A Walk on the Wild Side (dedicated to June)

Like watching a horse galloping with mane flying, we stand enthralled in front of massive waves crashing to shore below us. We’re on the dirty shirt tour, showing Marc’s sister June, from North Carolina, our Oregon coast in a mere two hours. The sea has been particularly cooperative today—featuring a high tide and much larger than normal waves which have created a seething cauldron just about everywhere we’ve looked down at her. We’re glad to be perched above; perched above on Coos Head at the Coast Guard Lookout to start our journey—viewing the bar and jetty. It’s easy to lose perspective in photos of ocean waves, which never seem to truly mirror the height and fury. Swells and rollers were running about 10-20 feet in all of the following photos.

We move on into Sunset Bay State Park; truly our favorite here at the coast. The waves and sea are so tumultuous they send a haze of sea mist lingering over foliage and leaving a fine salt-sea flavor on our lips. Despite the cold, a quick stop at Sunset Bay provides a glimpse of munchkins enjoying the cold surf. Our favorite picnic spot at Cape Arago is awash in waves breaking with a force that sends boom after thunderous boom through the air.

From there we move on to the very gorgeous Shore Acres, featuring a magical walk amongst lunar rock cliffside, and a truly beatific botanical garden. Camera soaking from sea splash sent up at least a hundred feet in the air to where we stand perched watching the show leaves some of the photos showing the evidence. What you don’t see in the photos is a drop-off of about 75 foot that is directly below our feet meaning the sea spray is often times way above that. What a thrill!

We finish with the enticement of spring just around the corner as the garden gets geared up to really put on her finery. Today however, she is merely tranquil, nearly empty of visitors, and promising more soon to come. Alas, we won’t be here to enjoy her and by tomorrow June will be back to her North Carolina brown winter colors. Thanks for coming along June!

Mistress Moon and Her High Tides

The tides have been so high and some of the storms so fierce on the Oregon coast this winter that it has literally been changing the landscape of my favorite place to walk; the Charleston quay. Some major chunks of the sheltering sea grass dunes have been washed out to sea, leaving behind jagged jetty rocks and abrupt cliff faces. Access to the small beach is no longer an easy traverse across a sand berm but now entails rock-hopping the huge boulders used as support for the quay.

Those seas have affected our crabbing as well; with the higher tidal swings, the current is often running 3-4 knots, pulling the floats under and making it hard for the crabs to enter the pot to try and feed. Instead of an easy two limits like we were catching before, we now are down to less than one limit. With angry seas, the bar is often closed, even to the big commercial boats, and the premier seafood market ran out of Dungeness the other day—a first to have happened that I can recall. We’re very ready for winter to be over!

Marc completed the shed floor and got it off the trailer and installed under the shed with his buddy Paul’s help the other day. Our buyer elected to want to leave it right in this space thus making it the easiest way out for us which we greatly appreciated.

Since then, Marc has returned to Bend with the flatbed trailer to work on some things there, including trying to track the problem with the generator fix and getting another one of our trailers unloaded of the Goldwing and ready to bring back over so we have a dry place to store all the contents of the park model. Once he returns, the pack-up of the park model will start in earnest. We are aiming for the transport company to do their pickup on April 2nd if all goes according to plan.

Lanquid Days

We’re in the lull before the storm, although literally it has been very rainy here the past few days. It’s just a little too early to tear apart and pack up but we thankfully sold our large shed today; to a fellow RV neighbor who also has intentions to take over this site by October. Marc will build in a floor and either leave it here on this site or cart it over to her other space just across from us. Either way—a very easy fix for what we had thought would be a much more arduous process of selling it to a friend who lives in northern California which would have required several days of Marc’s time to deliver, a large fuel expense and even purchase of overload trip permits in two states due to its size. Something finally went right!

Despite the languid pace of the days, this month has passed quickly for us. Soon enough it will be the day for the memorial service for Marc’s dad, when the entire family is expected, and then we can begin in earnest our final passage from Coos Bay. I’m not sure there is anything too thrilling to blog about a major move but I’ll try and check in here to keep you all appraised of our whereabouts. Before departing permanently, I have plans to visit daughter Rachael in Washington at the end of March so maybe we’ll think of some interesting things to occupy ourselves.

The Big Change

Driving back into the moist sea air from a quick trip over to Bend it occurs to me how much I will miss portions of living at the coast. Our time here is winding down. Despite our best attempts to sell our park model where she sits in this lovely RV park, it just doesn’t appear that will be her fate. We are starting to collect bids from transport companies for the long move to Yuma, AZ.

“Hunker down” is a term Marc is using frequently; and hunkering down on our lot in Yuma is what appears to be in our immediate future. The process of moving not only the park model and all its contents (which must be removed and moved separately) but a lot of our other possessions currently in storage in Bend is almost more than we want to consider. Just moving some of our rolling stock will likely involve four round trips of 2400 miles each. This could involve the better part of three months by the time things are torn down on this end and moved in and reset at the other end. Yuma will be the park model’s final resting place so Marc is contemplating placing it on a foundation and perhaps we will even add on to it, doubling its square footage in case it has to become our permanent home. We have a myriad of plans yet the feeling of not much time. Somewhere in all this, we still need to find jobs as quickly as we can.

I’ll apologize in advance if the blog gets a little too boring or mundane; soon to leave the mist covered forested slopes and pounding surf of the left coast for the barren desert beneath our favorite mountain in Yuma. One more giant step on the journey; and yet one more giant change in our lives—to desert dwellers. We look forward to the challenge and to making our lives different and better. It’s a good thing it never occurs to us that we may be getting too old for this stuff.

A Sign of the Times

Recently while walking the Charleston docks we saw ample evidence of these tough economic times. Many of you may be aware that of all states, Oregon has suffered mightily through this recession with one of the most stubbornly high unemployment rates of all states. Whereas just a couple of years ago when we first placed the park model at Midway, this harbor was chuck full of boats, there are now gaping holes of empty slips. Those commercial and pleasure boats left tied to the dock seem to be quickly withering into sad disrepair. The ocean environment is a tough one; unforgiving in its march forward if one doesn’t keep up with maintenance and repairs.

Ask yourself if you’d like to be going to sea on some of these boats; the last of which actually has a hole in her side.








Of course, there are still those who live aboard and probably go nowhere; like this beagle’s owner and the more colorful inhabitants of the purple Delta Dawn which looks as though she hasn’t seen a wash down in years.


Some commercial boats still ply the waters, coming and going; other boaters have given up entirely and just want out.