Fort Stevens to Nehalem, Oregon

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Fort Stevens State Park in Warrenton, Oregon

Disclaimer: This post is one of those that ended up being 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.

Sunrise at Fort Stevens State Park on the coast of Oregon is exactly what one would be expected to take advantage of after waking in a yurt that is within walking distance of the shore.

Fort Stevens State Park in Warrenton, Oregon

We were on a short walk before meeting up with the friends we had dinner with last night.

Fort Stevens State Park in Warrenton, Oregon

The wreck of the Peter Iredale that’s been out here rusting away for the past 102 years.

Kirk Millhollin and John Wise at Fort Stevens State Park in Warrenton, Oregon

Here’s Captain Kirk hamming it up for the camera. thought he’d be cute, but unfortunately for me, I snapped the photo a moment too soon. Just as he approached to give the appearance he was going to lay one on me, I turned my head and gave him a full-on-mouth kiss – with tongue. Yeah, who’s laughing now, Mr. Millhollin?

Update in April 2021: Sadly, Kirk and I had a total fallout back in the middle of 2017 due to circumstances that were complicated due to my wishful thinking and (in large part) my inability to simply deal with funding issues with the company I was running at the time and that Kirk moved to Arizona to be a part of. I don’t believe there can ever be a resolution beyond where we are today, which is totally 100% non-contact. After knowing the guy for 22 years, I often wonder how he’s doing regardless of the circumstances around our parting.

Fort Stevens State Park in Warrenton, Oregon

Kirk had wanted to take us out to a small area spit of land on the Jetty Trail near Point Adams, where at other times of the year, he’d found an abundance of mushrooms, the special kind of magic ones that authorities frown upon harvesting.

This amanita muscaria or fly agaric is not one of the ones I was referring to although some claim that they too have mystical properties.

Fort Stevens State Park in Warrenton, Oregon

Kirk, Rachel, and the kids needed to head back early to Portland, so Caroline and I returned to our yurt to get a bite to eat and pack up our stuff. Though we weren’t going far.

Fort Stevens State Park in Warrenton, Oregon

We are still at Fort Stevens, except instead of the Pacific Ocean side, we are over on the Columbia River. The ruin is part of an old series of military batteries built over one hundred years ago to defend the Columbia River’s mouth.

Fort Stevens State Park in Warrenton, Oregon

The rusty and crumbling fortified hulks are just the aesthetic I’m in love with.

Fort Stevens State Park in Warrenton, Oregon

It turns out that there’s a guided tour that takes visitors into the underground structures; sadly, we didn’t get to participate in that as we weren’t aware of those tours at the time we were visiting.

Fort Stevens State Park in Warrenton, Oregon

Some people go for jewelry and nice clothes; I go for textures and patterns found out and about.

Fort Stevens State Park in Warrenton, Oregon

Near Swash Lake and Jetty Lagoon, just wandering around.

Fort Stevens State Park in Warrenton, Oregon

While I believe we are somewhere out on the Clatsop Spit and that we are looking at the Columbia River, I could easily be wrong, but we are in the general vicinity of that area.

Astoria, Oregon

A late lunch in Astoria across from the Pilot House Luxury Suite that we’ll never want to afford, though secretly we’d love to.

Caroline Wise and John Wise at Cannon Beach, Oregon

What happened to the time between lunch and this late afternoon is lost in memories that cannot be found, but that’s of no real matter because here we are, smiling and happy at Cannon Beach, Oregon.

[I have some faint memories that our friends didn’t actually leave but hung out with us a bit more. We definitely ended up buying a big bag of saltwater taffy in Seaside – Caroline]

Sunset at Cannon Beach, Oregon

Add to the other thousands of memories we have of sunsets along the coast, or is it millions by now?

John Wise at Cannon Beach, Oregon

Yep, it’s so cold out here at the end of the day that even I needed a beanie to keep my ears warm. Did I tell you that Caroline spun and knit this work of love for me?

Sunset at Cannon Beach, Oregon

The iconic Haystack of Cannon Beach at sunset, what could be better than a walk here, even on a chilly late fall day?

We’ll be sleeping in a yurt again this evening down south of Manzanita, Oregon, at Nehalem Bay State Park.

Day in Portland

JWise Moments, Travels

Up early and on the road south to Portland to meet up with Kirk and Rachel. I’m not really here. It is as though I am still in slow-wave sleep, one of the deepest stages of sleep. Or maybe I am in sleep inertia, the state just after being woken from a deep sleep when mental performance is yet impaired. In any case, I feel as though I’m drifting out of Washington and into Portland without plan, reason, or cause, and from the looks of the multitude of homeless people in downtown Portland, they, too, are hereby mysterious circumstances.

How about lunch? Sure, you guys name it; I don’t know this part of town. Hell, I don’t know any part of this town, nor do I know why I agreed to come here. I want to be at the ocean. I have gone on vacation to get away from it all, and now I’m in the middle of it all. How about this place? Yeah, give me a fork. I might at other times feel that my distance could be interpreted as rude detachment, but I’m working at convincing myself that I am moving into the abyss of old age and hope that those around me can accept and understand why so little of me is presently here and thus allow me to feel better about my funk.

Kirk and I were in competition for who could visit the buffet more times than the other. It was a draw, not that this meal would weigh too heavily upon us, as most of the dishes were vegetarian. Finished with our feast and being in the Pacific Northwest there is an unspoken demand that you stop every 20 minutes for coffee, else why the crazy proliferation of coffee shops? Rachel recommended a shop around the corner for the four of us to imbibe some hot black liquid energy. Wicked strong and well suited to take the pallor off an otherwise gray day.

