The Price of Isolation

Highway 101 is  known as the Pacific Coast Highway. It  travels up and down the west coast of the United States, from Mexico to Canada and Alaska. It is a scenic, two way road, traversing rivers and mountains, big cities like San Diego,  Los Angeles and San Francisco, and many little towns, like Port Orford. 

The Highway is our main thoroughfare, North to Bandon and Coos Bay, and South to Brookings and California.  If something should happen on this highway, a bridge problem, a mountain slide, we are trapped.  Traveling by sea would be our other alternative; unfortunately, the only boats on our dock are fishing vessels, not passenger or even freight vessels.  Fishing vessels here are small, containing gear and storage for fish catching and transporting.

Oregon is still quite rugged: many mountains and streams are wild and inaccessible.  This part of the coast is even more isolated than the other parts.  The only other road to the interior and to I-5  in this part of the coast, is Highway 42 going East to Roseburg, a three hour slow drive through the Coastal Range with  slides and snow problems in winter months.  There is a road from Gold Beach, through Agnes that has left many people stranded,  and is not recommended through winter months. A few years ago, a couple from San Francisco was stranded for days, with two little children, having taken a wrong turn and unable to drive out after a snow storm.  The young husband died, after leaving his family to search for help. This story is etched in our consciousness every time we travel in winter.

Our tourist season has ended. Now comes our isolation season, wet and windy most of the time.  Those who make a living here are tough souls, aware of the price they pay for this much beauty and this much isolation.


If you want to know more about Oregon Coast issues, go to www.oczma.org
The Oregon Coastal Zone Management Association is a voluntary association of counties, cities, ports, soil and water conservation districts, Indian Tribes  on the coast, all trying to solve issues of concern to the people living on the coast.

A schedule of a life.

Wednesday: My Backyard.

Now that I put my life back on a schedule of sorts, remember, how Mondays are about Governance, Tuesdays are Education, Wednesdays are Our backyard....and so on......

I'm bound to follow this menu because you're coming in with expectations; and as a teacher, I must deliver what is on the weekly planner. Not that following a plan is always a good thing...

My front yard and back yard are in Port Orford, Oregon, the oldest town site on the Oregon coast, and the westernmost point in the contiguous United States. Contiguous, in this instance, means the forty-eight states. Cape Blanco, with its lighthouse and majestic vistas is ready for whale-watching ,next week. I will get out, and catch me a whale of a tail to show you.

Since my shoulder problem, for new people dropping by, my shoulder froze in place with much fanfare and excruciating pain. The MRI identified the problem as Bursitis, and today is my first physical therapy session. So, I'm still on heavy medications, am bothered by sleep deprivation and lack of comfortable movement, and look forward to a time when I can use both arms. I can still type this post; and that, amici miei, is a very good thing, indeed.

Now, I will leave you to enjoy your backyard. I plan on packing my new digital camera and carrying it everywhere. From authorblog, I'm getting very good tutorials on how to take pictures; with practice and determination, I'll begin to record pictorially. Most of the other pictures on this blog are mine; but they came from a phone camera. Not bad, if you ask my opinion. Not bad.

In life, though, we can teach each other in this open university called Blog land. Not only it is open twenty four hours a day, but it is also free. What? Yes. Like air, and good will: FREE. People like David at authorblog, a profession photojournalist who gives us a great deal of his personal time with hints and suggestions, walking us through the technical aspects of setting up and shooting as though we were picking fruit at a farmer's market, people like him make this adventure so much fun to pursue at leisure.

I'm off to Bandon, a town up the highway, home of my clinic and Bandon Dunes. If you google Bandon Dunes and Pacific Trails, you'll find that these are outstanding golf resorts, world class, designed like the original golf links in Scotland. They are worth every penny, I hear.

Perhaps, hubby and I will stop by and have lunch at the Dunes, and enjoy the same vistas as the players who have to dish out $300 or so to play one round. I'll do this research willingly. Besides, a good meal is worth its weight and calories in gold.