Midweek coast camping and catching up with friend. No crowds in January in the coastal city just north of our state park campsite. This certainly is the time of year to visit. These two days seemed unusually cold for the coastal winter. Frost on the sand on my short AM exploration of the trails around and to the beach while my friend snored away in his tent.
I forgot my cook pot for making coffee. I welcomed the mistake in that we now must drive into South Beach for a hot diner breakfast and coffee. When I returned to camp and told my friend I forgot it and Do you want to go get a diner breakfast, he said he brought a pot. I felt like saying damn you and your damn pot. We still went to the diner. Delicious, it was; homemade bread, muffins and jam, freshly grated hash browns, quite good coffee.
Catching up was overdue. So much to catch up on that we didn’t take our camp neighbors up on their offer to come by for drinks and visit with them and their friends.
The ubiquitous pyro campfire airworm, if there’s such a thing. Or perhaps it’s just a blurred spark:
Walking the jetty:
If there was birdsong to hear, the wind overwhelming the mic covered it up:
This image’s quality is so compromised that it almost looks like a painting:
Returning through the coastal range. A stop in a remaining operational logging town:
Being from small town southern Oregon, my friend really identified with and liked this town, and was surprised the mill was still operating. He said Now this town has the kind of folk who give the governor real heartburn. That statement reflects the artificial split between left and right that people believe they have or must have. Oregon seems to have a lot of conservative districts and counties, but always a “liberal”, Democrat governor since Portland is such a populous voting block. However, the Right always forgets to thank the liberal, Democrat governors for their assaults on/gutting of public workers’ pension. The Republicans typically campaign on an anti-worker, anti-pension platform, and lose. Democrat governor candidates are ambiguous on the matter and win, but then do the gutting of the pension once in office.
Further east, emerging from the coastal range and entering the valley, we stop in the town of Dallas. Pink truck beside the county courthouse:
Across from this sidewalk is a wonderful bakery. Really nice staff, homemade baked goods and lunch entrees. The lasagna is really good. Same for their coffee. In the valley, you could feel the air changing before the low temps even arrived.
But back to the coastal range. I’m drawn to this range even more than to the Cascades. The coastal range is not as dramatic as the volcanic Cascades, but there is just something about it. Its rolling presence and rushing streams. Can’t put my finder on it really. The coastal range and Willamette Valley. It might all be nostalgia, I am not sure. But all these little towns in the coastal range and valley, their streams and irrigation districts, ag land — there’s something to it all, something about it.
Thoughts on Trails 