Our mobile larder needed stocking, so shopping at something akin to Whole Foods was on order; we were delivered to New Seasons in the Seven Corners area of Portland. With plans to do some serious vegetarian cooking over an open fire, I piled the veggies into our shopping cart. Fortuitous this stop proved to be as we had bought a block of Beecher’s Flagship cheese that we fell in love with and would be surprised later in the trip upon visiting Pike’s Place in Seattle to stumble into their factory.

Our tour of Portland took us to Washington Park, which sits next to the much larger Forest Park. My spirits perk up; I am near nature. Vacation must be close at hand; the imagination is awakening. Not long after our encounter with the natural world, plans are made to return for some hiking in these parks with Kirk and Rachel. In minutes, we are delivered back to our dash animations and soon find ourselves gliding silently out of Portland on our way to the Pacific Ocean. We agreed to meet Kirk and Rachel for dinner in Astoria before our day’s journey ends in Ft. Stevens State Park, where a yurt awaits us.

A little Italian place is chosen where we have the chance to meet Rachel’s children, Cassidy and Ian. Ian made a great impression by first being listless, lethargic, and generally grumpy due to a cold or allergies until after dinner when, with great aplomb, he hurled what little dinner he had eaten upon the sidewalk. Kirk, not having a dog-pooh picker-upper bag with him, had to abandon the cheesy pile for the next dog to walk by – you just know a dog wouldn’t be able to help itself to that little midnight snack.

I felt for Rachel this evening; not only did she have to comfort her barfing boy, but earlier in the day, she voiced concern for her daughter Cassidy, who, as she described it, “is getting a little too hormonal.” It must be tough on a mother to think her kid is about to go succubus. Caroline and I failed to pick up this side of her daughter’s precocious nature as we were preoccupied with wolfing down dinner so we could make our way to the coziness of our yurt. We actually thought both children were pleasantly well-behaved. Kirk, Rachel, and the kids took off for their nearby hotel; we retired to our yurt, falling asleep to the sound of the ocean in the distance.

Note: I, too, wonder why there were no photos from this day, not even bad ones.

Go North and Relax

JWise Travels

A toilet-frozen solid required our airline to bring us another plane so we could leave for Seattle, Washington, this evening. Better late than never, we thought, and in shorts and a light shirt arrived at the Seattle/Tacoma airport shortly before midnight. Cold air welcomed us, leaving no doubt that we had left the warm comfort zone of the desert.

At the Dollar Rental Car desk, we are given the electronic door opener/fob for a car but no key. Oh, that IS the key, I’m informed. “You have been upgraded to a Prius. Do you know how to drive one?” Oh, come on, I’ve been driving for, think, count out on fingers, um, like about almost 30 years. “Well, let me show you a few things…” Fine. You place the door/fob thing in this hole in the dash and then push the Start button. Everything lights up, but the engine doesn’t start – oh yeah it’s a hybrid – it doesn’t need to. To put the car in gear, there is a shifter on the dashboard; push left and up for reverse and left and down for drive, gotcha.

What he should have warned me about was the engine/battery usage animation on the small screen in the middle of the dashboard. I’d like to know how many accidents have been had by people spending too much time watching the engine engage and the little tires turning round and round instead of the road. South of the airport, we check in to our motel to get six hours of sleep.

Note: I, too, wonder why there were no photos from this day, not even bad ones.

Finished

JWise Moments

I am done in Santa Barbara. My uncle Woody has been cleared by his surgeon to return to a normal life, for all that means to an 84-year-old man. For the better part of two and a half months, I have lived away from Caroline, home in Arizona. I have been frustrated, elated, and overwhelmed – daily. My schedule was not an option; more often than not, compromise goes one way here. This, though, is not a complaint. I find thanks and reward in having learned a little something about patience, caring, and sharing.

My return home happened a week ago, but I have needed this quiet, down, me, time to unwind and spend many a moment with my wife. The most important lesson came when my uncle was in the nursing center for his rehabilitation: loneliness is likely a more dire predicament than any illness or physical pain. Family neglect of a loved one and abandonment are the springboards into despair and loss of hope. Without real love and care, the spark of life quickly withers, and the corruption of age ravages the spirit and body to disregard what time may have been left here on earth. I wonder how few of us will learn this lesson while we can gain from it at an early age. Why are we so arrogant to refer to ourselves as a society when our aims for living and social conduct neglect teaching one another the necessity of compassion beyond our immediate family. There are selfless people all around us, nurses, teachers, volunteers, and many others, but they are unseen until our own needs expose their generosity to our naive fortress of me, myself, and I.

The lesson of love and tolerance should be taught as though it were math or science, but then, if we were a compassionate people, war would be all the more difficult, retribution neutered, hate and intolerance might be seen as archaic instead of brands of temporary awareness we sell people who are looking to buy an action to purpose before the next distraction is imposed upon their narrow focus of consumption.

Back in Town

JWise Photo of the Day

Taking a farm tour at Tonopah Rob's Vegetable Farm in Tonopah, Arizona

I have left Santa Barbara for a few days to be on hand for the re-opening of Tonopah Rob’s Vegetable Farm which is expanding from a farm stand to a small farmers market. Rob has added tent space to allow about a half dozen vendors to join him on Saturday mornings selling fresh local food to our community. More people than any of us imagined showed up for opening day. Above is about the largest group of visitors I have seen taking a farm tour. I have also come back to town as this Tuesday is our Presidential election and I have been so busy in California I had not the opportunity to request an absentee ballot.