We’ve reached the point of return!

(Written Friday morning, posted Saturday evening)

Good morning, Campers! It’s Silver Cliche’ with you again. Today we are settled at Cape Disappointment State Park in the State of Washington!

Many journeys reach a “point of no return”. That’s not us. We have always intended to return. We even planned for a return. We hope to return enlightened, aware and informed... but returning has always been the goal. Today marks our farthest planned point from home. The trip odometer says 6,035 miles since leaving our driveway on April 16... exactly 7 weeks ago today. This is day 50 of our trip and (depending on precisely when we make our return to Vero Beach) it may be the midpoint on the calendar. It is our “point of return”!

Emblematic of all that, we are clinging to the edge of the continent for one last time. Cape Disappointment State Park is the southwestern most point of the State of Washington. To our west is the Pacific Ocean. To our south is the mouth of the Columbia River and across that, Oregon which we left yesterday after a week. This is the place where Lewis and Clark finished their journey of discovery and made camp for a time. Half the signs around here bear their names... parks, roads, businesses... their trip across the continent is remembered and celebrated more than 200 years later, as it should be. Ours? Probably not that long. I doubt that the nearby town of Chinook, Washington will have a “Silver Cliche’ Elementary School” in 200 years... but it might.

We are also clinging to our connection with the outside world. We are sometimes attached to the Verizon network technically with one bar of service and the lowest signal strength we’ve measured on the boosters and antennas. As a practical matter we are out of communication. It literally feels like we are on the edge of modern American civilization. 100 yards west of here is the ocean. Beyond that? “There be monsters”.

While we have reached many milestones today, what hasn’t changed are the terrain and climate. Yesterday’s trip up the Oregon coast from Tillamook to the state line was cool and mostly cloudy... at times so misty that windshield wipers were needed despite the lack of rain. The parade of small and smaller seaside towns continued. We passed the famous Tillamook cheese-making operation shortly after leaving Cape Lookout. Seeing that facility prompted Mrs.C’ and me to look at each other with awe and wonder and ask “that’s it?”... that small place sends cheese all over the country including to our Publix supermarket in Vero Beach, FL? Our visual calculation showed no drop in the pine tree density and the official Silver Cliche’ weather station showed a high of 65 on our route through Oregon. We crossed the Columbia River on a two lane bridge that was roughly two miles long. When we hit the Washington shore... same. Precisely the same. Cool (61 degrees at 3:00 PM), overcast, piney, small towns... carbon copy of the last five days in Oregon. I almost feel like I should decline the latest sticker, but rules are rules, so here goes...

States visited this trip: 12. New states camped this trip: 4 (NV, CA, OR, WA)

States camped lifetime: 36. New states to go this trip: 12 (ID, MT, ND, MI, VT, NH, ME, RI, MA, CT, NJ, DE)

As for the park, I’ve only toured by foot so far. Just as in Oregon, the beach is populated by zombies. It’s taken me days to figure that out. Just down the street from home in Florida there is a beach and a boardwalk. When you go there you see people running, jumping into the surf, skim boarding, occasionally surfing. They have beach towels and bathing suits in bright colors and apply SPF 50 by the pint. Here... no bright colors... people in hoodies or even full-on coats... walking slowly and up from the water... rarely a person in the surf but if so they are in a black wet suit. Of course, there is a 30 degree difference is water temperature from the eastern Florida Atlantic coast and here in the Pacific Northwest. Maybe the people walking these beaches are thinking “maybe one day I’ll go to Florida to enjoy the beach... until then I’ll shuffle along and look out to sea wistfully”. Part of my enlightenment is the insight that common words like “beach” and “summer” can have vastly different meanings to different people at different places. Despite that, there is strength and beauty here. This pic from the point where one leaves the campground and steps onto the beach nearest our campsite.

There will be a larger version of that scene in panorama format on our Flickr site hopefully tonight but maybe not until tomorrow. If you are a photo enthusiast, don’t forget that Flickr is where the full format shots that are “keepers” wind up. https://www.Flickr.com/photos/silvercliche

So, we’ll hang here today. Tomorrow we head east... inland... toward home (generally speaking). I hope you’ll join us!

Later...