Tuesday, July 30, 2024

30 July 2024: Turnaround in northern Oregon and packing away the Whale

 

So got to the furthest northern point of my trip - Seaside, Oregon.  I must say the Oregonians(?) keep their town names pretty simple.  Beautiful beach though and good surf spot. Also the end-point of the Lewis-and-Clark trail.  Surf was not big, but pleasant and you had to be all done before lunch as the onshore wind started at 12 and messed everything up.  So on the day I arrived, I cycled down to the surf spot - the Cove - to see what it was like and started talking to 2 surfers - Steve and Brendan.  Any case, Steve works at a hotel in the next town over, but cannot afford the local rents (due to the Portland people buying everything up), so he lives in his car (a Kia sedan that was very small).  The surf spot had restrooms and a warm water shower which is what he used.  And he was unfortunately not the only one - any minimum wage person in the area was car camping or sleeping rough.  So here were homeless people who wanted to work but could not afford housing - there needs to be a solution.

Any case, Steve is about 35-40 and had a 9ft board with no fins as he had just started surfing fin-less and was all excited.  Next day I was down there at 10am and Steve was out in the water already.  There was a great rip down the point, so easy to get out and waves were 2-3ft, so I was ready for a nice session.  After seeing one or 2 spins from Steve, I hear a "Kees Help" and there is Steve clinging to his board in the impact zone.  I paddle over and Steve had put his back out and could not do anything except hold onto his board.  He thought he could somehow hold onto the ski and I could paddle him in, except that there is nowhere to hold onto the ski.  He was in a lot of pain.  I paddled out thinking I would leave the board on the rocks and come back and help him in.  By the time I was out, some other surfers had paddled over and was pulling him out of the impact zone as the rip had started to pull him up the point.  The Surf rescue crew had also arrived and launched a jet ski and this was a full-on rescue.  End of the story is Steve was fine.  We rescued his board, he caught a wave on the jet ski and was all stoked, and the medic put his back right again so he could at least walk around - with the odd back spasm.

Seaside campsite

The Cove - and apparently the point at the far side breaks on large winter swells - it looked awesome

The big rescue

Awesome coastline

Canon beach state park

Ecola State park

Cannon beach and Haystack rock

Locals with a sea view
Then I had 1 night in Tillamook on Tillamook Bay and home to the famous Creamery.  The whole area is just cows and milk production.  Did a drive down to the coast - which was spectacular.
Tillamook lighthouse in the distance

Viewpoint along the way - the 101 route is very geared to tourism for good reason


Even saw an old steam engine along the way

Tillamook bay

Beautiful tree



Very colorful cormorants - I always thought they were black...

Cape Meares lighthouse

Every second rock out at sea had a hole through it

The best ice cream is made here


Then on to the last stop - Pacific City.  The RV park was a short walk away from the beach.  The beach had a huge sand dune where people would para glide from or sand-surf.  This was one of the few places where if you rubbed your feet over the sand it would make a 'droning' sound - the only other place where I remember this happening was at Dune-7 in Swakopmund, Namibia.  Had some fun surf here as well and met a couple who had volunteered in Umtata in the late 1990's (at some medical clinic) - which must have been an interesting time in the Transkei.  Pacific City also suffered from being too close to Portland - so it was pretty expensive and a rich sea town, but it did have the best restaurant/brewery on the beach with the standard hot showers you could use after coming out of the freezing water.

Pacific City beach

The rock , the surf spot and the dunes

I walked up the dune to the left above the surf spot, but did not make it to the top of the dune

Cannot beat this...

A tree stump

The Neskowin ghost forest - lots of tree stumps that only show at low tide

Neskowin beach

Had a great walk on the beach - wild surf

Lots of mussel encrusted trees on the beach

Then it was back inland to Coburn - just outside of Eugene, Oregon.  The good part was the road followed a river, so there was no big up and down to get to the valley area, but it was amazing how the weather changed.  Once through the mountains, the temperature went up 20 degrees and it became quite dry - but again all fertile farm land.  Had 2 days to get the Whale ready to be packed away.  One of my discoveries on this trip was that the Punjabi - and specifically the Sikh community has cornered the long-haul truck driving business on the west coast.  The result was that each truck stop now has a indian/punjabi food truck or restaurant - which is great.  On Monday went over to the storage unit where I was going to leave Barbie and the Whale.  Somehow it did not quite look like the website pictures, maar nou ja, it was too late to change anything and Troy has big dreams to make HWY99 RV & Toy storage a great business.
Best goat curry ever

The Whale was the youngest RV there.  An old cement pipe manufacturing facility

Barbie tucked away

From Eugene it was a 3 hour bus to Portland.  The nice part is that the bus stops at all the University of Oregon campuses - which is just great.  Eugene definitely looks like a place to spend more time at, and so does Portland.  There was definitely a big uptick in homeless people in the 2 large cities.  It is really crazy that a country with the resources of the USA cannot figure out a solution for the homeless (if there even is one).

