It’s the quiet serenity at the break of dawn, and the externalities of being human are kept at bay. Stand at the edge of a river looking toward the sun behind a thin shroud of clouds while the forest across the way obscures that there’s a bigger world beyond the trees and try to consider that the majority of the humans that came before us only knew themselves as another element in nature, not the megalomaniacs who’ve convinced themselves through self-ordination that a god gave them dominion over a planet.
The light of being should emanate from within like the beacon of a lighthouse. Instead, we’ve foisted the dollar, organized religion, cult-like politics, and celebrities to act as our guiding lights. We get our compass and our evolving intellect from our parents; there is no need for corporate interests to use the media to bombard us with their capitalistic agendas, but that’s how we now exist. Rarely is the message that one should take a sabbatical to reconnect with the real, the meaningful, and truly profound. With the conclusion of this trip, Caroline and I will have been away from home and work for just shy of 80 days this year, and if we had another 30 days, we’d have no problems filling those moments with more grand experiences.
Love of life, one another, and our rare moments in time connecting to the larger world found in raw nature are the greatest things we take from life. I’m a broken old record by now, considering how often I’ve repeated my message to focus your loyalties away from things outside of your control that have been placed upon your shoulders by external forces who require your servitude to their concerns, but then again, this beach was all ours, no one else was here to disturb our experience. There we were, just two of us out of 8 billion others. Maybe I should change my tune and thank all of those people nestled cozily at home making toaster waffles, waiting for Uber Eats to deliver their coffee as they check social media, e-mail, TV, or some other important aspect of their lives in expensive homes so Caroline and I can go about exploring our world in the beautiful solitude of perfect days.
Right out there in the cosmos, in the vast wonderment of a universe of exceedingly infinite potentiality, the light of curiosity illuminates a way forward that seems to insist that happiness is found in learning about what you didn’t know yesterday. Seeing the unfamiliar and touching the rare alights the being of our humanity and fuels the desire to explore more of what we didn’t understand in the moments prior. Of course, the seed of yearning is not equally distributed, and through neglect, it’s easy to kill the chance of it ever moving beyond the nascent sprouting stage. If only continuing nourishment had been offered, the child might have taken a path that would have taken them farther.
There are many paths that lead nowhere, and in the age in which we live, these are the destinations that best serve those who’d love more out of life. While I find it selfish that the haves would rather offer false destinies and aspirations to the masses, I reluctantly have to concede a hint of genius to this blunt method of oppression as I, for one, love the civility found in the serenity of a place that’s not been cluttered with the grotesque stupidity of crass, unrefined people, their boisterous obnoxiousness and displays of their gaudy self-image.
There are beautiful things, and there are ugly things, and while we would prefer to remain immersed in the aesthetically wonderful, it’s inevitable that we’ll be encountering the ugly, typically in the form of people.
The beach, river, surf, jetty, lighthouse, and marsh do not have a political affiliation. Those places and things aren’t afraid or angry about perceived injustices and conspiracies. Our last visit to Oregon was in November 2020, it was our Remote Isolation Vacation, and as such, we had very few encounters with others, certainly not indoors. We know full well that Oregon is largely a conservative state, regardless of how people want to portray Portland. This is a state, after all, with a charter that featured a black exclusionary clause, and while those pockets of liberalism exist, the rural enclaves can be quite oppressive.
This contrast between the pleasing and the vulgar shows up every once in a while. It’s Sunday, so more people go out for breakfast, and the other nearby restaurants seem to have fallen victim to the pandemic, “if you want to call it that,” pipes up the man in the “Let’s Go Brandon” cap sitting next to us at the counter. As I said, our visit in 2020 might have had us encountering 3 or 4 people, and all of them were outdoors and keeping their distance, while the year before, in 2019, the right’s God/King was still sitting upon his Orange Throne, and all was perfect in the universe. I’d like to say, “Enough of this distraction that should remain but a tiny part of our time on the coast!” is but one more thing.
In trying to understand more about the local history and mentality, Caroline is reading about the racist past of Oregon and came across that point in time when Oregon ratified the 14th amendment, you remember, the one that reads, “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” But then, a couple of years later, they rescinded it when they decided that black people were not entitled to citizenship. Sure, they eventually fixed this act of poor discretion, but NOT until 1973! Oregon’s history with its Chinese population might be worse, but before we go down that rabbit hole, it is time to stop the history lesson.
That old saying that one bad apple spoils the barrel might hold true as the stupid man with an off-the-cuff comment and his abhorrent hat had us reevaluating our perception of a state where we most typically find ourselves inspired while looking outward toward the sea, up to the mountains, through the forest, or within our feelings of love.
Speaking of fruit, while we had to do some minor backtracking this morning, Caroline required a visit to Misty Meadows south of Bandon as this might be the best chance for her to collect a sweet gift for a friend of hers in Germany. Oh nice, banana slug and tsunami zone stickers for my computer and Tayberry jam for Caroline, friends, and family.
