Eureka second time

Monday (Aug 25)

I’ve given myself a really good chance to learn how to slow down on this trip. Taking four nights to drive north along the Oregon coast to Lincoln City, then turning around to taking four nights to return is taking it nice and easy!

National Forest CG’s around here all have a checkout time of 1PM, an excellent innovation. They are all managed by American Life & Leisure – AL&L on the $12 checks I have been writing each night :). AL&L  is doing such a competent job that I might have too modify my blanket condemnation of the privatization of Federal campgrounds.  The hosts have all been the right combo of helpful and cheerful without being the judgmental control freaks that I often find in NorCal and along 395. Maybe it’s an Oregon thing :)

Anyway, I walk to the 15% foggy beach again (It was more like 90% foggy yesterday evening) around noon, hit the road 12:57. Hitting the road is a real simple task today. My coffee and lunch is 12 miles away, my next campground is 10 miles past that.

Coffee + wifi + tasty cream cheese danish at the usual Green Salmon (what an unattractive name, IMO), then walk right across the street to the Luna Sea Cafe (Lunacy get it?!?!) for clam strips and chips (without coffee! :) The cafe is also a fish market, and just drips authenticity, but the the service, and even worse the food were indifferent.

Three miles to my beloved Cape Perpetua, where I stop to enjoy the higher tide bashing the reef for a few minutes, then another  seven miles to a left into the interior for Rock Creek Campground.

I’ve always assumed that this place would have a trail from campground to beach, but NO!! You can follow the road back to the highway, and walk across US 101 and lean on the guardrail and watch the ocean, but there is no way that is not really hard to get to that little cove from here. Kinda shocking.

I do it once in the afternoon, the try to time it out to see the sunset from the road. I’m STILL too early, but I kill some time and get it done – quite a nice little road hike – the stream babbles pleasantly, the woods are really dark and foreboding, then it opens up into a meadow and big noisy US 101.

Tht night I started coughing and feeling crappy – Tyler’s illness finally coming to get me!

Tuesday

It is sooo dark in this narrow little valley with big trees that I had trouble getting started – a peek outside at 10:30 looked jsut as gloomy as sunrise. I do get going and motivate myself out by 12:35-ish. Next stop Florence!

Straight to the Siuslaw Roasters tucked in almost under the bridge on Old Town Florence. I’ve always liked this place – they have a pleasant energy, good wifi, comfy seats inside and a nice river-side deck, and they sell jigsaw puzzles!

I window shop Old Town for a lunch spot and do pretty well for myself, really yummy crab cakes with a even more yummy soup at the Bay Side Bistro(?) a block off the main drag. I beer at the local bar was calling to me, but I did the grown-up thing and kept moving.

Another very short drive to Waxmyrtle Campground.

This really is a sweet spot. A little more open than Eel Creek, less dune-y. I honored my sickness by closing the van door and cocooning with hot tea and my puzzles for a couple of afternoon hours. That was really fun and restorative, and and I think that paid off later …

… because around 6:45-ish I got myself motivated to to the hike all the way to the beach, which I did! It so happens that this is the new moon time of the month, which means I have to be a little bit more responsible about carrying my flashlight with me. It still takes a looong time to get really dark, but once it does, it’s reallly dark, and you’re sunk if you think you can walk anywhere.

So on this trip I have taken to fiddling with my iPhone stopwatch on the hikes (such as the hike were I LOST the damn phone at Cape Perpetua :) Press Start when I head out, press Lap whenever I feel so inclined, then at some point I can say I need to turn around soon-ish if I want to get back without using the flashlight.  These are all up and back hikes, not round trips somy time out is a pretty accurate indication of my time back.

Last time I was here I did a little of the hike, the best part as it turns out, the incredibly scenic bluffs right behind the campground, but I lost my desire to press on when the sand got deep and endless and started sucking my footsteps into the ground. This time I persevered! The workout I got at Eel Creek prepared me a little; looking back, that really set the tone for the sand-hardiness I have shown on this whole trip!

Made it to the beach (>3/4 mile of sucking sand, plus another 3/4 mile), it was gloomy and deserted and just about sunset (I think through the fog); hung out at the beach for five minutes; headed back, really, really enjoyed the misty/foggy view from the bluffs, got home w/o using the flashlight – woo!

Wednesday

Still annoyed at being sick :< It wasn’t bad last night, and really, isn’t that bad in general, except for the wheezing and occasional deep, wretching coughing jags. But like I say, I’ve seen worse :)

I’ve kind of decided that I want to find a good place to go to in North Bend/Coos Bay today.  The first likely spot I will hit this morning is Reedsport, but as described above, I think I’ve had enough disappointment and FAILure from that place to last till at least the next trip. Then there’s the little burg of Winchester Bay, which I forgot existed until I drove through it again. They have a bakery which might be promising, but now I am committed to the Coos Bay plan.

Somehow I ended up at Coos Bay Toyota. First of all, if there is a little hipster coffee place tucked away in that pretty big city, Yelp did not disclose it. The listings for “coffee and wifi” were depressingly few. The Christian place looked pretty nice, but the nicest was it turns out in the Toyota dealership. Makes sense in retrospect, the building is right on route 101, easy off and easy parking, probably started as a coffee stand for waiting customers, and just took off. I had an Americano and a little goodie (bacon cinnamon roll!), then a panini. Refills are free, in fact coffee is free, as nod to being in the dealership showroom. and the server was cute and kinda liked me, so it was an excellent stop!

