Like Falling in Love

This part of Oregon, close to California, becomes the pass-trough area for people who are vacationing or moving North.  As California becomes more arid, as more people begin to think of retirement, temperate areas like Oregon and Washington State will be visited, will be consulted, and considered for what most people hope they can have during their retirement years.

I am not working for the Chamber, or for any real estate agency. I am not working at all.
All I  needed when we came up north from California were water features. (I know, it all sounds a bit naive!)

 I wanted a view of water, a feel of water, access to water.

We have lived in Southern Oregon for eleven years. Not a day goes by that I don't pinch myself. Fresh air, beautiful views, wild rivers...The list goes on...

I don't think we are totally rational when it comes to these life/changing decisions.  My husband just wanted trees. I wanted water. Neither one thought of all the practical things one needs to consider. And yet, just like falling in love, we take the step of loving someone without a lot of planning, or practical reasons.

 It just feels right.
Now that we drive three hours to our doctor, we are beginning to realize the choices we made then might not be right for us now. We don't want to give up what we have; but what we have is not enough anymore.

Perhaps, with more people moving this way, doctors and specialists will move here too.
Perhaps, we don't have to go anywhere else if medical care can be delivered via phone, television, and other technological inventions still to come.





  

No Day like Today!

We are on the Pacific Coast, in the area of the Ring of Fire, the area  most susceptible to earthquakes and volcanoes.  Sea stacks tell us the story of this land and of this ocean.

Yesterday was another wake up call.  A call to know our limitations.
We can move somewhere else, or  prepare for the next calamitous event.


We  have two identical backpacks in our car, with supplies for a couple of days, plus blankets, extra jackets and shoes, medications.

I've had these supplies for a while. I refresh them every season or so, eat up the food and drink up the water and update the meds.  We take many meds, and this process of updating them is probably the toughest thing to accomplish since pharmacists do not give you extra meds for emergencies. 

Do you feel safe where you are? Good.
Do you want to be prepared for emergencies?
I will repost my backpack contents on my next post. If you are in a hurry, search my old posts, copy and paste, if you wish. You have my blessings and permission.

Sometimes, that's all we can do.

Lighthouses

This is Cape Arago Lighthouse on the Southern Oregon Coast, sixty miles north from where we live. The entire Oregon Coast looks like this, mountains jutting out to the Ocean, islands and stacks popping out everywhere. 

Ships need plenty of warning signs to avoid these waters.

The entire coast of Oregon is punctuated by lighthouses, most of them still working, day and night, offering respite and guidance to the weary mariners.  Nowadays, though, with so much better instrumentation, boats and ships have marvelous mapping opportunities to identify dangers, temperatures, fish finding sensibilities, and a range of other functions necessary for navigation.

If ships didn't have lighthouses, they would end up as broken carcasses on deserted beaches like this one, waiting years or decades to be discovered. 

This stretch of beach is full of driftwood and broken ships in an area that is still wild and natural and hardly ever trespassed by humans.

Lighthouses were built before many people moved to these shores, as ships traveled these waters to and from California, transporting lumber south to Eureka and San Francisco to fuel the big appetite for homes and businesses during the great California Gold Rush. 

Oregon has a relative small population, about three and half million in the entire state, less than the city of Los Angeles.  The biggest town on the coast is Coos Bay, about sixteen thousand people, founded by the Simpson family, a big lumber and shipping company out of San Francisco.

The oldest townsite is my town, Port Orford, founded as a military post, in 1851. Its population is almost twelvehundred souls, half of whom are year-round residents, mostly retirees and artists. 

The rugged coast of Oregon is mostly fog free since storms sweep through and clear the air regularly.

Everything is green.  Our rainy season is coming to an end, heralding a dry season.  Our temperatures range from 40 F in the winter months to 60+F in the summer months.

Groves, hatcheries and other surprises on the highway.

U.S. 101 or the Coast Highway travels N-S the entire West Coast of the United States.  In Oregon, the highway is rugged, a slow two-laner, the Pacific on the West, the Coast Range on the right.  At times, and for many miles there are no lights, no towns, no habitation. Forests of Redwood,Douglas and this one, Myrtlewood, will stretch as far as the eyes can see. If you get off the highway, you'll run into old hatcheries like this one.

This stream is by Humbug Mountain, just south of Port Orford, easily forded in many places, and sometimes rerouted by beavers as it happened in the foto above.

All over the coast, Myrtlewood shops display many products made with the Myrtlewood, a cousin of bay laurel.  Myrtlewood is a majestic tree, evergreen in these parts, with a distinctive perfume.   

Fishing for Spring.

The tourists are in town. The few restaurants still open had a tough time on Monday trying to feed the locals and the visitors. Joyce, Ginney and I went to the Wheelhouse after our writers' meeting and expected to sit in our usual corner. We were fortunate; just ten minutes later, the place was jam packed. We are our usual, so not to confuse the waiting staff. I always get "The Platter" a fried seafood combination of cod, halibut, shrimp, scallops and oyster. Five, six pieces of superbly fried fish accompanied by french fries and slaw.