For one reason or another, on the return north, we stopped in Old Town Bandon. Maybe we wanted to take stock of what the pandemic shuttered, or was the bathroom calling, oh, how that candy store? After evaluating the shops and restaurants, we made our way toward the dock and public restroom before walking along the southern shore of the Coquille River. Come to think of it, we were in the car and leaving when, nearly simultaneously, our eyes caught sight of a sign that read Cranberry Sweets & More. The combination of cranberry and sweets demanded we turn around and make a visit; we didn’t leave empty-handed. And what’s more, we also made a stop at Face Rock Creamery for a sweet ice cream treat on our way out of town.
We weren’t even 5 miles out of town when a sign pointing to Whiskey Run caught our attention. good thing it did, as it brought us to this gorse fantasy. While not everyone’s favorite scourge of a plant, there’s no denying that this oily cousin of the pea plant is a sight to behold.
Lovely pea-like flowers are said to have the scent of coconut, but I wouldn’t know. [Coconut and peaches, in my opinion – Caroline]
One must first get past some of the worst thorns known in the plant kingdom to gather a sniff at the flowers, and one would be a terrible fool to become entangled in this otherwise beautiful bush.
This is Whiskey Run Beach and yet another place we have failed to visit previously. I’d like to be cheeky and blame it on the idea that to get down to this beach, we have to drive between two golf courses, but that would just be me trolling the reader that my disdain for golfers is that great; close but not that bad.
To the south, there are some vehicles and seeing that we’re on foot, we’ll walk the other way where not a car is to be seen.
Our long walk north pays off as we’re here at low tide. Not that we’ll be seeing a lot of sealife this afternoon, but we’re not so difficult to scoff at a dearth of sights; we can appreciate even the littlest of things.
I shouldn’t imply there’s a payoff due to seeing sea life when any and every moment out here together while we are just walking along inventorying the shore and counting the number of visible droplets from splashing waves sends us into matrimonial bliss.
When the inventory is finished, and all the droplets that can be counted have been accounted for, Caroline breaks out the calculator and graph paper and starts to plot how much water volume is in the clouds as sampled from a 22.5-degree angle of the ocean’s horizon to a point 22.5 degrees above sea level. In this particular game of “Guess the Volume,” she ventured a bet that there would be about half a cubic kilometer of clouds in our sample cube if they were collected in a single cloud. This would equate to about 250,000 kilos of water or the same as measured by liters. For you Imperialists, that would be about 66,000 gallons of water lofted into the sky in front of us.
When not performing beach geometry, Caroline can be found collecting clumps of mussels.
Meanwhile, I busy myself over here trying to find patterns in the rocks that would imply an ancient civilization had once lived here, leaving these foundations of their dwellings and rock carvings that tell the story of their alien overlords that planted them here over a million years ago.
Clearly, I’m suffering from sun poisoning and not in my right mind. That’s not true, but I have to make something up as we walk along in a mindless trance of wonder.
I’ve lost just too much time trying to discover why erosion is working on these rocks in just this way. It’s nearly maddening how difficult the search is with Google Images absolutely failing while Bing Images at least identifies that they are from Whiskey Run Beach, but what the rock is and how these cavities were formed is a mystery.
What’s not a mystery is that these rocks are tilted nearly perfectly at 90 degrees from where they used to sit, meaning they fell clean over. This has me thinking about earthquakes and that 1,200 years ago, movement of the Cascadia Subduction Zone dropped some of the coastlines just north of here at Sunset Bay and deposited a large part of the forest into the ocean, thus creating a “Ghost Forest.” What, a ghost forest? Now that I understand this, I want to visit Sunset Bay again and Neskowin where there’s another ghost forest. So, regarding these titled rocks, I could see that they might have fallen over during that cataclysm over a thousand years ago. I can only wonder when we might be able to witness another event of such great magnitude.
Worms, sand-peckers, crabs, birds following worm track? I’m at a loss; let’s hope sleuthy Caroline finds a bead on just what creates these patterns in the sand. [Nothing so far – Caroline]
This is either a baby jellyfish or it’s an adult with the shortest tentacles of all jellyfish.
If there is a saying that reads, “Money on the floor brings money in the door,” then I wonder if there is good luck to be found in “Sand dollar on the beach – beautiful experience within reach.”
A John-and-Caroline road trip may not be complete without at least some dirt road as part of the route. Today’s off-road adventure brought us down old Seven Devils Road to avoid a road we’ve driven before. Just before getting back on pavement to return to Highway 101 via Charleston, I had to pull over to capture at least one image of our trek down dirt. There were far more impressive narrow parts of the road with hairpin turns and just enough room for one car, but those are not the places I’m inclined to stop, get out of the car, and snap an image or two when I have no idea if Joey Badass in his big truck is cruising along, figuring that this little-used road will likely be empty, especially as he enters a blind turn.
