Driving Oregon's Coast

We admit, the both of us, that a lack of detailed planning has left us desirous, wanting to see more than we have and wishing to return to scoop up the leavings. Recall that our “mission goals”, in effect, were to See The West & Our Two Brothers. Only the last had any time constraints. Falling within those, we pretty much skipped across Oregon and now find that we want to return sooner than later. Especially the coastal areas.

Apologies to those who are reading in hopes that we do discover Big Foot in the big Northwest. No such revelation. But we did find other Signs that tickled John's whimsy

→ A roadside cafe in Seaside, OR –might even be “Roadside Cafe”: on the east side of US-101, the sign declares it has a Pet Friendly Patio. Just under those words are Wings. Hot Dogs.

→ Not to pick on Seaside, but just a bit farther north there's another wings joint on the right, but with an Asian twist to it. Or should we say, an Asian kink: “Thai Me Up” in big bold letters. O my.

→ Gleneden Beach, OR, features a wonderfully delightful Side Room Cafe that we would recommend to anyone who would like an unusual and extremely tasty lunch or dinner. It also pushes some local wines, but we were driving and had to pass those up. In the men's restroom, however, the management had attracted more than the usual obscene graffiti by installing chalkboards on the walls. 

At least this (not quite ironic) one was explained: 

We hope this is not some 

crassly crude geek humor.

Feel free to educate us 

with a Comment below.

...but neither Debbie, who briefly majored in Math, nor John, whose Calculus study stopped after integrals and differentials half a century ago, can get the point of this statement.

In the previous blog posting we had teased you with a littoral word unfamiliar to us Great Lakes dwellers: seastack. A stack in the sense that it is layered volcanic rock from many, many eruptions. Sea in the sense that it is wet and seems to be disconnected from land, but that is just a visual trick of Nature's erosion powers. One seastack that we'd seen in Northern California was miles offshore, just a big white rounded rock rearing above the swells and blurred in our binoculars. Most are much nearer land.

So gigantic! It sits just under a mile off the beach.

Here's the well known “Haystack Rock” in Pacific City, OR:

.

Another, also named “Haystack Rock,” also one that the cattle had not munched on, is a bit farther north off Cannon Beach. It's only a hundred yard damp-footed walk away at low tide.

It turns out that Oregon's coast is littered with these things which is not surprising to the geologists who consider the volcanic origin, the preponderance of active volcanoes here on our planet's Rim Of Fire, and the layers of that lava and ejected pumice deposited here from as far as Yellowstone! Back on the East coast, where we grew up in the Atlantic's surf, the

mountains are hundreds of millions of years older and erosion has destroyed just about all the rocks along the wide, sandy beaches until you get north of Connecticut. That contrast is what makes this frayed coastline so unusual and enticing to us.

There are other attractions, too. 

The big whales come up close to the steep shores, sucking up their fill of plankton. You can pay a tour boat to take you within a hundred yards of these critters where you might even end up with a photo, or stand on the shore and use the binoculars to record them in your memory.

We stumbled across a kitefest at the beach town of Rockaway (see more sea stacks in the distance).

We tasted the product of the claimed “Comfortable Cows” from this well-known maker of ice cream, and were captured by their cheese factory tour, as well.

The Bry RV parked for two nights at the Blue Heron French Cheese Company's lot, along with a dozen and a half other RV's also looking for an unusual Harvest Host location. Right behind our coach, this locomotive continued to rust along with other older pieces of heavy equipment while llamas grazed outside our dining room window and the goats in a children's petting zoo chewed grass out the windshield. Oh, yeah-- we also liked the cheese we bought there.

Moving north for a couple nights to another tightly packed Thousand Trails glampground, once 

Yes, three other coaches are barely an arm's 

length away from our steering wheel.  

again we remind ourselves this is “free” for the annual fee Debbie paid, and her spreadsheet's CPN (see Mea Culpa  #16 ½)  has fallen rather satisfactorily to less than $15/night. Compare that to many RV Parks' in-season rates north of $60 for just one night's rest with electric/sewer/water/ trash/laundry service and often a pool. 

 We also say, “Selves, you're not here to party. You're here to be close to the places you want to experience, like the site at which Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1805.” Or words to that effect.

Barely a quarter century after this nation's birth, President Jefferson had paid France less than $12-million for the huge tract of the Louisiana Purchase and sent these two men and 31 others to find the Pacific Ocean. They did –just in time to spend the winter along the Columbia River, not far from present day Astoria, Oregon.

Surrounded by the heroic deeds and such, John's first thought was a pragmatic: “Why do the roofs slant into the stockade, given that it rained all but 12 days of the 106 days they were here?”

A well-read NPS Ranger directed him to General Friedrich Wilhelm August Heinrich Ferdinand Steuben –Baron von Steuben– who was George Washington's brilliant military strategist and engineer. The Lewis and Clark expedition was, after all, a military venture. The two leaders had been taught that higher walls on the outside gave any fort's occupants a clear line of fire to enemy troops trying to invade that way.

“Oh,” said John.

As it turned out, though, the natives were friendly, the enemy Spaniards never did find the explorers, and the rain funneling feature was unnecessary the entire time.

Now it's August. We've two more huge National Parks on our must-see list and we had wanted to be home in September. Let's see how that goes....