I do not cook fish. I let others do that; in our neck of the woods, they know how to obtain and prepare great seafood. I tried to duplicate the process at home. Now, I stick to my specialties, pastas and grilled everything else.

Tourists will attempt fishing, as the family is doing up on that dock, and they will visit Blanco Lighthouse, Bandon Lighthouse, the Coast Guard quarters, the various antique shops and arts galleries. Some will pay a good sum to golf at Bandon Dunes. If you google Bandon Dunes you too will understand why they charge so much.

Hubby and I will take it easy this week. We'll go to my physical therapy sessions, which are beginning to do me good. We'll let the tourists enjoy the peace and calm of this place. The hatchery( yes, there are hatcheries for different kinds of fish) dropped thousands of trout and other fish in our lakes for the benefit of recreational fishermen. It has been cloudy and chilly, temperatures dipping into the freeze zone at night. My garden has to wait for me to recoup the use of both arms, and for the ground to warm up a bit.

Meantime, we can cast into the lake and hope to have a few trout for dinner.

Stop and smell the Ocean

That's how it is in my neck of the woods. We pull over, find a parking area as we travel up and down the coast on U.S 101 highway and smell the Ocean, the Pacific Ocean. To the left of this picture is Humbug Mountain, just south of Port Orford, just over 1000 feet tall. We see snow on its top every winter. It doesn't last. But, when the weatherman tells us that there will be snow at 1000 feet, we can find it at the top and sides of Humbug. Below the mountain, and all around this parking lot are RV campgrounds. For $15 a night, hundreds of travelers spend weeks traveling from one campground to another. They set up their easels or cameras or fishing rods right down the beach here and draw, shoot, cast. All of them at the same time. Some brave souls don wetsuits and go surfing.

I've spent time with my grandchild and her friends collecting shells and agates. On low tide, I've dug for clams and mussels; If I want to picnic in style, I bring a pot, fill it with seaweeds and water, wait it for it to come to a boil, and then drop my harvest. If we are lucky, we can trap a few crabs too. No need for anything else, no lemons, or condiments of any sort. Just hot crabs, mussels and clams. If you brought a cooler with beer, you better follow the signs about alcohol consumption.

On our beaches, we can drive right on the sand. Crazy, but true. You see that truck? It just returned from a sand romp. It could have gotten stuck down there; and someone might have come to his rescue. The highway patrol, two or three people for the entire coast line from
Astoria to Brookings, are not going to veer off the highway too often to search for stranded motorists who might be necking on the beach at sunset.

Whatever artistic endeavors those folks want to pursue is o.k. with the officers. We have medical marijuana laws in this state, and assisted suicide. One never knows how one wants to live or end one's life.

And that brings me to the end of this week. I'm off to my physical therapy. Next week, I should be off medications, sober and alert. Or not.

Who's got our rain?

After stripping down to t-shirts for the last few weeks I'm beginning to worry. Where is the rain? My paper-whites are blooming and even the roses haven't slowed down. The arugula is going to seed after a couple of weeks of life, and the apple trees are threatening to bud.

Where is the rain?

We shouldn't be complaining, I know. But this is our rainy season, a time for snow to pile up on the mountains and flow down in our rivers and creeks in the summer time.

The geese have arrived this week on the lake, waking us up yesterday with their honking. Great big geese, usually here by the end of October, are late and fat and perhaps confused, too. How long will they stay. How much will they find to eat since the farmers have harvested their hay long ago, readying for the rainy season. It is the middle of December, but here on the southern Oregon Coast it feels like spring, with temperatures in the high fifties and sun so warm on our south facing patio that I'm maintaining my summer tan into winter.

It is hard to think of Christmas, and spruce trees, and garlands of evergreen perfuming the house. We don't get enough of summer, out here. This feels good; but weird, and abnormal. It ought to rain big time by now. Last year, in early December, we had a major storm that lasted days, and brought major havoc. What's happening out there?

Who's got our rain?

Home, sweet home...

I can't wait to leave town; and I can't wait to get back. It turns out that everything I have now I have always wanted. I'm talking about living in a small town on a gorgeous sliver of the Pacific coast.

For decades, we'd pack our kids and our camping gear and head up to Oregon from Southern California, to spend two weeks appreciating breathtaking sights. We made it up to Astoria one year, awed the whole time we were driving, we coveted the coves and the sea views at every corner of the 101 Highway. We have camped up and down this coast for years, and it was just natural, when we began to plan our retirement, to choose this coast as our final destination.

No matter where we visit, and what we see in other cities, we can't wait to return and resume our daily routines in and out of the house, the weather never pushing too hard to keep us in or out. We feel priviledged to have landed here in Southern Oregon, the Pacific on the West, the wild rivers mapping the land on the East, inviting us to the great outdoors.

We can canoe on the rivers and the lakes, swim in various warm spots, fish, crab, clam, garden and walk. If that is not enough, we can sit back and watch the osprey, the pelicans, the jays and the deer as we sip an Oregon Pinot and thank God for our good fortune.

I am home, and I'm not in a hurry to leave. And did I mention the friendly people?