Before anyone goes telling me that I’ve posted the McCullough Memorial Bridge in North Bend half a dozen other times, so what? I’ve also posted everything else you are seeing on this blog at least one other time, too.
But have I posted an image of the bridge from this exact spot while crossing?
Tahkenitch Lake is such a beautiful place, but I’ve yet to find a place to stay nearby, as in on the lake shore. There’s a campground, but it literally sits just a few feet away from Highway 101. Maybe kayaking across the lake to a remote campground could be a thing so I turn to the internet to find such places, but instead learn the following from Wikipedia, “Brazilian waterweed limits the lake’s usefulness. The weed, which has formed a dense mat over most of the lake bottom, hampers swimming, boating, and fishing. Introduced to the lake in the 1930s, it has resisted all attempts to control it.”
It turns out that Brazilian waterweed flowers could necessitate a visit outside of the time of year we typically visit, but would we really be willing to sacrifice tranquility for the potential crowds of summer if that is when flowers bloom?
We’re about to reach where we need to be on the map, not necessarily at an optimal place to witness sunset but where our lodging is for this evening.
Another mile or two, and we’re there, though you may not know it. We pulled onto the property, and as this wasn’t our first visit, I had to step over to the grassy rise in front of the main house to take yet another sunset photo should this one prove to be the best I captured today.
We are now set up in the Shags Nest at Ocean Haven in Yachats, Oregon. No yurts for the next four nights as we luxuriate in grand opulence and extravagance as though there were levels of the incredible above the lofty yurt experience.
If ever there were a good reason to bring the tripod, it would be right here to take HDR (high dynamic range) photos of this setup so I could get the light balanced between the interior and exterior. Then again, I’m taking these images for our memories first and foremost, and for that purpose, these suffice.
Does this look suspiciously similar to the photo just above the interior Shags Nest images? Well maybe, but this was taken from our private deck that allows us to own this view for the duration of our stay.
It’s two years later, and once again, we try heading down to the beach on the narrow cliffside switchback of a path only to get exactly to where I was stymied on my previous attempt back then, the exposure is too much as the idea of splattering on the rocks below remains an unappealing potentiality even if my better senses try to reassure me that it’s highly unlikely. Maybe this is the “one thing left undone” that is meant to bring us back to Ocean Haven for a third stay in the Shags Nest?
From my original notes from that evening: Here I am at the end of the day with little left to say; if there’s nothing, it’s likely because so much has been said before. Oregon and its coast have made deep impressions and might be the subject of more of my writing than all other places. This exercise begins while at dinner at Ona Restaurant in Yachats, but like all inopportune moments of trying to slip some thoughts into a notebook, I should get my attention over to the process of dinner and paying attention to our server and the woman sitting across from me, namely Caroline.
Back at the edge of the sea, for more than a few nights, in fact, though the exact number is unimportant, just that there’s more to come of our time at the Shags Nest. It’s completely dark outside and a cool 47 degrees (8 Celsius), and maybe not a lot warmer inside the nest right now as the windows are open to let the sound, fresh air, and sense of the sea drift into our tiny cabin that feels like it has more windows than walls. We’ll not close the windows nor will we turn on the heat; we’ll not draw the curtains as we try to maintain our relationship as close as possible to these moments at the edge.
Highway 101 is nearby behind us but cannot compete with the constant roar of the crashing waves. From time to time, we hear the compression and heavy collapse of a wave that sounds larger than those that preceded it. Out in the darkness, the tide is shifting with high water approaching us. The thought creeps in that without being able to see the churning ocean; it could soon be lapping at the cliffside, the same one we’ll be trying to sleep in front of.
Not content writing here under this convenience of electrical light; the time approaches when I must grab a flashlight and go out to our deck to confirm that I can still see nothing while still hearing so much. Fog is coming up, and the surf is significantly louder outside. Standing here, I’m no longer certain how much land extends out in front of our cabin as everything disappears into the dark. As my eyes adjust, I can make out the whites of the cresting waves that look extraordinarily large and maybe bigger than I want to imagine. This has the effect of having me listen closer with my feet. Do I feel earth vibrations through my shoes that might suggest we could go surfing tonight?
A mere 10 minutes after I returned to the warm light of our room, I’m nagged by my curiosity, which tells me to investigate if conditions out there have changed. I know full well that this ocean has been pounding the shore on this section of the coast for many a year and that the dark sky has descended over the land for more years than any of us alive today have lived. Still, I need to know, is anything different? Can I find something of awe just by seeing for myself that the world remains as I suspect it is, or is it ready to deliver the unfathomable?
Nothing has changed, although there were a few stars poking through the overcast sky and fog. Light pollution from the north and south can be seen in the distance, triggering the thought that I may never see a truly dark Pacific Coast. Back inside, it’s cold in here, even with my wool base layer, a shirt, and my fleece on. The inner whine of wanting comfort, i.e., instant gratification, says, “Close the windows and turn on the heat,” but I cannot have ears for that as the constant song of the ocean demands that we sleep to its serenade.