Good evening, Campers! It’s Silver Cliche’ with you again. Tonight’s report (ed: written Tuesday, finished and posted Wednesday) is being dispatched to you from the foggy, smoke filled campground at Cape Lookout State Park just south of Tillamook, Oregon. This will be our last stop in Oregon and we are in place for two nights. On Thursday we’ll roll north into Washington State.
The good news is that we didn’t need to have slept with our pants and shoes on. There was no tsunami warning last night and there was no tsunami. Mrs. C’ reminded me that I sleep like the dead anyway. The chances of a siren or tsunami waking me were slim at best. You may be asking if I perhaps overstated the risk in my prior dispatch. Moi? Stretch the truth? Here in the land of Paul Bunyan it’s considered honorable to tell a tall tale or embellish stories just a wee bit. However, the threat of a tsunami here is very real. Here is a pic of a sign that was just 100 feet from our campsite last night:
As you can see, we were in the tan section which locals refer to as the “kiss your ass goodbye” zone. By “distant tsunami” they mean that an earthquake in Japan could kill you if you are reading that sign at the moment the sea recedes then returns amplified. You may or may not be better off in the “local tsunami zone”. That area could be inundated by the water that gets energized by a large quake at the Cascadia subduction zone. Let’s do the math on that one... the Cascadia is 70-ish miles offshore. Tsunami waves in the open ocean travel at about 500 miles per hour. That means 70/500=0.14 hours to hit shore. 0.14 hours x 60 minutes per hour = 8 1/2 minutes from the time of the quake to the arrival of a major tsunami. The sign advises evacuation by foot to a specific safe point. Google maps tells us it would take 21 minutes to walk that distance:
So, if you felt the quake, knew immediately what it was and what you should do, and began walking, you would be at the gates of the campground and almost out of the tan zone when a wall of water carried you away. I do not take comfort in the guidance being offered. When I write “The Dictionary of Modern American Communication” I think that sign will be a candidate to illustrate the definition of “false hope”.
So, we closed out our Beachside State Park visit with a chat with the neighbors in the matching Airstream. Nice folks. Enjoying their wedding anniversary at a choice camping spot where they’ve stayed repeatedly over the years in a great camping vehicle. I enjoyed their story to add to the collection of stories from the people we’ve met along the way so far.
We are deep enough into the trip now that some of the philosophical learnings that are being offered may be starting to sink in. We are approaching our farthest planned point from home. We are surrounded now by things we’ve acquired along the way... the food we eat (I defrosted leftover beans and rice we froze in New Orleans for dinner), the clothes we wear (the alpaca socks I bought at Lone Ranch are fantastic in this climate), and the scents we smell (there is a sheaf of French lavender from MoonBeam Farm taped to the range hood). We are in a part of the country (the “left” coast) that I’m told is populated by people who are very different from us Floridians. So far, I haven’t met any Molotov-cocktail-throwing leftists. I think the burning smell in the campground last night was from people sitting by their campfires, not from businesses burning in Portland. I have met a bunch of people who seem to care about the same things Mrs. C’ and I care about... our families, building a life as we age, helping and caring for one another and the amazing places in our country. I haven’t met a single person in 7 weeks (and since I do most of the dog walking and everyone in campgrounds has dogs, I meet and chat it up with a lot of people) who wants to focus on the things we are told define the struggle for the future of America today. It’s not that campgrounds lack diversity. We’ve met (or at least seen from afar) the uber-wealthy in multimillion dollar motor homes, retired folks like us, families tent camping, solo drifters in vans like “Nomadland”, single moms and dads with their kids and several foreigners seeing America (presumably because CNN World Service told them it was coming to an end). I talk with all of them and ti the people who own, run and operate campgrounds, restaurants, gas stations, souvenir shops and all manor of businesses. The evidence of commonality gives me hope that there is a starting point to refocus America on the things we have in common - which are plentiful - even while we look forward solutions to the issues and differences that are featured and highlighted as the existential threats to America.
Phew... you might think I’ve been indulging in locally grown herbal medications... but I actually don’t partake. If I was going to, Oregon would be the place. There is no shortage of opportunity. As I said a paragraph ago, we’ve been traveling far and long enough now that some lessons are starting to reveal themselves like the fog burning off an Oregon beach.
And that’s just where we started Tuesday morning. Here’s a pic of the beach. It was low tide which meant a long walk from the dunes to the surf. People walking at waves-edge were like distant apparitions to anyone who just stepped on the sand.
We rolled out at about noon and headed north. There were a series of towns. They ranged in size from small to smaller. Only Lincoln City was big enough to have a full range of services. The ocean was less visible since Highway 101 is set a bit more inland in central Oregon. At a few points there were bays or inlets, vistas of sandy beaches with breakers and a few enormous rocks the size of 10 story office buildings standing offshore. The Oregon coast has at least a mile or two of every type of seashore we’ve ever visited from the forested cliffs of Maui to Big Sur to the sandy dunes of Martha’s Vineyard. The one it lacks is the sun-baked warmth of Florida... but we know where to find that.
We stopped at Depoe Bay which advertises itself as the world’s smallest navigable harbor. I didn’t bring a drone (ok... I don’t own a drone) so I borrowed this pic from Wikipedia:
That’s it... 100% of Depoe Bay and its 1,300 inhabitants in one picture. It was a fascinating and worthwhile stop. We ate fish and chips and a “potato tornado” which was like a continuous potato chip on a stick:
One thing I can say about every seaside tourist town we’ve stopped at... you never leave saying “I didn’t get a chance to eat as much fried food or sweets as I hoped to.”
We went whale watching (unsuccessfully) at the town’s whale observatory. That’s the building just to the left of the harbor entrance in the pic above. There is a pod of resident grey whales that live offshore from June to September. We could see commercial whale watching boats and a few private craft about a mile out. Presumably they were where the whale action was. The only whale action we saw was around fried food and sweets (sorry, Doc... I said I usually lose a few on these long trips... not in Oregon it turns out).
Then we linked up with the dogs who had stayed in the Airstream. On a Tuesday in early June we found a suitable berth for the rig right in the busy part of town.
We reached Cape Lookout at about 4:30, fed and walked the dogs on the beach including some free time on a 5 mile long off-leash beach that begins at the campground. They were only good for 1/4 mile of it, but it was their first off leash time since California.
Wednesday is a down day. Thursday it’s on to Washington State. I hope you’ll roll along with us!
Later...
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