So, this is the end of my 2024 trip.  I did not make it to Seattle and Washington State, but that is going to be for another day.  Back in Boston now until probably February, 2025 with possibly a visit to Eugene to checkup on the Whale in early November to make them ready for the winter.

Wednesday, July 17, 2024

July 17 2024: First 10 days in Oregon

 

The first night in Oregon was at Harris Beach State Park.  Managed to get to the Sunday market in Brookings, the nearby town.  Learned a bit about the effect of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami of 2011 (which took out the nuclear power plant) on this town.  Fascinating stuff.
In Oregon at last

Steelhead country

The Japan tsunami hit Brookings due to some weird underwater geology and caused a lot of damage

The Steelheads doing their thing

The start of the amazing Oregon coastline

Then on to Coos Bay for a night.  Stayed at an RV park next to the local casino.  Once again a town established on the delta/estuary of the Coos river.  Huge lumber and wood chip industry, and the best Indian/Himalayan restaurant I have eaten on the trip - was really awesome. Also, after traveling for more than 2 years through a large part of the US of A and staying in countless RV parks, on one day I see 2 of Barbie's cousins in the park - avid Suzuki enthusiast and it was great to compare notes on the good/bad of towing a Suzuki.  Was really fun meeting up.
Coos Bay RV park next to the lagoon

What to do with trash - really great town

Sign of things to come...

Read the handwritten part...

Some beautiful old bridges that span the rivers

The further north we go the more noticeable the poverty becomes

The coastline is all picturesque bays and headlands


Coos Bay lighthouse

Way to spend a Sunday afternoon

Weird rock formations - read the next pic

Explanation of the rock formations - zoom in

You can actually see how pieces of the coastline fell into the water


Very loud sea lions (or seals)

Then it was off to 4 4 day stays at Thousand Trails RV parks.  The first one was at South Jetty / Florence at the mouth of the Suislaw river. Close to the beach and a huge dune-scape? nearby where I did a 30 minute ride in a dune bug.  In general I am dead against people tearing up the dunes in their cars, but...it was fun.  Also started a conversation with a guy in the local bar who was wearing a trump hat.  He was there for an antique car rally and had a 1932 Model A ford. Was complaining how difficult life was being retired from a school job.  After 2 beers I realized once again that it is of no use... anything outside their echo chamber is not believable and it all just depressed me.
Flim and Flam looking out through a very dirty window at the campsite

Miles of sand beach

Florence, OR and the Suislaw river

An 'English' pub in Oregon ???

The bridges are awesome and the wind never let up

Bad sign (but good) in the RV park - hopefully they were not all heroin

The dune buggy.  Note the front wheels have these ridges to the outside

The crew with a tree 'island' in the background.  There were these weird patches of large trees (tree islands) scattered throughout the dunes

The tree islands in the distance.  We hit 60mph on the sand at times

Standard Oregon beach weather

The 1932 Model A Ford of the trump supporter I chatted to in the local bar. For a retired teacher he must definitely be struggling under the current economy.

Crabin' on the river.  Note all the notches in the railing made by the ropes used for the crab traps.

Cape Malay curry

Then it was on to Whalers Rest, Newport on the Yaquina river/bay.  Newport has one of the best aquariums in Oregon apparently and I went to visit.  It was amazing.  Had the walk-through tunnel, some amazing sea life that I would not be able to see from the rocks, and I wanted to see puffins.



Live SandDollars


Now that is cammo

Giant pacific octopus - sad to see this amazing creature in here, but it was apparently a rescue

Unfortunately did not see too many of them in the wild - but that is probably due to me forgetting my binocs every @-)$(-(_()$) time

Puffins!!!

So fun fact about these 2 - one is a tufted puffin and the other a  horned puffin.  They are both males and did not get mates for the season, so moved in together.  In general horned and tufted puffins never socialize.

Penguins vs Puffins

A wolf eel - ugly as they come, but I always wanted to see one

Cannot see the scale, but there were some huge halibut.  These fish who swim 'normal' when they are born and then migrate to swimming on their sides fascinate me




My first time in an aquarium tunnel - it was amazing

Fish tacos for lunch at the aquarium...

Ney beach

It was always cool (60s) and damp, so a fire was essential

Whalers Rest, South Beach


Last one of the dune ride.  In between the dunes are these pools of fresh water that stay there most of the season and then also these islands of trees.

30 July 2024: Turnaround in northern Oregon and packing away the Whale

  So got to the furthest northern point of my trip - Seaside, Oregon.  I must say the Oregonians(?) keep their town names pretty simple.  Be...