Thursday, August 6th
Today a group of Williams College alumni gathered on Zoom to share memories, stories and thoughts about their classmate, John Chambers. E & A were invited as were John’s son and daughter as well as John’s friend Denise. As was suggested, E prepared for the session by pouring herself a “wee dram” of Scotch. At several points during the proceedings there was a formal pause to allow participants to take a sip in John’s honor. We are sure that he would have approved.
Sunday, August 9th
Two big events here this week. First, our new pergola is looking much better thanks to Olson Construction LLC.
Second, we finished a new puzzle, all 1000 pieces. This one took us a while.
Monday, August 10th
A’s food truck is working the Clark County Fair this week, so we went up there to check things out.
Tuesday, August 11th
We set off on a camping trip this morning, our destination being Cape Blanco State Park, where we had reserved a cabin. Cape Blanco is on the south central coast of Oregon. It’s less than 200 miles from Corvallis, but traffic doesn’t move very fast on Highway 101 this time of year, so it took a while to get there.
Cape Blanco juts out far enough from the main coastline to make it the western-most place in the lower forty-eight. It’s also far enough out for the cape to have its own weather, as we discovered. In all the coastal towns along the way–Reedsport, Coos Bay, Bandon and the rest–the weather was fine: very pleasant temperatures and mostly sunny. But as soon as we turned off 101 onto the Cape Blanco road, we saw something different. A large mass of cloud and fast moving mist covered the whole west end of the cape. And of course the campground is right out near the point, within walking distance of the old lighthouse. So when we finally found our cabin and emerged from the car, it was damp, windy and cold. Isn’t this amazing! we said to ourselves. We could have stayed home where the weather is hot. Or we could have got a hotel room with a picture window view of the ocean and a range of nearby restaurants where they cook the food for you. Yeah, it’s amazing all right. How did this happen?
On the plus side, the Cape Blanco campground is a nice one for our kind of camping. It has just one big loop with 44 regular sites and four cabins. The sites are too small for large RVs. The sites are separated by walls of greenery and the restrooms have running water toilets, sinks and showers. The restroom building is located more or less in the center of the loop–but it’s a big loop, so from some of the sites the walk is long. Fortunately, it is a pleasant walk that features lots of big old trees and occasional encounters with wildlife.
In the other direction, we had a shorter walk to a grassy viewpoint overlooking the sea. After we unpacked we went over there and joined four or five of our fellow campers who were all silently watching as the waves emerged from the mist and slowly ran ashore.
Wednesday, August 12th
We’d planned a hike for today, but before left we went out to the overlook again. The ocean looked the same and we just had to stand and watch it for a while. We also noticed that not everyone found the waves so fascinating…
For our hike we got in the car and drove back north about twenty miles. There we turned west toward the New River Nature Center. The story of the New River, as it is officially called, dates back to 1890. In that year a heavy storm moved large amounts of sand, some of which blocked the outlet of Flora’s Creek, a small river near the present day town of Langlois. Flora’s Creek had to find somewhere else to go. The way south led to more high dune land, so the water went north. Its new channel–now called New River–runs parallel to the ocean’s edge for eight miles before finding an outlet to the sea. On the map below, Flora Creek is the squiggly watercourse that crosses Highway 101 just south of Langlois. As it flows north, it runs between the long foredune on the left and older dunes on the right.
The New River Nature Center is located about halfway between the old river mouth and the new. We followed a loop trail that took us up and down and around and about the many inner dunes on the landward side of New River. The inner dunes have a few open patches of sand, but mostly they are covered with dune forest. The trees are mostly shore pine, which have adapted to grow in sandy soil and which never grow very high so as to avoid the worst of the wind.
After our hike we needed to charge up the Kia. That turned out to be harder than expected. PlugShare sent us to a charging station in nearby Bandon, but that turned out to be a bust. It was a ten-year-old Tesla site that didn’t recognize non-Tesla vehicles. (Who knew there was such a thing?) Then, the Tesla app showed us some chargers in Coos Bay, about thirty miles away. By the time we found them we were down to 10% charge and were enjoying a bright red warning light on the dash. Then, when we hooked up to one of the chargers we had just found, things got even worse. It was so slow that we would have had to hang around for a couple of days to get charged! Yikes. Fortunately, there are at least two other good alternatives in Coos Bay. Eventually we found a wonderful Rivian Adventure charging station, the first one we’d ever seen. It was nice: so fast and so easy.
Thursday, August 13th
We kind of overslept this morning, not getting up till 8:00. We had a quick breakfast and then began packing up for departure. About then, we realized that the Cape Blanco campground had changed. The sun had come out! Here’s the last picture we took, just before we drove off.
Friday, August 14th
Quote of the Week:
