niece Katharina in Germany, who LOVES horses, but then again, so do we. Come to think of it, we have stopped for turtles, sheep, goats, cats, cows, deer, donkeys, birds, frogs, snakes, bison, elk, moose, bears, alligators, skunks, porcupines, raccoons, coyotes, wolves, whales, dolphins, even a mountain lion once.
So we stopped at Meyers Beach North again, but today, there was silvery surf, fog, rolling clouds, and a big searing sun in the sky punching a hole into the clouds. No chance to fly a kite this time, as the tide is high, with waves eating the entirety of the beach. While I didn’t snap a photo yesterday, we did take a peek here just in case there was a view so exquisite that a new masterpiece in photography might have been had. Later in this trip, we’ll be coming right back down this way
Otter Point, a place we never knew existed; or at least that’s what we’ll try to maintain to cover my previous bragging claims that we’d been everywhere along the Oregon coast and then all of a sudden we are just going to all these new places as though somehow we’d missed 100’s of potential stops. We didn’t go all the way to the end, but we did make it well past that sign to the next outcropping.
Looking north from Otter Point on a windy day on a narrow trail where my vertigo is easily triggered, but we persevered and kept on heading west. A little ways past this, we encountered a park ranger who warned us that the furthest point was a bit slippery today due to the recent rains; we heeded his advice. Although I weigh a smidge over 220lbs, I’m not averse to entertaining, silly flights of fancy where a strong wind on a slippery surface would be enough to sail me across the “ice rink” and over the cliffside onto the rocky shore below. Somehow, this never happens in my imagination to Caroline; it’s only the fat guy blown to his death.
Looking south and wondering who in their right mind walks out close to these edges. I’m not just guessing that people do that; their paths are well-worn into disintegrating cliffs that are probably only minutes away from giving way under my feet. We’d better run away now while we are still alive.
If you were to approach the Prehistoric Gardens in Bandon, Oregon, and were in your 50’s, would you stop? If you were us and, over the past 18 years, you’d failed every time to make the pilgrimage, you would. At $12 each to get in, there was a part of me that was hoping we’d be here more than 10 minutes and maybe at least see an animatronic of a dinosaur, some recorded dinosaur sounds, a jump scare by some old guy wearing one of those inflatable Jurassic T-Rex costumes, or something, but there was a whole lot of nope in our 10-minute walk through a rain forest with some cheesy plastic dinosaurs that at least had cheese going for them. Curiosity satisfied with an appeal to our inner 8-year-old that gives it a thumbs up.
Humbug Mountain State Park is the elusive bulbous rock jutting into the ocean with a peak that’s often in the clouds. We’ve meant to climb this thing a dozen times but are yet to reach its non-view peak in the forest. By the way, I’m not talking about the little knob on the right; there’s a giant mountain on the left, mostly out of view, that stretches far above.
Standing on the dock at Port Orford not far from the fishing boat Moxie, which we’ve seen here year after year, watching the birds. Sadly, we weren’t stopping in at Griff’s on the Dock as COVID restrictions suggest staying clear of sitting in restaurants, and a bowl of mussels wouldn’t be the same if we were eating them in the car. So we’ll just reminisce in the nostalgia of memories of our peculiar attraction to this small dock in a small town.
Buying a care package of assorted jams for our family in Germany was the objective here. Leaving with a stuffed yellow banana slug, a bottle of mead, a bunch of jam for ourselves, and the dozen jars being sent to Germany was accomplished. Big win at Misty Meadows on the side of the road south of Bandon.
Caroline had to demask to show her silly grin as she fiendishly fondled the fibers on this fortuitous day because the Wool Company happens to be open on a Monday. I found my second skein of yarn this trip for yet another pair of socks, which reminds me that I have to photograph the new pair I brought with us made from yarn we bought on a previous trip to Cannon Beach up the road. Caroline also found a skein that caught her eye, along with a fancy yarn bowl with a special slot that holds a ball of yarn, allowing the ball to unravel in an organized fashion instead of it rolling all over the floor, which is her usual method.
Finally, it was time for my indulgence and what we think might be my first ice cream of the year, though I should be honest about that milkshake we shared recently on the trip to Duncan, Arizona. Anyway, I’m not one to be pinned down by inconvenient little truths that come up short of telling a more compelling story, so we’ll just go with this being my first banana split in 20 years!!! Oh, the one we had at Denny’s on New Year’s Eve or last year’s at the same place called Scoops here in North Bend? Illusions, lies, fake news, and other shenanigans to make me look bad as who in their right mind with diabetes would have a banana split? Would you believe I only ate the middle vanilla and pineapple cover section?
Umpqua River in Gardiner, right next to a train track with an old railroad crossing side, a small boat launch, and a dock, are all I need to want to come back to this location year after year to admire what a beautiful scene this is. Nearby is the Umpqua Lighthouse, which we learned is open and accepting tours; hopefully, before we leave Yachats, we’ll head back down for a return visit to the lighthouse we’ve not been in for at least ten years.
It’s dark and stormy when we arrive at Ocean Haven. For the next five nights, this little fully-equipped space will be all ours. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow to get a first-hand experience of the view, as right now, it’s pitch black out there. We still have dinner to contend with, which is a couple of crawfish-stuffed pork chops from Louisiana and butternut squash. While we would have liked to have stayed up late, we couldn’t, we didn’t and instead gave in to the impulse to call it quits early with full stomachs and satisfied senses.