But I still have to drive to the last town in Oregon, about a third of the length of the state, another 1.5 hours drive.

I had another excellent adventure this evening – took the beach trail down, clambered around the rocks for awhile, took the beach trail back, continued up it to the top of Harris Rock – a very eerie vista in the twilight fog, then knocked around a few minutes more till it was really good and dark, then home and a really, really nice long Oregon Parks shower.

Thursday

In the daylight I can see that it’s true, I had the most cramped, meanest little campsite in the whole park. Not a huge deal to me, I was either hiking or in my van most of the time. I still like the place very much though.

Drove the three miles to my chosen breakfast destination – Superfly Bar and Grill – which is alleged to have breakfast and wifi. They did have wifi but breakfast was long gone. I was not impressed – looks like a former Mexican joint. Still haven’t found quite the right answer in Brookings.

Took my time exploring down to Crescent City. Visited the Oregon Information Center and loaded myself down with a bag of “information”. In CC I called Martha to report in and learned that I should get there by 6:45 so she and Chad can go to Parent-Teacher night – 3d Grade  started on Tuesday!

I chill by the park for a while, this cold is wearing me down. Then drive like heck to get there at 6:35.

Friday – Monday

I thought I would be taking three days to get home, but now looks like it will be two days!

• Friday had a plan – lunch with Chad’s Aunt Shel. Did that, then saw ran into a bunch of Hennessy’s at Because Coffee.
• Saturday had a plan – see the Death Valley Troubadours.  Did that, and also had a really nice afternoon on the beach north of Arcata.
• Sunday had  no particular plan.  But facts on the ground changed. Martha’s Marin friend with her two kids showed up, and they all went to the beach, then changed their minds and kept going … to Brookings Oregon, a few hundred yards from Harris Beach, where I was four days ago. Life is strange sometimes.
• Monday’s plan was start heading home, but that plan got changed:

Friday morning, Facebook told me that my Reno buddies, Mark Sexton and Alex and Dan will be playing at Jambalaya  in Arcata on Monday night – woo! One good reason to stay an extra day. Friday lunch Shel invited my to Chad’s Labor Day family picnic. That’s two good reasons to stay, and two reasons is good enough!

So Monday was coffee at Katie’s, picnic with a strange family (a very normal family, just unknown to me :), a little home time then rocking in a big empty room with my Reno homies.  Chad’s family is very nice, they’ve been doing this Labor Day thing for 20-something years. There’s a horseshoe tournament, the giant family photo that happens when the first person starts to leave, all those things. Chad’s Grandpa’s place is perched on the edge of a lush little Eureka canyon (of which there are many!) There must be eight different decks hung off the side of the hill with a confusing maze of staircases to get to them. Also he (Grandpa) has a Reno Museum and a John Wayne Museum tucked away on the basement level. Interesting place.

It was cool seeing Mark and Alex and Dan in a different place. Sadly, there was almost literally nobody there to see them. Monday night in Arcata – not too happening I guess. Too bad, because they sounded great, and Chad and Mark had fun talking music stuff. So it was a good time out for everyone, except the Jambalaya accountants, I guess.

Monday

Leavin Day!  All go to Katie’s for a very nice hour or so, then I begin the very, very arduous trek across the coastal mountains.  Chad’s mate Jimmy reminded me about the traffic delays on 299, and generally spoke in favor of 36 instead, so I rearranged my very detailed day plan to do that instead. No Strawhouse, no In ‘n Out, no Hat Creek – let’s do something different!

I don’t care what he says, I think 36 is a way harsher trek than 299.  I was already worn out by the narrow winding roads when the sign said “Red Bluff 139 miles”, and my heart sank.  The last 50 miles of that are OK, but there’s an 80-90 miles stretch of nothing but curves and hills. 25 mph right angles are as common as flies.  Not to mention that some stretches are so narrow that they cannot put a center line on it, so they just leve it unmarked and let the drivers sort it out.  The last 20 miles is pretty straight and level, through this weird Texas-like bottomland scrub, but the road kind of undulates in an unsettling manner. My chosen restaurant didn’t work out in Red Bluff (no wifi, no service) so since everyone was ignoring me I left and found a great deli sandwich which I took to my campground and ate in style.

Not much to say about the campground. It’s pleasant and spacious and very handy when driving 36 in the summer (closed off season), but it’s pretty boring.

Tuesday

Check out time 2 PM, and I’m using it!  It really makes a difference having quiet, dog-less and kid-less neighbors at a campground.

Today’s drive is easy, but not much in the way of food and drink. So I decide that today will be the day I check out Child’s Meadow Resort, a shabby little resort in a picture-perfect little valley at the foot of Mt Lassen. It’s always been alluring when I’ve driven past. The restaurant is closed today, but all I really wanted was some coffee to go with the muffin I bought days ago in Reedsport. It was just a lovely place to hang out for a while.

I hope to find wifi in Chester to download today’s podcasts, but that was a FAIL, so I just downloaded them with 3G. I did get wifi at McD’s in Susanville, but by then I’m almost home.  It speaks for my opinion of the Susanville dining options that I ate at McD’s.

Home by 6PM, somewhat depressed to be rejoining regular life.